Best LMS Plugins for WordPress

In the past few years especially, online courses have become a very popular solution for people to learn new skills without breaking the bank. Learning management systems, including WordPress LMS plugins, allow educational institutions, corporations, as well as individuals to create, document, track, report, automate, and deliver educational, training, learning, and development courses and programs.

The best WordPress LMS plugins are suitable for schools, universities, non-profit organizations, individual educators, as well as companies that want to offer training or onboarding programs to their employees, or educate their customers on how to use their services or gain further knowledge about their products. 

And being one of the best platforms for creating and selling courses online, WordPress offers some amazing LMS plugins that include some very valuable features. 

But what are the best WordPress LMS plugins to create and sell courses online nowadays?

We’ll go over the 7 best LMS plugins for WordPress, but first, let’s see what key features you need to look out for in your LMS plugin of choice.

What to Look for in the Best WordPress LMS Plugins

By exploring the features the plugins we’re about to review offer, you will be able to notice the full potential of the LMS plugin that catches your eye. Not all features will be necessary for what you want to accomplish though, so here are some key features the LMS plugin of your choice should offer:

Solid Course Page Builder

Choose a plugin with an intuitive page builder, preferably with a drag-and-drop interface, that’s easy to use and will allow you to upload different file types (PDFs, videos, documents, audio files, and other content), use a premade template, and structure the course however you want.

Course Progress Information

This feature will enable your students/trainees/employees to follow their progress and have an overview of their productivity. 

Content drip

With content dripping, you will be able to adequately reveal your teaching materials as the course progresses. 

BuddyPress and bbPress Integration

These plugins are necessary for creating forums and intimate social networks that will serve as tools for improving the communication between the participants and teachers. 

Payment Gateway Support

Choose an LMS that supports most payment getaways, given that the more options you offer, the easier it would be for your course participants to pay for their course. 

Automated emails

This is another important feature that can be used to notify students about completing an assignment, changes in the courses, various offers and reminders, etc. 

Badges and certificates

If you plan to incorporate a rewarding system into your course and give participants badges and certificates after a completed course, this feature is a must.

The Best WordPress LMS Plugins in 2024

Now let’s go over the 6 best WordPress LMS plugins and outline their most important characteristics and features, so you can make an informed decision and choose the best LMS plugin to create and sell courses online.

Let’s get started!  

LearnDash

LearnDash is one of the most trusted WordPress LMS plugins and a number one choice of Fortune 500 companies for creating and selling courses online, including major universities, training organizations, and accomplished entrepreneurs. Developers and designers also continually choose LearnDash as the primary LMS plugin for their clients. Let’s go over some of its most interesting features.

Key Features

• Powerful Course Builder. The drag-and-drop course builder allows you to easily create multilayered courses or even re-use content for different courses by renaming the labels from “Lessons” to “Modules” and spin-up the courses.
• Break-up Courses Into Lessons, and Lessons into Topics. Customize your course to your heart’s content. On top of creating courses and lessons, you can also create lesson topics for each lesson you offer which are 100% optional.
• Create Customizable Quizzes. Customize your quizzes with a single answer option, multiple choices, sorting, matching, fill in the blank, free text, essay questions, and more options. You can also enforce quiz timers, use question banks, and include any type of media in the questions and answers.  
• Drip-Feed Content. LearnDash enables you to either deliver all your lessons at once or choose the drip-feed feature and schedule the lessons at a specific time with a specific amount of material, to have better control over the tempo of the class. LearnDash allows two options for scheduling, the first one being “X Days After Enrollment” and the second “Specific date”. Choosing either of these options will drop the content automatically to your participants and notify them about the availability of the material.  
• Forums. Forums encourage both participants and teachers to engage in a dynamic conversation about the course. You can limit participation, add and exclude people from the forum, and even create private or public course specific forums. 
• Gradebook. With the gradebook option at LearnDash, you can automatically create a custom grading scale, sync the quizzes and assignment grades, manually grade the submitted assignments, have a grade weighted, and issue learner report cards.
• Certificates and Badges. You can customize certificates and badges and add the participant’s name, the course’s name, date stamps, quiz scores, average score, and any other element that you’d like.

Plus Features

• Focus Mode. This unique feature among LMSs creates an environment where course participants can eliminate distractions and focus on the course by removing the main navigation, sidebars, and footers from the screen, among other elements. The feature also allows the course creator to add their own logo and brand colors.
• Course Points. This feature allows you to add points for completed courses to each participant so they can unlock new courses based on the points they’ve earned.

What Makes LearnDash a Great WordPress LMS Plugin?

You can use LearnDash to create and sell courses online whether you have coding experience or not, thanks to the user-friendly interface that you can master even if this is your first time using an LMS. As you can see, there are plenty of valuable features that’ll help you create the course just as you’ve envisioned it. Furthermore, since LearnDash is a self-hosted LMS, you will be able to have full control over your content and website architecture.   

Monetization Options

LearnDash allows you to set course prices and collect money through PayPal, Stripe, or 2Chekout. You can also set LearnDash to maximize your revenue through recurring payments and subscriptions and ensure that participants maintain their course access only if they make their monthly payments. Furthermore, LearnDash supports integration with WordPress’ shopping cart. 

Pricing

This LMS plugin offers three pricing options. The “Basic” plan costs $159 per year, the “Plus” plan is $189, and the “Pro” plan $329. The plugin doesn’t offer a free version but has a 30 days money-back guarantee option.  

LifterLMS

LifterLMS is one of the most flexible WordPress LMS training websites. This is an affordable all-in-one LMS system to start, run, and grow your business while having full control over your customizable courses and membership websites. 

LifterLMS is the number one choice for entrepreneurs, developers, designers, and IT professionals, even beginners who want to build beautiful and high-value online courses and membership sites. People who have outgrown a hosted platform and look for more powerful control over their course and better customer support also tend to migrate to this solution. 

Key Features:

• Drag and Drop Course Builder. The easy to use course builder enables you to easily create and manage the structure and outline of your courses by simply dragging and dropping elements into the course.    
• Free Plug-ins. Besides the add-on for payment gateways, all other add-ons for LifterLMS are free. 
• Multimedia Lessons. Besides text, you can embed various multimedia files into your lessons like video, audio, images, etc. 
• Quizzes. You can create or customize dynamic multimedia quizzes to reinforce learning or test your course participants’ knowledge.
• Drip Content. LifterLMS allows you to have full control over your content, protect your students’ focus and future revenue by making lessons available either at a specific date or X days after their enrollment or course start date.
• Payment gateways and marketing. With LifterLMS you get a variety of marketing and money-making tools for collecting payments, like multiple payment getaways, WooCommerce integration, coupons, etc.
• Student Dashboard. This feature will help your students track their activity and progress, like their grades, memberships, certificates, etc.  
• Multi Instructor. If you teach in teams, this feature will allow you to create multi instructors and even assign multiple instructors to a specific course.  
• Download Lessons. Your students will have the opportunity to download worksheets, ebooks, PDFs, audio, and other files from your course for offline learning. 

What Makes LifterLMS a Great Learning Management System?

With LifterLMS’ flexible drag-and-drop course builder, you can create beautiful online courses or advanced membership-based multi-instructional training. You can also sell your courses, engage with every participant, and drip content at a specific date. 

The core plugin is free and enables you to start creating your online courses immediately, however, the moment you want to do something extra (take payments, offer certificates, etc.) you will have to buy some of the upgraded packages. Keep in mind that the premium plans offer strong support with coaching and webinars that will help you set up your courses as a professional. Lifter is a top-class WordPress LMS plugin that delivers, which is why we highly recommend it.

Monetization Options

LifterLMS gives you several options for monetization so you can build a strong income-generating teaching business or a membership site. You can own your platform and revenue with simple conversation-optimized credit card payments. You can change your courses or memberships with one-time pricing, adjust your account for recurring payments, and create payment plans. LifterLMS includes an access engine called Access Plans and supports payment with PayPal. 

You can also sell subscriptions, offer free courses and coupons, create course bundles, and offer private coaching. This LMS offers native sales pages with a beautiful design where you can choose what details to collect from your learners as they enroll in your program. 

Pricing

LifterLMS offers 3 premium plans: “Individual Add-ons” for $99 each per year; “Universal Bundle” for $299 per year, and “Infinity Bundle” for $999 per year. 

LearnPress 

LearnPress enables schools, universities, and organizations to offer flexible learning options for students. You need no coding experience to use this plugin because of the easy-to-use interface and numerous features that’ll help you create an online school, an online course, or various educational programs. The free version offers several free add-ons, however, if you fully want to enjoy the opportunities that this plugin provides, you will have to go with one of the Premium versions. Let’s go over some of its features.

Key Features:

• WordPress Multisite. LearnPress supports WordPress multisite so you can create WP based LMS with multiple sites.
• Create Course – Easy to Use Interface. You’ll get a beginner-friendly interface where you can create, edit, and manage your full curriculum layout. You can import and export courses from other websites that use the same plugin.
• Manage Course. This LMS enables you to have full control over your course. You can share the created content, manage your course participants, review statistics and detect trends, and more.
• Communicate With Your Students. This LMS plugin gives you the option to create forums where you can communicate with your students and instructors with ease. You can pose and discuss questions, or post information so your students are up to date with the latest developments. 
• Free add-ons. The free LearnPress version provides you with free add-ons for improved teaching and learning. With these add-ons, you can review courses, export and import courses, enroll students, create a fill-in-the-blank type of questions, and do much more. 
• Premium Add-ons. The premium add-ons come with the paid LearnPress plans which will enable you to use the full capacity of this LMS plugin. With the premium features, you can give assignments, add points, create certificates, assign multiple instructors to one course, use PayPal, WooCommerce and Stripe, grade tests and quizzes, export results, and so on. 

What Makes LearnPress a Great Learning Management System?

The great thing about LearnPress is that it works with all WordPress themes. Its premium plans are quite affordable, compared to other WordPress LMS plugins, and suitable for beginners who’ve never used a LMS before. There are plenty of add-ons that you can get for free as well as premium add-ons that’ll enable you to create any type of course you want.  

Monetization Options

LearnPress supports payment gateways such as PayPal, WooCommerce, Stripe, Authorize.net. 2Checkout, Amazon Payment, and some others. Moreover, this LMS is translated into 8 languages including French, Indonesian, Italian, German, Polish, Russian, Dutch, and of course, English.

Pricing

You can use the Free version, including the free add-ons, to create a basic online course. You will have to pay for the extended features though. This takes us to the second plan “Theme Bundle” starting from $49 – $69, which also comes with a variety of free add-ons. The most premium version is the “Pro Bundle” plan that you can get for $249, including all the premium add-ons we mentioned before. 

Tutor LMS

Tutor LMS is a free plugin similar to its bigger competitors but with unique features for building courses. It’s a very secure platform with a growing list of integrations with e-commerce plugins, page builder plugins, and the list goes on. Since it’s an LMS plugin from Themeum, you’ll get strong theme support and a great modern interface. Their drag-and-drop course builder and the front end interface offer a beginner-friendly and esthetically pleasing experience. One of the most unique things about this plugin is that you can sell your courses through your site and give each instructor commission based on their contribution to the sales. 

Key Features

• Intuitive Course Builder. Tutor LMS lets you detailed courses in an easy manner using the user-friendly interface.    
• Smart Course and Lesson Manager. These features will help you set up, control, and manage your instructors, students, and courses with ease. 
• Frontend Student Dashboard. Each student registered in your course will have a frontend dashboard to see their results, progress, notifications, announcements, and other things that will make their online learning experience one of a kind. 
• Teacher Profiles and Panel. This feature will allow you to have control over your instructors’ profiles. For example, you can set up registration forms and approve instructors for a course, review instructors’ profiles, and so on. 
• Multimedia Attachments. With this feature, you can attach your videos and other multimedia courses on Vimeo, YouTube, and other video platforms. You can also set an instructional video at the start of your course.
• Question Patterns. There are over 10 unique question types that this LMS offers which you can add to quizzes to make them more fun and challenging.
• Questions and Answers. This feature enables students to pose questions about the course before enrolling, as well as improve communication between students and instructors. 
• Email Notification. With the automated email Tutor offers you can send notifications to your students and instructors about course enrolments, course competitions, quizzes, and assignment notifications. 

What Makes Tutor LMS a Great Learning Management System?

This relatively new LMS plugin maybe doesn’t offer as many features as its competitors, but the ones it offers are really valuable and probably all you need. It has a great content management system, excellent theme support, easy-to-use interface, and offers a commission-based system for your instructors. So if you have several instructors working on your courses and you want really polished themes offered by Themeum, Tutor LMS might be right for you. The free version is pretty generous, however, if you want the full capacities of the features, then you will have to go with the premium version. We recommend that you go ahead and give it a spin.      

Monetization Options

With the WooCommerce integration, selling your course will be made much easier. The marketing functionalities this e-commerce platform offers are very unique and will give your business a competitive edge. You can also set commission allocation. You can easily set the percentage of earnings distribution and other fees that need to be deducted, while having a detailed report over your finances, with a good graphical representation and advanced filters to choose your options. 

Pricing

There is a free version of Tutor LMS that you can try out. Concerning the paid options, Tutor LMS starts at $149 per year, but you do get a free trial if you’re not sure whether it’s the right LMS for you.

Sensei

Sensei is a WooCommerce extension. Even though it doesn’t need a WooCommerce theme to function properly, it does work perfectly with all WooCommerce themes. Since the integration with the themes is seamless, you won’t need to spend time and money on developers to make it look great. Let’s go over some of its key features.

Key Features:

• Drop-Down Course Builder. With the drop-down course builder, Sensei gives you two options for creating your course – modules and lessons. Modules are similar to sections because each course contains several modules, and each module consists of several lessons. Beware that this isn’t a drag-and-drop course builder, so these two options might be limiting for some users.  
• Quizzes. Sensei doesn’t fall short to its competitors when it comes to creating quizzes and assessments. It offers several quiz options, while quiz grading can be set to automatic or manual. 
• Analytics. With the tools for analytics, this LMS will give you all relevant information on which you can base your scoring from tests, quizzes, presentations, and participation.
• Certificates. Sensei will give you the option to award your students with customized certificates for the completion of a course. 
• Media attachment. You can provide your students with additional learning materials by attaching and uploading the reading material in a separate Course Media or Lesson Media section.  
• Content Drip. Besides the attachments, you can also provide your students with timely material as their course progresses. 
• Course Participation. With this feature, all course participants will have a full preview of how many students participate in the course. 

What Makes Sensei a Great Learning Management System?

Being part of a big e-commerce platform has its own advantages. When you use Sensei, you use all the benefits that WooCommerce offers, like seamless integration with WordPress, easy monetization with WooCommerce, no coding experience, plus you get marketing tools to promote your courses. Sensei also provides automatic as well as a manual grading system and modularization of courses so you can maintain your course hierarchy. 

The only place where this WordPress LMS doesn’t shine is the number of integrated themes offered by WordPress. So if you don’t mind the limited possibilities of the themes, go ahead and give it a go! 

Monetization Options

Because it’s a WooCommerce extension, Sensei gives you great options for selling and monetizing your courses. You can set Sensei to give one-time payment options with several payment getaways. WooCommerce also allows you to add the WooCommerce Membership and WooCommerce Subscription plugins and ease your payment system even more.   

Pricing

You can try Sensei for free to see whether it works for you, but if you want to continue using ti, its price starts from $129 per year with a 30-day money-back guarantee.  

WP Courseware

WP Courseware is the oldest WordPress LMS plugin. It’s another LMS plugin on this list that’s completely suitable for beginners mostly due to its intuitive course builder where you can easily design and set up your course. Unlike Sensei, there is no revenue sharing but a flat fee for participation and all earnings go to you. This method provides you with full control over your course, so if this is what you’re looking for, let’s take a look at the most important features you’ll get.

Features

• Drag-and-Drop Interface. With the simple drag-and-drop interface, you can easily rearrange your course content, move elements around, and lay out your course in minutes. 
• Video-Ready. WP Coursework allows you to host your course videos on fast platforms such as Vimeo, Wistia, or S3 Media Maestro, and of course, YouTube.
• Drip Content. You can gradually release content to your students based on when they sign in to the courses. You can also launch a course before you’ve finished creating all the modules. 
• Notification and Automation. You can send automated notifications and emails to your students, run your courses on autopilot, and include automated quiz grading. 
• Transparency. Once you purchase the annual license fee, you have no additional monthly fees, and you keep everything you earn because you don’t share the revenue. 
• Quizzes and Surveys. This LMS plugin will give you many options for advanced quiz question types. It also gives you timers, retake limits, and surveys. Each course has a grade book with a detailed record of all your students.
• Instructor Role. If you give privileges to your instructors, they can also create, edit, and manage their courses and students. 
• Certificates. This feature allows you to give rewards to your students in the form of a certificate for the completion of a course. The certificates are customizable and can be downloaded in PDF form.   

What Makes WP Courseware a Great Learning Management System?

WP Courseware is best suited for entrepreneurs, corporate training departments, educational institutions, and other organizations. You’ll get all features for one price and you don’t have to purchase additional software only to find out that you need to purchase something extra. And you do keep everything you earn since there is no revenue sharing. There are 271 great features making WP Courseware a complete online course solution. It’s the oldest WordPress LMS plugin that has survived all its competitors, which says a lot! 

Monetization Options

You’ll find it easy to bundle courses, take payments, charge subscriptions, receive payments in installments, or offer courses for free. With WP Coursework, you also don’t have to worry about extra processing fees for credit cards, because you don’t have to wait for 30 days to get paid. All you have to do is connect your WP Coursework to PayPal and Stride and the finances will be directed to your account. Moreover, WP Coursework invests in your reputation by giving you free publicity, increasing your Google rating, and sending offers to students. 

Pricing

There are three pricing plans you can choose from. The “Teacher” plan is a two-site license for $129 per year. The “Professor” plan is a ten-site license for $149, and the “Guru” plan is a 25-site license for $199. There is no free version but you can check the demo version on their site.  

Good LMS

Good LMS has plenty of great features that will help you create and sell the course online with ease. You’ll be able to create beautifully designed courses, pose quizzes and questions to your students, and monetize your teaching efforts. It’s the most affordable plugin on this list, so if you’re looking for a great LMS plugin but you currently don’t have a lot of funds to invest in one, the Good LMS might be the perfect solution.

Key Features

• Subsections with Sub-Quizzes. You can create quizzes and set the percentage of answers the students need to answer to pass the course. You can also set the number of days the students need to wait before they continue with the next section. 
• Course Curriculum. The course curriculum is a nice and simple way to divide and display the lectures so the students and the instructors know the pace of the course and plan their time accordingly.
• New Process Line. This LMS plugin also gives students a course process line by clearly outlining the completed lessons and the lessons on which they are about to embark. 
• Course Certificates. You can create custom certificates and course badges that can be awarded to your students.
• Coupon Code Creator. Share coupons with your audience to attract more students.
• Setting Commissions Rates for Instructors. This LMS plugin will give you the option to set commission rates for your instructors and share the revenue created by your courses.      

What Makes Good LMS a Great Learning Management System?

With Good LMS, students have a clear overview of their lesson plans, the duration of the lessons, and the price of each individual course directly on their landing page. Besides transparency, this LMS plugin allows the teachers and instructors to create and award custom certificates, as well as leave comments and rate the courses. You can set commission rates for your instructors, include non-English content to attract more students, and create unlimited online courses. And you get all this for a very low price, compared to the other LMS plugins on this list.

Monetization Options

Good LMS offers a flexible and efficient payment management system. Students can pay via PayPal, Stripe, Paymill, or Authorized.net directly from the site or make a bank transfer and provide you with the proof of payment. You can also deliver coupons with special offers to attract new students and offer your current students an incentive to stay and engage with the course further.    

Pricing

The plugin can be purchased for a one-time fee of $32. The price includes regular updates and 6 months of support from a developer on their team. The support can be extended to 12 months for an extra fee of $10.13.

Which WordPress LMS Plugin is Right For You?

With so many LMS plugins for WordPress, it’s quite difficult to say which one is the best. However, if you fully understand the scope of your needs and have a set budget, it will be easier to make a choice. 

We hope that this article helped you in your quest for the best WordPress LMS plugins and you’ll choose the the right course builder for your needs.  You can also check out our reviews for the fastest WordPress themes as well as the best WordPress contact form plugins.