The 5 best WordPress LMS plugins: How to create your own online course

In this day and age, there is hardly a better way to earn money online with your knowledge and experience than by creating and selling online courses or tutorials. Today, Sven Scheuerle presents his top five WordPress plugins that you can use to create your own online course.

WordPress offers a wide range of useful LMS plugins to help you set up your own course area. With the help of these, you can create course content of any kind in no time at all and make it accessible to your target group. I’ll now explain what the word “LMS” means and which WordPress plugins you can use.

What is an LMS plugin anyway?

The abbreviation “LMS” generally stands for the word “learning management system”. It is therefore a system or teaching environment designed for the provision of learning materials.

The so-called LMS plugins offer you just such a teaching environment in which you can create your course content for your users and – if required behind a payment barrier – make it available. In addition to individual courses and lessons, these plugins offer you other functions such as surveys, quizzes, forums, certificates, tests and much more.

You should keep an eye out for these functions

There are numerous good and comprehensive LMS plugins on the market. This can make it difficult to decide on the right learning management system. In the following list, I would therefore like to introduce you to the functions that plugins of this type generally offer – or should offer, depending on your requirements:

• Course creation:
  The be-all and end-all of an LMS plugin must, of course, be simple course creation. In addition to a user-friendly editor, the plugin should also offer you the option of uploading videos or PDF files.
  
• Tests / tasks:
  With the tests or tasks, you can test your users’ knowledge after each course or lesson. For example, you can ensure that your content is understandable for every course participant.
  
• Quizzes / Surveys:
  With a quiz function, you can easily integrate quizzes into your courses. This allows you to loosen up your courses for your participants and create fun. With the help of surveys, you can ask your participants for an evaluation after they have completed the course. Of course, you can also integrate surveys at any time in between.
  
• Email notifications:
  Every modern LMS plugin should have a function for automatic email notifications (all the plugins presented do this). This is because course participants are informed about their registration for the course, receive corresponding access data if required or are regularly informed about their progress.
  
• Certificates:
  You can award certificates to your participants as soon as they have successfully completed your course.
  
• Add-ons:
  Add-ons or extensions offer you the option of extending the functionality of your LMS plugin if required. So check carefully beforehand whether corresponding add-ons are available and whether they are subject to a charge.
  
• Sell courses:
  If you create a course, you will certainly want to sell it and earn money with it. When choosing an LMS plugin, you should therefore make sure that you can connect the relevant payment providers to carry out purchase transactions (all the plugins presented offer this option).

WordPress LMS plugins in comparison

To give you a quick overview of the various LMS plugins for WordPress, I have compared a total of five of these learning management systems for you and present them in more detail below.

LearnPress

LearnPress is one of the most popular free WordPress LMS plugins on the market. It is a comprehensive and feature-rich learning management system that can be used to create courses, lessons, tests and much more. The available export and import function allows you to export individual courses and import them into other projects if required.

If the functions in the free version of LearnPress are not enough for you, there are numerous paid add-ons to choose from. For example, for the creation of certificates, surveys or quizzes.

The WooCommerce addon is particularly interesting, as it allows you to process transactions directly via the payment methods of your WooCommerce account. LearnPress also provides you with a WordPress frontend editor, which you can use to edit your course pages directly in the frontend.

PayPal is already integrated into the free version of LearnPress so that you can also earn money with your course. To be able to use other payment methods such as Stripe or credit card, a paid add-on is also required.

If you want to get a first insight into the LMS plugin, take a look at the following video from the provider, in which you can see what the plugin looks like in both the backend and the frontend.

Main functions at a glance:

• Create courses
• Lessons
• Tests
• Questions
• Sell courses

In the LearnPress plugin settings, you can define settings for the course pages and, of course, individual lessons. Here you can determine what is displayed on the profiles and set up your payment method and automated emails.

LearnDash

The LearnDash LMS plugin is ideal for entrepreneurs, universities and training organisations that want to sell their online courses via the Internet. With the help of the plugin, professional training courses can be organised and the progress of individual participants can be tracked.

LearnDash also offers a range of additional functions, such as focus mode. This helps participants to work through the course lessons with even more concentration and without distractions. LearnDash also integrates wonderfully with the bbPress forum plugin or membership plugins such as MemberPress.

A drag-and-drop editor is also available for creating individual courses and lessons. You can even create forums for individual course groups, which participants can use to exchange information with each other.

To get an idea of what a finished course in LearnDash can look like, take a look at the provider’s demo video:

Courses can be purchased by participants individually or as a subscriber. The payment methods available include PayPal, Stripe and 2Checkout.

Main functions at a glance:

• Create courses
• Lessons
• Tests
• Quiz
• Questions
• Forums
• Sell courses

LearnDash is subject to a fee and is available in a total of three licences. The only difference between the licences is the number of pages. The range of functions is the same in all packages.

1. BASIC: 1 site licence, unlimited courses, unlimited users, certificates / awards
2. PLUS PACKAGE: 10 page licence, unlimited courses, unlimited users, certificates / awards
3. PRO PACKAGE: 25 page licence, unlimited courses, unlimited users, certificates / awards

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Sensei

Sensei is a very simple and free LMS plugin from Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, which is also known for WooCommerce and many other WordPress plugins.

The Sensei plugin offers all the important functions you need to create an online course including lessons. Some additional functions include a question area in the backend and the creation of quizzes.

Sensei also offers you a number of extensions, including for managing memberships of individual participants or creating certificates. You have the option of integrating WooCommerce so that you can subsequently sell your course for a fee.

Sensei is also very easy to use in any WordPress theme. The provider particularly recommends themes such as Divi, Generate-Press or Flatsome.

LifterLMS

LifterLMS is an all-in-one solution for learning management systems that is ideal for courses and training programmes. Online courses and lessons can be created simply and easily. A flexible course builder with drag-and-drop function is available for this purpose. Individual courses can be easily exported with this LMS plugin and imported into other projects if required.

You can also use this plugin to create individual member areas. This means that course content is only visible to certain users. The LMS plugin also has its own affiliate programme that your partners can use to promote your courses.

LifterLMS also offers you a variety of additional add-ons. For example, you can use WooCommerce to process your payment transactions. It is also possible to integrate MailChimp for sending emails or WPForms for creating forms. Of course, you can also use LifterLMS to implement certificates, coupons and much more.

The main functions at a glance:

• Create courses
• Lessons
• Questions
• Quiz
• Forum
• Sell courses
• Affiliate programme

You can of course make various settings in the WordPress backend. For example, you can define your course pages and email notifications as well as manage memberships, accounts and integrations.

The LifterLMS plugin is subject to a fee and can be used with three different licences. The licences differ in the number of pages that can be used, the support and the number of add-ons available.

1. Individual add-ons: 1 page licence, standard support, individual add-ons
2. Universe Bundle: 5 site licence, priority support, selected add-ons (design, e-commerce, marketing, form) included
3. Infinity Bundle: Unlimited site licence: Priority support, all available add-ons included

Teachable

Teachable is not a classic LMS plugin. Nevertheless, I would like to introduce you to this all-in-one platform for creating and selling courses in this comparison. This is because Teachable is one of the most widely used providers when it comes to making knowledge and experience available and selling it online.

A page builder with drag-and-drop function is available for you to create courses. Course materials can also be easily uploaded via PDF, Dropbox, Google Drive or OneDrive. Teachable also offers you the option of creating quizzes, tests or certificates for your course participants.

The all-in-one platform also offers an integrated email marketing system and an affiliate programme that you can use as a tutor. You can also advertise your courses with your own coupons. PayPal, Stripe, Visa and Mastercard are available as payment methods.

The difference to the LMS plugins already presented is that Teachable cannot be installed “directly” as a plugin in WordPress. All course content is hosted on the platform itself and made available to users. You can choose between a free domain or use your own domain.

However, you do of course have the option of integrating your course URL from Teachable into your WordPress-hosted website via a subdomain or redirecting it there. Unfortunately, direct integration into WordPress is not possible.

Would you like to take a look at an example page that was created with Teachable? Then I recommend Jessica Spraque’s course page. Here you can see quite well how professionally such a page can be realised with Teachable.

In the following YouTube tutorial by Chris Winter, you can also see in detail how Teachable is structured in the backend, which functions are available and how easy it is to create a course or lessons there.

Main functions at a glance:

• Create courses
• Lessons
• Tests
• Questions
• Quiz
• Sell courses
• Affiliate Programme
• Coupons

Teachable offers you a total of three different price models. The individual packages differ in terms of the transaction fee, user access, support and other customisation options such as coupons, certificates and much more.

1. Basic: Unlimited course participants, 5 % transaction fee, 2 admin users, product support
2. Professional: Unlimited course participants, 0% transaction fee, 5 admin users, priority product support
3. Business: Unlimited course participants, 0% transaction fee, 20 admin users, priority product support

LMS plugins: comparison of functions

	LearnPress	LearnDash	Sensei	LifterLMS	Teachable
Create course	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Lessons	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Tests	✓	✓	no		✓
Sell courses	✓	✓	Only with paid WooCommerce extension	✓	✓
Certificates/ Badges	chargeable	✓	no	chargeable	✓
Quiz questions	chargeable	✓	✓	chargeable	✓
Theme independent	✓	✓	✓	✓	no plugin
Add-ons	chargeable	free & chargeable	free & chargeable	chargeable	–
Price	free of charge	159 – 329$	free of charge	$99 – 999	$39 – 299 (monthly) $29 – 249 (annually)

Conclusion

LMS plugins offer you a great and simple way to create course content quickly and easily and earn money online.

For your start with an LMS plugin, I highly recommend a free plugin like Sensei. Because, as briefly mentioned above, Sensei is really “only” limited to the most important functions for creating courses. The only disadvantage: if you want to sell your courses with Sensei, you will unfortunately have to use the paid WooCommerce extension, which doesn’t cost the earth either.

If you already have experience with LMS plugins or want to set up your course pages very professionally right from the start, I can recommend an LMS plugin like LearnDash. Although this is subject to a fee, it offers you everything you need for a professional course site. This paid plugin is also ideal if your courses are used by a large community. In other words, you expect hundreds or thousands of users.

If you are not a WordPress user or would like to create and host your courses outside of WordPress, then I highly recommend Teachable. With Teachable, you get a mega comprehensive and very professional LMS system that you can use completely independently of other services.