LearnDash is the go-to course management platform for many creators and educators. But as you probably already know, it only runs on WordPress websites.
So, what if you need a more feature-rich WordPress course plugin?
Or maybe, you’re looking for a cloud-hosted course platform that requires no WordPress skills?
And if your website runs on a different platform, could there be better options that integrate seamlessly with it?
After spending dozens of hours researching these questions, we’ve put together our findings in this article. Whatever you’re looking for, our curated list of the best LearnDash alternatives has something for you.
Let’s take a look.
Tl;Dr
Before we get into an in-depth breakdown of the top 10 LearnDash alternatives, here’s a summary of how they compare and stack up against each other.
| Best for | Top Features | Pricing plans | Transaction fees? |
| Digital solopreneurs who want the best value for money |
| No Free plan, but there’s a free 14-day trial. Paid plans start at $49/month for unlimited courses and students | No | |
| Creators looking to validate demand for their digital products |
| Free plan. Paid plans start at $59/month plus transaction fees | Yes | |
| Businesses that want an all-in-one platform to run their online business |
| No free plan. Paid plans start at $149/month | No | |
| Educators looking to create a course marketplace on WordPress |
| Free plan available. You can only purchase annual licenses starting at $199/year | No | |
| Squarespace website owners |
| Free for Squarespace users. However, you’ll pay transactions fees (up to 9%) based on your subscription tier | Yes | |
| Wix website owners |
| Free for Wix users on the Core website hosting plan | No | |
| Coaches looking to build an engaged community |
| No free plan, only a free 14-day trial. The Pro plan, $99/month plus transaction fees, unlocks courses and live events | Yes | |
| Designing optimized sales and checkout pages |
| Offers a one-time fee starting at $495 | No | |
| Newbie creators who want to drive sales via a global marketplace |
| Free to get started. Charges a percentage on each sale | Yes | |
| Earning a side income from superfans |
| Free to get started. But charges commissions on membership earnings and digital product sales | Yes |
Skip ahead:
- What is LearnDash?
- Why look for a LearnDash alternative?
- The best LearnDash alternatives 2024
- What next?
- LearnDash alternatives FAQ
What is LearnDash?
LearnDash is a learning management system (LMS) plugin for WordPress websites. It provides WordPress users with course creation and monetization functionality right inside their WordPress dashboard.
This way, course creators can create unlimited courses, add lessons to these courses, and grant access to them by accepting one-time or recurring fees via PayPal, Stripe, RazorPay, 2Checkout, or WooCommerce.
Top LearnDash features:
- Add quizzes and assignments to course lessons
- Reward students with certificates on course completion
- Make course content available immediately after enrolment or drip course content (aka release them over a period of time)
LearnDash pricing:
LearnDash doesn’t have a free plan or trial. If you’ve already got an existing WordPress website, then getting the LearnDash LMS plugin costs $199/year.
But if you want to get the LeanDash LMS plugin plus website hosting plus WordPress CMS, then you’ll have to get LearnDash Cloud, which costs $25/month.
Whichever route you use, LearnDash doesn’t take a cut on your course revenue.
Why look for a LearnDash alternative?
As we’ve seen, LearnDash has some really great features. However, depending on your needs, it might not be enough to justify the cons. Let’s take a look at what some of these are:
Steep learning curve
If you’re barely just getting a hang of WordPress, setting up LearnDash could feel very overwhelming. You’ll feel lost in the clunky backend, struggling to visualize how your course will appear on the frontend.
On top of that, you could spend hours fine-tuning the aesthetics and functionality of your course—tweaking WordPress theme settings, figuring out any extra plugins you might need, and how they’ll all work together with LearnDash.
Gets expensive really quick
LearnDash features like course ratings and reviews, course analytics, and multi-instructor management are only available as paid add-ons with a yearly license.
Plus, you can only manage courses with LearnDash. If you decide to sell digital downloads, communities, and other digital products in the future, you’ll have to search outside of LearnDash for other paid plugins to get the job done.
Could slow down your website
Uploading video content to your LearnDash courses slows down your page loading speed, contributing to a poor learning experience.
Instead, you’ll have to host them on a separate platform like YouTube. Or, you might have to purchase a subscription from video platforms like Vimeo and Loom to host them. Then, you can embed these videos into your courses.
The best LearnDash alternatives 2024
Thinkific is a user-friendly, cloud-hosted LMS solution that lets you build and monetize online courses. Add lessons to courses and build each lesson with content like text, video, audio, downloadable files, presentation, and live classes (via Zoom).
Like LearnDash, it’s got advanced features like enabling course and lesson prerequisites, comments, drip content, and certificates. However, Thinkific is much easier to set up and allows you to natively host your video content (and other large files) without slowing down page loading speed.
Top Thinkific features:
- Add a free course preview for potential students
- Accept one-time payment, monthly installments, or recurring fees
- Get a branded mobile app with offline mode for your courses (paid add-on)
- Add quizzes, assignments, exams, and surveys to your lessons for assessment and feedback
Thinkific pricing:
Thinkific has a 4-tier pricing plan that charges 0% transaction fees and unlocks unlimited courses and students. The Basic and Start plans which cost $49/month and $99/month covers the needs of most creators and small business owners.
Larger institutions might need the Grow and Expand plans to unlock higher co-instructor, communities, and admin account limits. They cost $199/month and $499/month respectively.
Unlike LearnDash, each of these plans pack more value with additional tools like video and content hosting, community spaces, digital downloads, analytics, and affiliate management. This way, you don’t have to spend money on additional tools.
Teachable is one Learndash alternative that appears very similar to Thinkific. They both let you offer courses, digital downloads, and coaching services. They also have an intuitive course builder for designing course lessons. However, Teachable keeps it super basic with the assessment types—you can only add quizzes but no assignments and surveys.
Besides that, Teachable has a generous free plan if you want to sell a course with no upfront investment. This is great if you’re new to course creation and looking to validate the demand for it. However, as you make more sales on the platform, the transaction fees on the free and starter plans add up real fast.
Top Teachable features:
- Use AI to generate quiz questions
- Add order bumps and testimonials to your checkout page
- Allow automatic affiliate payouts with BackOffice (paid add-on)
Teachable pricing:
Teachable has a Free plan that lets you publish one course, one coaching, and one download product. But for every sale you make, Teachable takes a “$1 + 10% of sale” cut. The Basic plan costs $59/month with a 5% transaction fee on all sales.
If you want to publish more than five courses, five coaching products, five downloads, and get access to the affiliate management tool, you’ll need the Pro or Pro+ plan. These plans cost $159/month and $249/month with 0% transaction fees.
Kajabi is a jack of all trades. Besides letting you offer course, coaching, community, and podcast products, it’s got more extensive marketing tools. For example, you can host your website on Kajabi and publish blog posts. There’s also the built-in email marketing tool for collecting new email subscribers and running automated email sequences.
These features are great if you want to run your little online empire from one dashboard. However, this raises Kajabi’s learning curve and pricing plans. And if you’ve already got specialized platforms that handle website hosting and email marketing better than Kajabi, you’ll end up paying more for tools you’ll never use.
Top Kajabi features:
- Save your new email designs as templates
- Track website visits, email subscriptions, and daily revenue
- Set up automated sales funnels to promote upcoming events and product launches
Kajabi pricing:
Kajabi doesn’t have a free plan, only a free 14-day trial. It has five pricing tiers with 0% transaction fees.
The Kickstarter and Basic plans cost $69/month and $149/month. And to access the affiliate program tool and 24/7 customer support, you’ll have to upgrade to the Growth and Pro plans which cost $199/month and $399/month. Finally, there’s the Enterprise plan with custom pricing.
TutorLMS and LearnDash are both WordPress LMS plugins for managing and selling online courses as single products or as a bundle. They also let you enable course prerequisites, drip content, certificates, and course analytics.
However, unlike LearnDash, TutorLMS comes with all these features out of the box when you purchase a paid plan. TutorLMS also stands out with its marketplace tools that let you create a Udemy-like marketplace with other instructors. These tools include instructor dashboards for uploading courses and revenue sharing on course sales.
Top TutorLMS features:
- Add quizzes and assignments to lessons
- Create quizzes with any of 10 question types
- Add an intro video to courses for prospective students
TutorLMS pricing:
TutorLMS has a free plan for hosting and selling courses, with 0% transaction fees. However, if you want to unlock all course management features, you need a paid plan. The Individual, Business, and Agency plans cost $199/year, $399/year, and $799/year for use of the plugin on 1 site, 10 sites, and unlimited sites respectively.
Just like LearnDash is built to run on WordPress websites, Squarespace’s Course tool only runs on Squarespace websites. You can get started with any of the ready-made course templates and customize course lessons with text, image, audio, video, and downloadable content.
However, you can’t add quizzes and assignments to your lessons, enable lesson comments, or award certificates on completion. Plus, you can’t offer community and coaching products to students. But if you already own a Squarespace website and these limitations aren’t an issue, then this is the perfect tool for you.
Top Squarespace features:
- No Squarespace branding in courses
- Specify start and end date for course signups
- Accept one-time or subscription fees for a single course or bundle
Squarespace pricing:
Squarespace’s Course tool lets you create unlimited courses and is available to all Squarespace website owners for free. However, you only have access to 30 minutes of video storage and you’ll pay a 9% transaction fee on each sale. To change these limits, you have to purchase an add-on.
The Starter add-on costs $12/month for 10 hours of video storage and 7% transaction fees. The Core add-on costs $37/month for 50 hours of video storage and 3% transaction fees. The Professional add-on costs $89/month for unlimited video storage and 0% transaction fees.
Wix’s Online Programs app adds course functionality to Wix websites. This allows you to host your course content, accept one-time or subscription fees to grant access, and reward certificates when students complete the course.
While the app is limited to courses, you can extend its functionality by connecting with other Wix apps like Bookings for coaching, Events for live sessions, and Groups for communities. Figuring out how all of these work together can be confusing at first. But if you’re already a Wix user on a tight budget, it might be worth the hassle.
Top Wix features:
- Chat with students directly via private messages
- Add quizzes to courses and set a passing grade
- Create and manage course coupons
Wix pricing:
The Wix Online Programs app is free to use, with 0% transaction fees. It comes with Wix’s website hosting plans, specifically the Core plan (which costs $29/month) or higher.
Circle is built for running and managing communities. Think of it like Slack, but instead of each channel being for chats only, it could be for anything—posts, chats, live events, courses, member profiles, and image galleries.
That said, because Circle is focused on community, its course feature is pretty basic. It’s perfect if you just want to let members access courses and go through them at their own pace. But if you want quiz, assignment, and certificate tools, you won’t get them on Circle.
Top Circle features:
- Create private and public community spaces
- Host one-time or recurring live events
- Enable comments inside courses
Circle pricing:
Circle has no free plan but you get a free 14-day trial. The Basic plan costs $49/month plus 4% transaction fees on each sale. To unlock all core features including courses and live streams, you’ll need the Professional plan, which costs $99/month plus 2% transaction fees.
The Business and Enterprise plans give access to perks like API access and priority support. They cost $219/month plus 1% transaction fee and $399/month plus 0.5% transaction fees.
Note that hosting live events and saving event recordings cost an extra $75/month or more.
ThriveCart launched in 2016 as a checkout pages platform for physical and digital products. Today, ThriveCart is still one of the best checkout platforms with unique features like order bumps, one-click upsells and downsells, and coupon management.
In 2021, Thrivecart introduced “Thrivecart Learn” for selling courses from your dashboard. It features an intuitive drag-and-drop course builder but it only covers basic features. For example, you can’t upload videos to courses—you’ll have to embed videos hosted on external platforms.It also lacks LMS features like live classes, quizzes, and lesson comments.
If you want to sell a few courses and digital downloads, ThriveCart might be for you. But if you run a bigger business that offers multiple courses alongside an active community, you’re better off integrating ThriveCart with Thinkific or Circle.
Top ThriveCart features:
- A/B test checkout pages
- Send abandoned cart emails
- Connect with Stripe, PayPal, and Authorize.net, Google Pay, and Apple Pay to accept payments
ThriveCart pricing:
ThriveCart is currently selling at a one-time fee of $495. And if you want to access Pro features like the affiliate center and sales tax reports, it’ll cost an additional $195. Plus, access to ThriveCart Learn+ also costs an additional $195, and it comes with creating course bundles, granting team access, and connecting a custom domain.
Udemy is one of the most popular online course platforms on the market…and it’s for good reason. It’s super easy to use and you can get started without spending a dime. When you publish a course, it’s added to Udemy’s marketplace, which has millions of learners always looking out for new courses.
Access to such great features comes with some limitations. You can’t exceed a certain price point with your courses, collect student emails for future promotions, and promote affiliate links in your courses. Regardless, Udemy is a great option if you’re a newbie course creator looking to build a side income with little to no upfront investment and minimal self-promotion.
Top Udemy features:
- Offer certificates to students
- Access courses via desktop or mobile
- Communicate with students via the Q&A section
Udemy Pricing:
Udemy is completely free to use. However, you’ll pay commissions on your course sales. For sales that come through your own promotion, Udemy takes a 3% cut and for others coming through Udemy’s marketplace, Udemy takes a 63% cut.
You may not have the time and resources to build an online course. But if you’ve got an existing audience on YouTube or other socials, Patreon lets you get their financial support at different subscription tiers.
For example, if you’re a YouTuber, you can set up a two-tier subscription plan, with Tier 1 (let’s say costs $3/month) unlocking a shoutout in your YouTube videos and Tier 2 ($7/month) unlocking behind-the-scenes video content. Besides sharing exclusive text, audio, and video content with your community, you can also host live chats, livestreams, digital downloads, and merch.
Patreon is a great way to start building a side income from your superfans’ support while you get ready to launch your own courses.
Top Patreon Features:
- Communicate with your community via chat or email
- Accept payments via credit/debit card, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Venmo
- Welcome new community members with a message and intro video
Patreon Pricing:
Patreon’s Pro and Premium plans let you access all features for free but charge 8% and 12% of your membership earnings respectively. Most users will be fine with the Pro plan but the Premium plan is for businesses who want perks like a dedicated partner manager and team member accounts.
If you decide to sell digital products on the platform, you’ll be charged an additional 5% on each sale.
What next?
Choosing the right platform for your course and other digital products! If you’re still unsure, take some time to reflect on your priorities and goals. These will help you decide which of these options is best suited for you.
And if choosing a self-hosted, user-friendly, and affordable LearnDash alternative is a top priority, Thinkific is a great place to start.
It’s perfect for both beginner and experienced creators and solopreneurs who want to monetize their course, coaching, community, and digital download offerings. Also, the 0% transaction fees across all plans make it easy to scale your income as your products’ popularity grow.
Sign up for Thinkific’s free 14-day trial today! No credit card required.
LearnDash alternatives FAQ
Here are the answers to some common questions about LearnDash alternatives.
Does LearnDash have a free version?
No. LearnDash doesn’t have a free version or free trial. They only let you pay an annual license, starting at $199/year to unlock all features for 1 WordPress website.
What is the difference between LearnDash and Thinkific?
While LearnDash and Thinkific let you sell courses, they are best for different creator needs.
Creators who want to stick with building a course right inside WordPress will be happy to go with LearnDash. Meanwhile, creators looking to eliminate the stress of managing WordPress courses with a simple, affordable, and cloud-hosted solution would love Thinkific. Check out LearnDash vs Thinkific to learn more about their similarities and differences.
