Do you want an honest review of the LearnDash plugin? Or want to know if this WordPress online course plugin is worth it? If yes, then stay right here.
LearnDash is a popular WordPress LMS (Learning Management System) software for individual course creators to academic institutions. You can create unlimited courses, lessons, topics, quizzes, and assignments with advanced features using this plugin.
In a nutshell, it’s one of the best choices under WordPress LMS plugins. However, is it the top choice for your online course site requirements?
No worries! This review has everything about LearnDash. It contains features, pricing, support, & much more. So, go through this entire guide and find out if it’s worth using for your site.
With that, let’s begin!
Overall Rating
LearnDash is a powerful WordPress online course plugin. With this plugin, you can build any LMS site on various topics. Moreover, it’s a paid plugin consisting of several free and premium add-ons for adding advanced functionalities to your website.
Did you know? LearnDash is one of the only WordPress LMS plugins under the Capterra Top 20 Training Software Winner. Further, it has an average score of 4.3 out of 5 based on 41 user reviews in G2 reviews. That’s pretty amazing!
If we had to rate, then we’ll give LearnDash a solid 4.5 out of 5. We removed the remaining 0.5 ratings because it doesn’t have a free trial or plan. Moreover, it has a slight learning curve making it a little overwhelming for beginners. However, 4.5/5 is a brilliant score!
Before purchasing this plugin, it’s best to try out the free LearnDash demo as a course creator and a learner. Once you like how your course site will work, you can use this outstanding plugin.
But first, let’s get to know the pros and cons of LearnDash.
Pros and Cons of the LearnDash Plugin
All WordPress LMS plugins have their own advantages and disadvantages. So, let’s look into the pros and cons of LearnDash!
Pros of LearnDash
- Includes an easy-to-use drag-and-drop course builder.
- Lets you create courses using different media files like video content.
- Create amazing quizzes, lessons, topics, and assignments.
- Integrates with all popular tools, like WooCommerce, PayPal, Paid Memberships Pro, etc.
- Ability to drip content and add prerequisites for courses.
- You can add leaderboards, badges, certificates, course points, and much more.
- Choose your preferred way to offer paid courses. Like subscriptions, memberships, etc.
- Gives reports on enrollment, progress, and performance.
- Works well with any WordPress theme and provides multiple customization options.
Cons of LearnDash
- No free plan or trial.
- It can be overwhelming for beginners because of its learning curve.
- Limitation in the built-in membership options.
- Improvements can be there in terms of offering multiple payment options.
Now, let’s start by getting to know the LearnDash plugin.
A. What is LearnDash? – An Introduction
First, Learning Management Systems (LMS) are software to build online courses and training sites. Moreover, it lets you administer, track, report, automate, and deliver educational courses, training programs, and coaching materials to audiences online.
Similarly, LearnDash is a paid LMS software available for WordPress sites. It’s the #1 most popular WordPress LMS plugin on the market. You can use it to build fully-functional online course WordPress sites.
Hence, you can use LearnDash if you work in educational institutes or training centers. Or it can also be used when you work individually to offer courses on any topic.
For example, Yoast Academy is an online course site built using the LearnDash plugin. It offers free and premium courses by Yoast (A popular WordPress SEO plugin). And that’s on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) topics and real-life practices to improve your SEO skills.
Furthermore, LearnDash comes with an easy-to-use drag-and-drop course builder. With that, you can easily create courses that look exactly how you want. On top of that, you get to add quizzes, topics, assignments, and exams for your courses.
Not to mention, you can sell your premium courses in various ways. Some of them include memberships, subscriptions, course bundles, etc.
Additionally, there’s no limitation on how many courses and learners your LMS site can have. And that’s not it! It comes with a wide range of features, add-ons, and integration to many platforms.
Looks fascinating? Then, go ahead and use LearnDash NOW!
To get started with LearnDash, go to its official website. There, choose a plan and purchase the plugin you want. For that, click on the button below:
To know all LearnDash features in detail, let’s move into the next section of this review.
B. Key Features of the LearnDash Plugin
LearnDash has a plethora of features to run and grow your online course site. So, let’s get to know them. So that you’ll be clear about using this plugin for your site.
1. Impressive Drag-and-drop Course Builder
Adding your course content to your website using LearnDash is quite intuitive.
LearnDash has a drag-and-drop course builder that makes creating courses much easier. Moreover, you can add multiple lessons to a single course. And every lesson can include topics and quizzes.
In addition, you can arrange those course materials, that too under different sections. All of that is with the simple drag-and-drop feature. Hence, you can populate your course curriculum really fast.
Further, you’ll get the edit and delete options for lessons, topics, and quizzes on this course builder. With the edit options, you can access the lessons, topics, and quizzes on separate pages.
Thus, you can add all the course materials from one place.
2. Powerful Video Content Support
This WordPress LMS plugin supports multiple media, including images, audio, HTML5, and more. And for engaging course content, you must use different media.
Videos being one of the most powerful media, LearnDash also has support for video content. So, it integrates various video-related platforms, like YouTube, Vimeo, and Vista.
Moreover, it has a video progression feature that helps you embed self-hosted or externally hosted videos. So, you can easily add videos to your lessons and topics. Plus, it gives many special features to your video content. They are:
- Once a student opens a lesson or topic, the video can automatically play or resume.
- Able to let learners watch the video course first to be able to move to the next lesson/topic.
- Automatically mark lessons/topics as complete after the learner finishes watching the video.
- The video player also becomes highly customizable. So, you can hide the play bar to restrict learners from skipping the videos.
- It can redirect students to the next video once it finishes.
3. Advanced Quizzing
LearnDash offers one of the best quiz builders among the different LMS software for online course websites. So, let’s check out all the advanced quizzing features:
- Supports 8 question types: single choice, multiple choice, sorting, essay, matching, survey, fill-in-the-blank, and free text.
- Able to create question banks and organize them into different categories.
- Add video, audio, and images to your questions, answer choices, and hints.
- You can display your questions at once, one at a time, and a few on a page.
- Questions and answers can display in any random order.
- Ability to limit the learner’s attempts on a quiz. Further, time limits can also be set.
- Also, you can restrict students to continue moving forward only after passing the quiz.
On top of that, you can also display the quiz results in multiple ways. You get to show the correct and incorrect responses, email the score, etc. Further, it lets you display the best-scored learners on the quizzes in the leaderboards.
4. Engaging Features for Learners
Other than that, there’s a multitude of engaging features for learners in LearnDash. Some of them are:
- Automatically send emails based on the learner’s actions, like when they take a course.
- With the certificate builder, you can award students with badges and certificates. It can be based on quiz performance, course completion, or both.
- Also, award course points to your students once they finish their lessons.
- Create course-specific discussion forums to encourage conversation among learners.
- Give assignments to students and let them move to the next lesson after they submit them.
5. Easy Learner and Course Management
As an LMS platform, you can control your learners and courses in LearnDash. Here, managing the courses and learners is very flexible and easy.
With the group management function, you can place your site users into groups and subgroups. After that, let others manage the different groups.
For courses, let’s take an example of assignment management. As said before, LearnDash lets you add assignments. So, you can approve, comment, and award points on the submitted assignments.
Moreover, Gradebook (a paid add-on) lets you sync the quizzes and assignments to grade your learners. As a result, you can easily manage the courses and learners’ activities simultaneously.
6. Integration to Popular Plugins and Tools
Next, LearnDash integrates with the most popular tools and plugins. Using them, you can add more functionality to your website and online courses.
Some of the notable WordPress plugins and tools that integrate with this plugin are:
- Payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, 2Checkout, and more.
- eCommerce platforms such as WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, etc.
- Email marketing solutions like MailChimp, Paid Memberships Pro, Restrict Content, etc.
- Forum software such as bbPress, BuddyPress, and more.
7. Theme Integration and Customization Options
LearnDash also integrates with most WordPress themes. It especially recommends using Astra and Kadence. Not just because of its compatibility but also because of several helpful templates.
Additionally, this LMS plugin supports using the WordPress page builder plugins like Elementor, Divi, and Beaver Builder. Thus, you can design your online course site without writing a single line of code.
Plus, you get to match the website according to your brand with its customization options. In simpler terms, you can choose the colors, logos, etc., and display your courses and lessons easily.
8. Sophisticated Marketing and Sales Features
You can create free, paid, and time-limited courses with LearnDash. So, selling online courses is much simpler. You can set your prices, add payment methods, and start taking enrollment requests.
Furthermore, there are many ways of selling your courses. Some marketing and sales features are:
- One-time purchases: After offering free lessons, set a price for your course. Then, learners will enroll in your course after payment. Here, you can use a payment gateway, like Stripe.
- Subscriptions: You can offer subscription plans to get recurring payments from your learners. As a result, it’ll increase your course revenue.
- Shopping Cart: WordPress eCommerce plugins can give a shopping cart experience on your courses. Also, adding coupons, discount codes, sales, tax rules, etc., is possible.
- Memberships: Suppose you don’t want to give access to all your paid courses to everyone. Then, you can make memberships that give courses to members associated with that level.
- Course Bundles: If you’ve multiple courses, then you can sell them in bundles. Plus, you get to offer flash sales or discounts on the courses.
- Bulk Access: Bulk access is another way your customer can purchase course licenses in bulk. Then, they can grant access to their staff.
9. Detailed Reporting and Analytics
Yet another powerful feature of LearnDash is detailed reporting and analytics. Here, you can see reports on enrollment, progress, and performance of your learners.
In addition, the reports include different parameters to help you know about the learners and your business. Further, you can export the reports in various formats for further analysis.
Not to mention, your learners can also monitor their progress on their dashboards. That too based on the goals they have set. For all of that, LearnDash also integrates with several analytic tools.
10. More Advanced Features
Apart from the above features, there are some more advanced features like those below.
- Includes focus mode that creates a distraction-free environment for your learners.
- With drip-feed content, your visitors will regularly be engaged with your course materials.
- Ability to add a set of prerequisites when accessing your courses, lessons, and quizzes.
- As a multisite-compatible plugin, you can use it across your WordPress multisite network.
- Comes with many widgets to add dynamic content to your LMS website.
- Contains several free and premium add-ons to extend your website’s functionality.
That’s all for the LearnDash features. With that, let’s get into the next section.
C. How Do You Purchase, Install, and Set Up LearnDash?
We know LearnDash is a premium plugin. This means you need to purchase it first.
Now, let’s see how you can purchase, install, and configure this plugin. With this guide, you can follow the steps and use the plugin for your online course website.
So, here we go!
Step 1: Purchase the LearnDash Plugin
First, visit the LearnDash site and click on the Get LearnDash button.
This opens up the pricing page with all plans. To learn about them, check out the pricing section of our review. Once you decide on the plan for purchasing the plugin, click on its Buy Now button.
Then, you’ll see the checkout page where you can fill up your personal and billing information. After you complete filling up the form, hit the Purchase button.
Now, you can download the plugin from your dashboard. Note that the downloaded file is in the ZIP file. Also, make sure to save your license key safely.
Step 2: Upload, Install and Activate LearnDash
Next, you’ve to upload this ZIP file to your WordPress site. For that, log in to your WordPress dashboard. There, go to Plugins > Add New menu.
Then, click on the Upload Plugin button, and after that, the Choose File button. There, upload the LearnDash plugin you purchased. Next, click on the Install Now button to install the plugin.
After a while, you’ll see an Activate button, so click on it to activate the plugin.
Learn in detail about how to install a plugin from our article here.
Step 3: Use the Setup Wizard
As soon as the plugin activates, its setup wizard shows up. From here, you can easily configure the crucial settings for your online course site. So, let’s proceed by clicking on the Get Started button.
Step i: Your Info
In the Your Info step, you’ve to add the email address you used to purchase the plugin. Also, you must insert the license key for the plugin. After that, click on the Validate button.
If you like to use another email address for notifications, then add a different one in the Communication Preference section. Once you’re done, click on the Next button to move ahead.
Step ii: Your Courses
Then, you’ll go to the Your Courses step. Here, you’ve to decide if you want to have one course or multiple courses on your site. For that, click the Just One or the Multiple options, respectively.
After that, choose any of the types of courses you want. The options are:
- Simple: A simple text or video-based course without quizzes and assignments.
- Certificate: A text or video-based course with quizzes and assignments.
- Timed: A timed text or video-based course with quizzes and assignments.
- Group Courses: A course by group leaders ideal for corporate training.
Lastly, click on the Next button.
Step iii: Payment
Next, you’ll be asked whether you’ll charge for your courses in the Payment step. If you don’t want to, then click on the No option for free courses.
But if you want to, then click on the Yes option. Choosing the Yes option opens 2 options for payment. They are Stripe and WooCommerce.
For using Stripe, you must connect the plugin to your account. And for WooCommerce, LearnDash will install the necessary plugins. Moreover, you can select the currency you’d like to accept.
Once you’re done when choosing any of the 2 options, click on the Next button to move ahead.
Here, we’re selecting the No option to show you the process for a free course.
Step iv: Summary
Lastly, the Summary page shows the pages LearnDash will create. They are registration, registration success, reset password, and profile. Also, you’ll get a course listing page with all your courses.
Furthermore, it states that the required add-ons for your courses will get installed automatically. That includes Certificate Builder, Course Grid, etc.
Once you’re fine, click on the Save & Complete button.
This redirects you to your dashboard in the Setup sub-menu of the LearnDash LMS menu. With that, follow the next steps to set up your site.
Step 4: Choose a Starter Template
On the Setup sub-menu, you can see the Design your site section. From here, you can click on the Select a Starter Template option.
This opens the Choose a Template step, where you can preview and select the template for your website. Once you click the Select option for the template, click on the Next button to save it.
Then, you’ll move to the Fonts step. Here, you can select a font style for your site from the given options. After you select the font, click on the Next button.
Next, you can choose the color scheme for your site on the Colors step. So, select a color scheme and hit the Next button.
Lastly, you’ll see a preview of your website design. If you’re sure about the choices you made, then click on the Save & Continue button.
With that, the template installation will take place. After a while, you can select the Visit Site or Exit to Setup option to move ahead.
Step 5: Configure the Settings
After the setup completion, you can configure the other settings in the LearnDash LMS > Settings menu. So, here’s the brief on the crucial settings for you.
I. General
In the General Settings, you can find the design and content elements, global pagination settings, and admin user settings. The list below shows some helpful options:
- Choose the active template as LearnDash 3.0 to get the latest features of the plugin.
- Enable focus mode to give distraction-free courses.
- Enabling the ‘login and registration’ option is important for user registration.
- Upload the logo of your LMS website.
Once you configure these settings, click on the Save button.
II. Registration/Login
Here, you can edit the default fields or add new fields for registration. Also, you can state whether the field is required to be filled by users or not.
Further, you can select pages for your registration/login, registration success, and reset password. Lastly, click the Save button after making changes.
III. Emails
From the Emails setting, you can manage the emails to be sent to your learners. For example, new user registration, course purchase success, etc. Also, save the changes with the Save button.
All these settings are pretty simple to work with. So, you can go through them yourself. Once you fully configure your site, you can now start creating your courses.
D. How to Create an LMS Website Using LearnDash?
Now, let’s go with the step-wise guide on making an LMS website using LearnDash in this review. Starting by creating your first course with the course builder. Let’s move!
Step 1: Create Your First Course with Course Builder
First, open your dashboard and navigate to the LearnDash LMS > Courses menu. There, you may see the template courses, to begin with. So, you can take their help or just start from scratch.
If you want to configure the Courses options, then do that from the Settings tab. Make sure that the crucial settings are working. For example, the course builder option is enabled.
Now, let’s move straight to creating a new course. For that, click on the Add New button in the Courses tab.
This opens the editor with 3 tabs for creating courses. They are:
1. Course page
Here, you can add the course title and course content on the left-side editor. Then, at the right-side Course settings, you get to add the course category, course tags, and featured image.
2. Builder
Moving to the Builder tab, you’ll see the drag-and-drop course builder interface. Using it, you can create lessons, topics, and quizzes for your course. So, let’s see how.
For adding the lessons, you can directly go ahead one by one. Or you can make section headings to have similar lessons on them.
Now, let’s create a section heading. So, click on the New Section Heading option. There, add the title and click on the Add Section Heading button.
Then, click on the New Lesson option to add your lesson.
Next, enter the title and click the Add Lesson button.
Consequently, you can select a lesson, expand it, and add new topics and quizzes. For adding a topic, click on the New Topic option, add the title, and click the Add Topic button.
At the same time, you get to add a Quiz for the lesson, topic, or course. Just click on the New Quiz option. Here, enter the quiz name and click the Add Quiz button.
Similarly, add all the headings, lessons, topics, and quizzes you want to keep. Once you’re done, you can move them up and down. Also, it’s possible to drag and drop them to change position.
3. Settings
After adding all the course materials, go to the Settings tab. Here, you get to see all the settings for that specific course you’re creating. So, let’s know the notable ones.
In the Course Access Settings, there are the following options:
- Access Mode: Choose among open for everyone, free after registration, one-time payment, recurring payment, or requires manual enrollment by admin.
- Course Prerequisites: Gives access to this course only after completing other courses.
- Course Points: The number of course points required to access the course or get awarded.
- Course Access Expiration: Select when your course expires for access.
On the Display and Content Options, you can add the extra course materials. Further, you get to choose the course certificate and challenge exam learners will go through. Also, it includes options for course content visibility and custom pagination.
In addition, you can choose your course progression to be linear (stepwise) or free (move freely) from the Course Navigation Settings. While in the Course Users option, you can manually assign courses to registered users.
Once you configure all the necessary options for your course, you can click on the Publish button.
Step 2: Add Lessons and Topics to Your Course
Previously, we just added the lessons and topics to your course. But we didn’t edit the content. That’s what we’re going to do now. Follow the steps to add lessons/topics to your course.
The process is the same for topics and lessons. Actually, you can click the Edit button of the lesson/topic from the course builder to get started.
Another way is to go to the LearnDash LMS > Lessons menu for lessons and the Topics menu for topics. Then click the lesson/topic you want to edit.
So, let’s see the steps for adding a lesson. In your lesson, you can see 2 tabs, namely the Lesson page, and Settings.
Like adding courses, you can add the lesson content, categories, tags, and a featured image on the Lesson page.
On the other hand, you’ll find different options in Settings. Some of them are:
- Enable Lesson Materials to add content about the lesson.
- Video Progression lets you auto-start video, resume, or control its display.
- Able to give assignments and accept them from learners from Assignment Uploads.
- Force Lesson Timer gives time restriction to complete a lesson.
- Immediately release lessons or at a certain time with the Lesson Release Schedule.
Once you edit your lesson, click on the Update button. Similarly, you can do the same for topics.
Step 3: Make a Quiz Using Quiz Builder
Now, it’s time to edit the quiz content. For that, a simpler way is to first add all the questions, and then include them on the quiz. So, let’s go through the steps.
Step i: Add Questions
Navigate LearnDash LMS > Questions menu. Then, click on the Add New button to create a question.
There, add the question title and the question first.
After that, select the Answer Type among Single choice, Multiple choice, Fill in the blanks, etc. Here, we chose the Single choice option.
Then, you must add the marks of the question in the Points section.
Next, go to the Answers section. There, add the different answers depending on the answer type you select. For the single-choice question, add the choices using the Add new answer button. Then denote the correct answer by clicking the Correct option of it.
Other than that, there are optional settings, like editing the message for correct/incorrect answers, hints, and more. Once you’re done, click on the Publish button to make the question live.
Step ii: Add Questions to Your Quiz
After adding the questions, add them to a quiz. For that, navigate to LearnDash LMS > Quizzes menu and open the quiz you previously made.
On the WordPress editor for the quiz, you’ll see 3 tabs. The first is the Quiz page tab, where you can add the quiz content.
Secondly, there’s a Builder tab with the drag-and-drop quiz builder. There, select the questions from the Recent section on the right-side Quiz setting. Then, click on the Add Selected button.
With that, move to the Settings tab. Here, you can find some notable options:
- Choose if all users or registered users can take this quiz.
- Add the passing score of the quiz.
- Select the certificate for passed learners who completed the quiz.
- Select if students need to attempt all questions or not, and more.
Once you configure the settings, hit the Update button to save changes.
Step 4: Give Certificates to Your Learners
In this step, you’ll view how to create a certificate and give it to your learners. So, let’s begin.
Step i: Add a New Certificate
First, go to the LearnDash LMS > Certificates menu and click on the Add New button.
There, enter the title of the certificate. Then, add the content of the certificate. Here, you can add basic HTML and CSS codes to design your certificate.
The certificate usually contains dynamic content, like the learner’s name, the course title, etc. So, you must use shortcodes. Find the certificate shortcodes here. Or you can add custom fields there.
Next, select the PDF page size and page orientation you prefer in the LearnDash Certificate Options section. The default values are letter size and landscape orientation.
Then, create a background image for the certificate using tools, like Canva or Envato elements. After that, upload it from the Set featured image option.
Lastly, click on the Publish button.
Moreover, you can customize your certificates from the Settings and Fonts options on the Certificates menu. There, you can add custom CSS or upload the fonts.
Step ii: Add the Certificate to the Quiz or Course
You can give certificates to students after completing a course or a quiz. So, you’ve to denote which certificate is given to students when they take a course or quiz.
For giving certificates after course completion, go to the LearnDash LMS > Courses menu and open a course. Next, click the Settings tab and scroll to the Display and Content Options.
On the Course Certificate option, select the certificate you made. Then, click the Update button.
The same goes for the quiz certificates. Open the quiz’s Settings tab. On the Progression and Restriction Settings, select the certificate on Quiz Certificate and hit the Update button.
That’s all! These are the crucial steps to perform for creating courses on the website.
E. How Do Your Learners Access Your Course on the LMS Website?
Here’s a quick look at how your courses will work for your learners. It’s based on the choices we made throughout the LearnDash review guide. So, the steps may differ depending on your choices.
On the All Courses menu of the website, you can see the courses in a grid format. For the course, you can see the Enroll Now button. So, let’s click on it.
Then, this redirects you to the course page with a Login to Enroll option. Once you click this option, you’ll see a popup for login and registration.
As a new visitor to this site, let’s click on the Register an Account button.
Now, you can see the registration form, where you’ve to enter your username, password, email address, and others. Then, click the Register button.
After the registration becomes successful, you can click on the Take this Course button. This opens the course page.
Then, you can click and start the first lesson. The lesson page looks like this:
After completing the lesson, move forward by clicking the Mark Complete button.
If you reach the quiz section, then click the Start Quiz button. Once it completes, click the Finish Quiz button. It looks like this:
Lastly, click on the Download Certificate button to view, download, or print the certificate. The certificate looks like this:
That’s it! It looks amazing, right?
F. What are the Free and Premium Add-ons in LearnDash?
As said before, LearnDash comes with many free and premium add-ons. Using them, you can add more functionality to your online courses. So, you can use the add-ons depending on your needs.
The table below shows the most useful LearnDash add-ons:
Add-ons | Description |
The Events Calendar (Free) | Lets you connect your LMS with the popular events solution. |
LearnDash Integrity (Free) | Secure your website from spam, abuse, and content copying. |
WooCommerce Integration (Free) | Sell your courses with the most popular WordPress shopping cart. |
Stripe Integration (Free) | Sell your courses using the Stripe payment gateway. |
Zapier Integration (Free) | Connect your LearnDash to over 300 different 3rd-party apps. |
LearnDash Notifications (Free) | Sends notifications to learners about what they do (or don’t do). |
Paid Memberships Pro Integration (Free) | Integration with the free membership WordPress plugin for your courses. |
Gravity Forms Integration (Free) | Lets you build custom registration forms for your LMS. |
LearnDash Achievements (Free) | Award your students with badges and points for course activities. |
bbPress Integration (Free) | Integrates with public or private forums for your courses. |
Reports for LearnDash (Premium) | It gives graphical reports of your platform to help you make great decisions. |
MailChimp Integration (Premium) | Quickly make segmented MailChimp mailing lists for your courses. |
LearnDash Gradebook (Premium) | Able to manage and administer your student’s grades. |
Private Messaging for LearnDash (Premium) | Makes private messaging possible between groups and 1-1. |
Group Registration (Premium) | It can sell multiple licenses for your courses to groups. |
Front-end Course Creation (Premium) | Ability to create courses at the front end instead of the back end. |
Weglot (Premium) | Translates your course content with its AI-powered (Artificial Intelligence) system. |
Slack Integration (Premium) | Get the real-time activities of learners to the Slack application. |
G. How Much Does the LearnDash Plugin Cost?
We know, LearnDash is a premium plugin for creating online course sites. But you may not know that there are 2 ways to purchase and use LearnDash.
So, let’s check out the plans for both types now.
1. WordPress Plugin
The LearnDash WordPress plugin plans let you install and use the plugin on your WordPress site. It’s a one-stop solution to build and manage courses with a few to several students online. Further, you’ll find several free and premium add-ons to extend your site’s functionality.
The plans are:
- 1 Site: $199/year for a 1-site license.
- 10 Sites: $399/year for 10 websites license.
- Unlimited: $799/year for usage in unlimited sites.
2. Full Site
With LearnDash Cloud, you can make a full website right away. Since it has beautiful templates and many customization tools to create courses that match your brand.
In contrast to the LearnDash WordPress plugin, these plans offer domain and web hosting services along with the LearnDash software. Moreover, it gives automatic website updates plus integrates fine with most WordPress plugins and themes.
The plans are:
- Monthly: $29/mo.
- Annually: $299/year with 2 months of free usage.
Note that the LearnDash Cloud plans come with a ProPanel dashboard worth $50. There, you can monitor enrollment, student progress, and advanced reporting.
Additionally, all the LearnDash plans offer a 15-day money-back guarantee policy. This means you can stop using the software and get paid back within 15 days of purchase.
To learn more, go to the LearnDash pricing page on its website. With that, let’s move into the next section of the LearnDash review.
H. Does LearnDash Provide Good Customer Support?
Now, let’s check out the different customer support options on LearnDash. With that, we can see if it offers good support to its users.
First, the Contact page of LearnDash includes some FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions). If you can’t find the answer to your query, then you can select a contact reason for more options.
There, you’ll get different support options based on your chosen reason. They are:
- For pre-sale questions, you can fill up a form stating your personal information and message. Then, click the Send button to deliver it to the team.
- To get support, you can check the detailed documentation by LearnDash under various categories. Like LearnDash Core, Users and groups, etc. Or submit a support ticket after you log in to your account.
- If you couldn’t access your website, then it states that the issue can be because of using an invalid license key. For that, it gives instructions to follow.
Furthermore, you can join its Facebook community or visit its YouTube channel. Similarly, there are webinars, blogs, and case studies that can give you the answer to your confusion.
Lastly, LearnDash lets you find an expert to assist with your website. These experts are there to help you build courses from design to development. To learn more, visit its Expert page.
Overall, LearnDash performs well in terms of providing good customer support.
I. LearnDash Recommended WordPress Themes
All the themes coded using WordPress standards are compatible with LearnDash. So, you can use any WordPress theme to create your online course website from LearnDash.
However, there are a few themes that LearnDash officially recommends using for LMS sites. Here, we’re going to list out those themes with a short description. So, let’s see them.
1. Astra
Astra is one of the best WordPress themes ideal for online course websites. It includes several ready-to-use starter templates for quickly creating any LMS website using plugins like LearnDash.
Moreover, you can build your professional eLearning site in the way you want with customization options. Plus, it can create conversion-friendly sales pages that attract students to take a course.
Furthermore, you can offer distraction-free learning to students to boost the completion rate of your online course. An example can be removing unnecessary links from the header/footer.
Moreover, it’s a freemium theme with both free and premium plans. So, you can start building your site with the free plan. If you want more features, then easily integrate LearnDash with Astra Pro. The premium plans offer more powerful design controls for you.
Learn more about this theme from our Astra theme review article.
2. Kadence
Another lightning-fast, freemium, and modern theme for creating your LMS website is Kadence. It integrates with LearnDash to build courses that are beautifully in sync with your brand colors.
Additionally, there are several free and premium eLearning starter templates in Kadence. You can import a template and use it for your online course site without coding anything.
Moreover, it has a live drag-and-drop editor with design options and custom layouts. Now, you can make your desired website sections, like header, footer, etc.
Plus, it’s SEO-optimized, which makes your courses and site rank better on the search engines. Also, you can add breadcrumbs with its built-in generator giving users better site navigation.
3. BuddyBoss
BuddyBoss gives a premium LearnDash theme for creating online courses, schools, communities, and membership websites. It comes with a demo that you can import and use for your website.
Moreover, this theme has multiple layouts to choose from. With its flexibility, you can customize them with an easy-to-use interface to create your courses. Plus, you can use compatible page builders to give you more freedom in building your eLearning site.
Further, BuddyBoss gives tools to engage students, like live chat, Q&As, screen sharing, and more. Also, it integrates with BuddyBoss App to give your students a remote learning experience.
In addition, it supports RTL (Right-to-Left) and multiple languages. With that, you can give courses in different languages for learners globally.
With that, let’s move right into the next LearnDash review section.
J. Alternatives of the LearnDash Plugin
Till now, we were looking at all about the LearnDash plugin. However, it’s not the only WordPress LMS plugin in the market. So, you can check them out to see if they match your needs more.
1. LifterLMS
LifterLMS is a beginner-friendly WordPress LMS plugin. It comes with an easy-to-use course and quiz builder from which you can quickly create engaging courses, lessons, and quizzes.
In addition, it’s flexible to create a single online course site to a complex multi-instructor course site. Hence, even if you’re a beginner or experienced, you can use it for your individual course or educational institute business.
Moreover, you get to appeal to your learners using multiple learning styles. It means you can give lessons using video, audio, text, image-based, and more.
Pricing
The core LifterLMS plugin is completely free. So, you can install the plugin on your WordPress dashboard. Or download it from the WordPress.org plugin directory and upload it to your site.
But to add more functionality to your eLearning site, you can use premium add-ons. As per different requirements, there are the following paid LifterLMS plans present with extra add-ons:
- Earth Bundle: $149/year, 1 site license, LMS plugin, eCommerce add-ons, 1 tech support addon, and industry-leading support.
- Universe Bundle: $360/year, all Earth features, 5 active site usage, design add-ons, form add-ons, marketing add-ons, and more.
- Infinity Bundle: $1200/year, all Universe features, unlimited site usage, social learning, custom fields, groups, advanced video, etc.
2. Masteriyo
Masteriyo is another eLearning platform with a super-fast and minimalist course, lesson, and quiz builder. It means you can quickly add the courses, their lessons, and quizzes on your website without any coding.
Further, you get to start selling your courses with its built-in order system. So, you don’t have to face the hassle of installing a separate eCommerce plugin to sell your courses. It lets you do that with great integration to most payment gateways, including PayPal and offline methods.
Pricing
As a freemium WordPress plugin, you can install the free plugin on your dashboard. Another way is to download it from the WordPress.org plugin directory and add it to your plugin menu.
If the features you want on your LMS site aren’t in the free version, then you can go with a premium plan. There are the following paid options present in Masteriyo Pro.
- Starter: $199/year, 1 site license, certificate builder, Stripe integration, course FAQs, etc.
- Growth: $299/year, 5 site licenses, all Starter features, content drip, course preview, etc.
- Scale: $499/year, 99 site licenses, and all Growth features.
3. Tutor LMS
Another popular WordPress online course plugin to create, manage, and sell courses is Tutor LMS. This plugin contains personalized dashboards for both learners and teachers. With that, learners and teachers can access and manage their respective activities from a single place.
Moreover, it has a frontend drag-and-drop course builder. So, you can create courses, quizzes, and lessons from the front end. As a result, not only your students but you’ll also get a great experience on your website.
Pricing
Tutor LMS is also a freemium plugin with both free and premium plans. You can download the plugin from WordPress.org. Or directly install the free plugin to your WordPress dashboard.
Plus, the following are the premium plans available based on the number of site licenses.
- Individual: $99.5/year or $249.5 for lifetime use, 1 site license, 1 free installation service, unlimited courses, drip course content, certificate builder, etc.
- Business: $199.5/year or $449.5 for a one-time payment, 10 site licenses, 2 free installation services, and all Individual features.
- Agency: $399.5/year or $949.5 for lifetime use, unlimited licenses, 5 free installation services, and all Business features.
3. LearnPress
If you want to create an intuitive online course website, then you can go with LearnPress. There are many LearnPress themes for making any eLearning site. And they’re useful for all plugin users, like teachers, trainers, instructors, educators, and coaches.
In addition, it comes with many features, like the ability to add quizzes, lessons, and certificates. For more options, you can use popular WordPress plugins and tools. Like Elementor, bbPress, Slider Revolution, Mailchimp, and more.
Pricing
The free version of LearnPress is downloadable from the WordPress.org plugin repository. Also, you can install the plugin on your WordPress dashboard instead.
For more premium features, you can buy the LearnPress Pro Add-ons Bundle. This bundle costs $299 and is usable for 1 website. Some of the LearnPress add-ons included in it are:
- WooCommerce add-on
- Gradebook add-on
- Paid Memberships Pro add-on
- Stripe add-on and more.
This concludes the list of alternatives. With that, let’s see an overall overview of this LearnDash review article next.
K. Final Verdict – Is LearnDash Worth it?
This review article shows LearnDash as an excellent WordPress LMS plugin. Here, we know all its key features, support options, pricing plans, and more.
Overall, the user interface of the LearnDash course and quiz builder is easy-to-use and straightforward. Further, there are many settings and options for all your courses, quizzes, lessons, topics, and certificates.
Hence, you can use LearnDash for your school, individual business, company, or anything. Since you can get started with your courses, training, and coaching with its customizable templates.
Moreover, we recommend trying this plugin starting with the free demo. You can be a learner and a course creator in that demo.
To learn more, go ahead and use it with its free trial. If you like what you see, then purchase it for your online course site.
For help, you can read this LearnDash review guide at any time!
Conclusion
That’s all for here! Hopefully, you liked our review of the LearnDash plugin.
In a nutshell, we gave you everything about this WordPress LMS plugin. So, we hope you went through its features, pricing, support, and all the other sections we covered.
Overall, LearnDash is a phenomenal plugin for creating online course websites. So, if you find it suitable per your needs, then go ahead.
If we forgot to cover anything you’re confused about, then comment. We’ll gladly research it and will give you solutions to your queries. So, please visit us again.
In case you’re a beginner, then read our complete guide on how to make a website from scratch.
In addition, read our other helpful articles on the best membership site examples and the best membership website ideas that make money.
Last but not least. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter. As a result, you’ll come across many new and interesting blogs.