We have tested and ranked the 11 best WordPress LMS plugins

With a WordPress Learning Management System (LMS) plugin, you can create a course or a training program on your website. It’s an easy way to make money, inexpensive to operate, and easy to manage.

We have tested over a dozen plugins for creating online courses and will share the 11 best WordPress LMS plugins available on the market!

Why WordPress LMS plugins are great

With a WordPress LMS plugin, you can create a course or training program on your website. It can be open and free for everyone, or you can charge for them. You can use it to complement a physical training program or as an online course. Your course can help participants learn about a new hobby or educate themselves in their jobs. The possibilities are endless!

Charge for premium courses

All the WordPress LMS plugins we’ve tested offer some way to charge for premium courses. It can either be through an integrated payment system or a separate webshop such as WooCommerce. Some plugins let you create a marketplace with various courses. You can set the price yourself; besides the transaction cost, it costs nothing to charge for a premium course. When you own your course website, you keep the money.

Many plugins allow you to mix free and paid courses. This way, you can offer a limited free course and make it a part of your marketing and a way for you to generate traffic to your website.

Communicate with course participants

Some LMS plugins can add chat features to allow course participants to communicate with you and each other. This way, they can ask questions, get answers, and work together on group tasks. A chat can give you a selling point many large course platforms lack. Chats can be especially good if you want to arrange courses at specific times instead of having open enrolment.

Create and schedule sections

When you create your course, you can divide it into sections. This can help course participants get a clear structure of the course. To facilitate the pace of your course, you can schedule sections. This way, you can release one lecture per week and associated homework or quizzes.

Assignments, quizzes, and tests

You can, of course, create lectures and presentations of various kinds. As part of your course, you can give participants homework and test their knowledge with quizzes and tests. You can provide automated feedback and let participants retake quizzes as learning tools. You can also be stricter and use quizzes as exams. With some plugins, you can have essay questions or assignments that you grade manually.

Diplomas, grades, and certificates

When your course participants have completed a course, you can create certificates to be downloaded and shared. You can often customise the design and text of the certificate to give it a custom and professional look. You can create customised certificates with some plugins if you want to include a grade.

Best WordPress LMS plugin for your website

To help you find a good LMS plugin, we have tested all the 15+ leading plugins on the market, chosen our 11 favourites, and ranked them. For each test, we evaluated how easy it is to get started, how courses can be designed and scheduled, how quizzes can be designed, and what features are available. We have reviewed prices and terms and compiled everything in a list.

Our ranking is not necessarily the same as yours. Which plugin is best for you can depend on what features you need, how your website works, and how much you are willing to pay. We have tried to include as many important details as possible to make your choice easy. If you have any questions, you can scroll to the end of this article, where we clarify our opinions further.

Status:
🟢 Yes, available. 
🟡 Available for an extra cost. 
🟠 Available from a third party. 
🔴 No, not available. 

1. LearnDash

Free version: 🔴 
Payment model: Yearly subscription 
Annual price, approx. (2024): £150  

Features
🟢 Scheduled content 
🟢 Built-in sales system
🟢 Assignments 
🟡 Grading 
🟢 Course reviews 
🟢 Support for multiple instructors 
🟠 Chat feature 

Advantages
+ Easy to make good quizzes 
+ Many great third-party integrations 
+ Neat presentation for course participants 

Disadvantages
– Lacks a free version or trial period 

Summary
LearnDash is a feature packed LMS plugin that is stylish, easy to use, and flexible. It’s our favourite because it provides course participants and instructors a great user experience. When we tested it, we particularly appreciated how easy it is to create good quizzes with LearnDash. If you want to try it yourself, you can do so with a demo on LearnDash’s website. It’s not possible to test on your website, but you can at least get your money back within 30 days if you’re not satisfied.

2. Masteriyo

Free version: 🟢 
Payment model: Annual subscription or one-time fee 
Annual price, approx. (2024): £60 
One-time cost, approx. (2024): £340 

Features
🟢 Scheduled content 
🟢 Built-in sales system
🟢 Assignments 
🟢 Grading 
🟢 Course reviews 
🟢 Support for multiple instructors 
🔴 Chat feature  

Advantages
+ More affordable than other premium plugins 
+ Good drag-and-drop feature for course design 

Disadvantages
– Heavy plugin, may load slowly 

Summary
Masteriyo is one of the newest LMS plugins we’ve tested – launched in 2021. It still does have many features and it has established itself as one of the best options on the market. We like how easy it is to create a unique design for each course, and we appreciate that Masteriyo is a relatively cheap option. However, when we tested it, we discovered that it can be a bit slow.

3. MasterStudy LMS

Free version: 🟢 
Payment model: Annual subscription or one-time fee 
Annual price, approx. (2024): £70 
One-time fee, approx. (2024): £150 

Features
🟢 Scheduled content 
🟢 Built-in sales system
🟢 Assignments 
🟢 Grading 
🟢 Course reviews 
🟢 Support for multiple instructors 
🟠 Chat feature 

Advantages
+ Good quickstart guide 
+ Sleek admin panel 
+ Good free version 

Disadvantages
– Cannot be used with WordPress Block editor 

Summary
MasterStudy LMS is a solid LMS plugin that can be a good start for those who have never built a website before and want to experiment. We particularly appreciate the free version of MasterStudy LMS, which is unusually feature-rich, making it easy for you to start building a course without paying. If you decide to stop your project, you won’t lose anything. The paid version is feature-rich, stylish, and easy to use.

4. Tutor LMS

Free version: 🟢 
Payment model: Annual subscription or one-time fee 
Annual price, approx. (2024): £150 
One-time fee, approx. (2024): £380 

Features
🟢 Scheduled content 
🔴 Built-in sales system
🟢 Assignments 
🟢 Grading 
🟢 Course reviews 
🟢 Support for multiple instructors 
🟠 Chat feature 

Advantages
+ Good free version 
+ Design is easy to customize 
+ Great for video courses 

Disadvantages
– Requires plugin for payments, such as WooCommerce 

Summary
Tutor LMS is a premium plugin that we like because it’s easy to customise and create a unique course website. It’s also easy to add videos, and we like how we can send notifications to course participants, both manually and automatically.

5. Thrive Apprentice

Free version: 🔴 
Payment model: Annual subscription 
Annual price, approx. (2024): £90 

Features
🟢 Scheduled content 
🟢 Built-in sales system
🟢 Assignments 
🟢 Grading 
🟢 Course reviews 
🟢 Support for multiple instructors 
🟠 Chat feature  

Advantages
+ Includes great marketing tools 
+ Good scheduling of course material 

Disadvantages
– Difficult to try before you buy 

Summary
Thrive Apprentice is a LMS plugin built by marketers. It includes many tools for marketing courses and finding new participants. Some reviews of Thrive Apprentice claim that it’s unsuitable for academically oriented courses, but we disagree. There are plenty of tools for homework, grading, and the like. The biggest issue with Thrive Apprentice is that it’s difficult to try before you buy. However, it offers a refund within 30 days if you’re unsatisfied.

6. Academy LMS

Free version: 🟢 
Payment model: Yearly subscription or one-time cost 
Annual price, approximately (2024): £90 
One-time price, approximately (2024): £275  

Features

🟢 Scheduled content 
🔴 Built-in sales system 
🟢 Assignments 
🔴 Grading 
🟢 Course reviews 
🟢 Support for multiple instructors 
🔴 Chat function 

Advantages
+ High performance
+ Good security features

Disadvantages
– Requires plugin for payments, such as WooCommerce

Summary
Academy LMS is a good course plugin with a few odd shortcomings. For example, we couldn’t find a good way to grade beyond the automatic grading of quizzes. If you don’t need grading, that’s not a problem, and in that case, you can enjoy a feature-rich plugin, which is also one of the fastest we’ve tested.

7. Lifter LMS

Free version: 🟢 
Payment model: Yearly subscription 
Annual price, approximately (2024): £110 

Features

🟢 Scheduled content 
🟢 Built-in sales system 
🟡 Assignments 
🟡 Grading 
🟢 Course reviews 
🟢 Support for multiple instructors 
🟠 Chat function 

Advantages
+ Gamification features
+ Flexible payment options for courses

Disadvantages
– Many features are only available for an additional cost

Summary
Lifter LMS is a good plugin that makes it easy to create engaging courses that we believe can garner high engagement. However, a strange pricing model leaves out many basic features from even the paid version. To get full access to all features, you must pay around £575 per year, which is several times more expensive than competitors.

8. Namaste! LMS

Free version: 🟢 
Payment model: One-time cost with yearly fee 
One-time price, approximately (2024): £55, with 1 year of updates 
Yearly fee, approximately (2024): £15, year 2+ 

Features:
🔴 Scheduled content 
🟢 Built-in sales system 
🟢 Assignments 
🟢 Grading 
🟢 Course reviews 
🔴 Support for multiple instructors 
🔴 Chat function 

Advantages
+ Low price
+ Support for paid courses in the free plugin

Disadvantages
– Old design can be boring to some

Summary
Namaste! LMS is one of the oldest course plugins we’ve tested. It has great user reviews, and we like it as well. We especially appreciated its high performance and simple functionality. If you want to create a course website without fancy features, Namaste! LMS could be a good choice. Plus, it’s very cheap!

9. LearnPress

Free version: 🟢 
Payment model: One-time cost with yearly fee 
One-time price, approximately (2024): £225, with 1 year of updates 
Yearly fee, approximately (2024): £160, year 2+ 

Features
🟢 Scheduled content 
🟢 Built-in sales system 
🟢 Assignments 
🟢 Grading 
🟢 Course reviews 
🟢 Support for multiple instructors 
🟠 Chat function 

Advantages
+ Turns website into mobile app for extra fee

Disadvantages
– Older design
– Many technical issues, according to user reviews.

Summary
LearnPress is perhaps the most feature-rich plugin we’ve tested. It even offers integration with a system that allows you to sell your course as an app for Android or iPhone. On the other hand, it seems too feature-rich for its good. Many user reviews are pointing out that some features don’t work correctly. That said, we never encountered any major technical issues in our test.

10. Sensei

Free version: 🟢 
Payment model: Monthly or yearly subscription 
Monthly price, approximately (2024): £11 
Annual price, approximately (2024): £135 

Features:
🟢 Scheduled content 
🔴 Built-in sales system 
🟢 Assignments 
🟢 Grading 
🟢 Course reviews 
🟢 Support for multiple instructors 
🔴 Chat function 

Advantages
+ Modern design

Disadvantages
– Difficult to customise design
– Requires WooCommerce

Summary
Sensei is a streamlined and simple course plugin for WordPress, developed by a team from WooCommerce and the company behind WordPress.com, Automattic. It’s stripped-down and has relatively few features. It also has a sleek and modern design, but it’s difficult to customise to make it feel branded.

11. GoodLMS

Free version: 🔴 
Payment model: One-time cost 
One-time price, approximately (2024): £25, with 6 months of updates

Features:
🔴 Scheduled content 
🟢 Built-in sales system 
🟢 Assignments 
🟢 Grading 
🟢 Course reviews 
🔴 Support for multiple instructors 
🔴 Chat function 

Advantages
+ Low price
+ Simple and stripped-down

Disadvantages
– Lacks scheduled course content
– Outdated design

Summary
GoodLMS is the cheapest course plugin on this list – and the least advanced. It provides access to basic features for running a simple online course, and it’s a notch better than most free alternatives. The biggest drawback is the lack of scheduling for course content.

Questions and answers

We have compiled questions and answers about our test and LMS plugins in general that we hope can help you understand how you can proceed.

What do the features mean?

• Scheduled content: We include all functionality that allows you to automatically schedule course content for participants. These features vary a lot in how they work. You can search for drip if you want to read more about a plugin’s scheduling features.
• Built-in sales system: With many plugins, it’s possible to sell courses with built-in sales systems. We do not consider linking users to a PayPal page a built-in sales system. Plugins that lack built-in sales systems often require integration with a webshop such as WooCommerce. This isn’t necessarily bad but it might require more work on your part.
• Assignments: With homework, you can create assignments for your course participants. It should be possible to upload assignments within a specified time.
• Grading: An automated quiz may grade a participant’s performance, but as an instructor, you might want to set manual grades on specific sections or a student’s overall performance. This feature enables manual grading.
• Course Reviews: With course reviews, your course participants can leave reviews of your course, which can help you improve it. You can also use course reviews as social proof.
• Support for multiple instructors: With this feature, you can have multiple lecturers or course leaders for the same course or different leaders for different courses on the same website.
• Chat function: With a chat function, course participants can chat with each other or with you. Exact functionality can vary between plugins, and all plugins require software from a third party to function.

Why are LMS plugins so expensive?

Many LMS plugins offer basic functionality without cost, but all charge for full access to all advanced features. There are several good reasons for this, the main reason being that LMS plugins are complex and expensive to develop.

That said, LMS plugins are still expensive compared to other premium WordPress plugins. An explanation for this is that the market for LMS plugins is significantly smaller than for, for example, SEO plugins. For a development team to remain financially viable, each license must cost more.

Some plugins offer purchases in the form of one-time fees. This is often a relatively high cost since it is intended to support several years of development, as no WordPress plugin is ever fully developed. WordPress and PHP, with which WordPress and plugins are built, are constantly evolving and require work from plugin developers.

Do I need to pay for updates?

Although many plugins make updates seem like something you can opt out of, the truth is that you always need to pay for updates. WordPress is a powerful and popular platform often exposed to serious security threats. In addition to updates that include new functionality, it is critical that you update your plugins to keep you and your course participants’ personal information safe.

It can be time-consuming to ensure that all plugins are always updated. You can enable automatic updates, but the risk is that something goes wrong and affects your course participants. One solution to this is Managed WordPress from us at one.com. With Managed WordPress, we update all add-ons for you and perform visual checks before and after to ensure your website looks as it should.

Start your course website with WordPress

We hope you have found a WordPress LMS plugin that suits you. If you don’t already have a website, just get started. It’s easy!

1. Get a domain
2. Get WordPress hosting
3. Install your plugin

If you’re a beginner and need help getting started, we’ve created a beginner’s guide to WordPress.