Are you deciding between MemberPress Courses and LearnDash for your online course platform? Both are well-known WordPress LMS plugins, but they cater to different types of course creators.
The ideal learning management system not only facilitates your course but also influences how students learn and how you manage everything from content delivery and payment processing to student engagement and growth.
To assist you in making an informed decision from the beginning, we conducted hands-on testing of both tools while developing our own video membership site.
In this guide, we will explore the main differences, advantages and disadvantages, and the unique strengths of each plugin. This will enable you to choose the one that aligns best with your objectives and workflow. 🙌
Quick Overview: MemberPress Courses vs. LearnDash
Looking for a quick summary? Here’s a side-by-side comparison of how the two plugins perform across various categories:
| MemberPress Courses | LearnDash | |
| Ranking | 🥇 | 🥈 |
| Best for | Robust course creation features with subscription options and content protection. | Beginners seeking a straightforward course-building experience with user-friendly integrations and tools. |
| Ease of Use | User-friendly interface, requires more setup for membership management. | Intuitive AI course builder with a drag-and-drop interface. |
| eLearning Features | Engaging quizzes, assignments, gradebook functionality, and an AI-driven quiz builder. | Engaging quizzes, assignments, personalized learning paths, and a focus mode for enhanced learning. |
| Customization Options | Personalized notifications and course expiration settings. | Content duplication, certification options, achievement badges, and theme compatibility. |
| Additional Features & Integrations | Group memberships, payment options including PayPal and Stripe, automation tools like Uncanny Automator and Zapier, WooCommerce integration, and email marketing services like AWeber and GetResponse. | Payment options including PayPal, Stripe, Razorpay, Easy Digital Downloads, and theme support with Kadence and Astra. |
| Pricing plans | Starting at $179.50 per year. | Starting at $199 per year for a single site license. |
A Comprehensive Overview of MemberPress Courses vs. LearnDash
When it comes to developing and selling online courses, MemberPress Courses and LearnDash are among the leading WordPress Learning Management System (LMS) plugins on the market.
Both provide robust tools for creating professional courses, but they serve different purposes.
MemberPress Coursesis ideal for users seeking a simple and intuitive LMS experience. It features a course builder that utilizes the WordPress block editor, enabling you to create lessons and topics with familiar tools.
The integrated virtual classroom offers a distraction-free environment and is compatible with any WordPress theme, saving you time on design and enhancing course completion rates.
Additionally, it provides advanced membership capabilities. For instance, you can create flexible pricing options, schedule lesson releases with drip content, and seamlessly integrate with leading email marketing platforms. These functionalities enable you to effectively sell and manage your courses.
Conversely, LearnDash is recognized for its flexibility and user-friendly features. Its intuitive drag-and-drop course builder allows you to easily create unlimited lessons, quizzes, and categories.
LearnDash also includes built-in AI tools that facilitate the generation of course outlines and quizzes in just a few clicks. With features like drip content scheduling and engagement tools, LearnDash is crafted for interactive learning.
In the upcoming sections, we will examine MemberPress Courses and LearnDash in detail to assist you in selecting the ideal plugin for your course website. Here’s a brief overview of the topics we will discuss:
- User-Friendliness
- eLearning Features
- Course Customization Options
- Additional Features and Integrations
- Pricing Options
- MemberPress Courses vs. LearnDash: Which Plugin Is Superior?
- Frequently Asked Questions About MemberPress Courses and LearnDash
- Further Reading: WordPress Learning Management Systems
Let’s compare the features of these two WordPress LMS plugins to determine which one is the best fit for your online project.
User-Friendliness
A user-friendly LMS plugin allows you to create and customize online courses without needing any coding skills. Let’s examine how the user-friendliness of these two WordPress LMS plugins stacks up.
LearnDash – User-Friendliness
LearnDash simplifies the process of setting up and creating online courses. Once you install and activate the plugin, an onboarding wizard guides you through each step.
It gathers your information, configures group settings, and assists you in integrating a payment gateway such as Stripe or your WooCommerce store.
During our testing, we found one of its standout features to be the AI course builder.
This tool utilizes OpenAI to generate a course outline for you. Simply input some basic details about your course, and the AI will produce an outline complete with lesson titles.
You can then modify these titles and add your own lesson content.
If you prefer a more hands-on method, you can utilize LearnDash’s drag-and-drop course builder.
This intuitive builder allows you to create lessons, sections, and headings effortlessly, without any coding skills required. It’s ideal for anyone looking to develop courses quickly and efficiently.
Along with text-based content, you can enhance your lessons with multimedia using the drag-and-drop builder. You can easily upload videos, images, audio files, HTML5 content, and more.
We believe this feature makes it easy to create engaging and interactive content that captivates your students.
MemberPress Courses – User-Friendly Experience
The MemberPress Courses add-on utilizes the WordPress block editor, making it a familiar environment for those already experienced with WordPress.
After clicking the ‘Add new course’ button, you’ll be directed to the ‘Course Page’ tab in the course builder, where you can input key information such as the course topic, title, and description.
You also have the option to add course categories and tags, as well as set a featured image to give your course a more professional appearance.
The ‘Curriculum’ tab in the course builder is where you can create course sections, which act as modules for your course.
Within each section, you can add as many lessons as you wish by entering a title and editing the lesson content as necessary.
The next step involves adding the learning materials.
You can upload downloadable files and add links to your educational materials in the ‘Resources’ tab. MemberPress Courses also lets you create your text-based content directly within the text area.
Next, you can customize the presentation and organization of your course in the ‘Settings’ tab. Here, you can:
- Set a title for each lesson
- Include the course in your course listings
- Create a sales page to attract potential students
- Require users to complete previous lessons or quizzes before advancing
- Display an accordion layout on the course page or sidebar
- Enable automated content dripping to release lessons gradually over time
In the final step, you can choose to enable certificates for course completion.
Simply toggle the switch in the ‘Certificates’ tab and follow the customization options step by step.
Once all lessons and resources are added, click the ‘Publish’ button to make your course available to students.
Winner – LearnDash
LearnDash is the more user-friendly option for beginners, thanks to its straightforward setup process and helpful onboarding wizard. The Course AI builder and drag-and-drop course builder make course creation quick and intuitive.
MemberPress Courses utilizes the user-friendly WordPress block editor, but beginners may find the initial setup somewhat challenging. Additionally, it lacks a live preview feature to visualize the course layout.
eLearning Features
eLearning tools streamline the course creation process, allowing you to design and customize your course easily, even without technical expertise.
Let’s compare the eLearning features of LearnDash and MemberPress Courses.
LearnDash – eLearning Features
LearnDash enables you to create engaging quizzes with various question formats, such as multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, and rating questions. This variety keeps your quizzes dynamic and interesting.
We appreciate the ability to provide hints to learners and offer tailored feedback based on their responses, fostering a more supportive and personalized educational experience.
🧑💻Expert Tip:To save time, consider using LearnDash’s AI Quiz Builder, which automatically generates quiz questions based on your course material. Afterward, you can adjust the questions to ensure they align perfectly with your course objectives.
LearnDash provides comprehensive control over student interactions with quizzes. You can establish time limits, restrict the number of attempts, and even randomize questions to ensure a fair assessment.
Quizzes are just one method to evaluate learners. You can also require students to submit assignments for review.
With LearnDash, you can incorporate assignments into lessons or topics, and set restrictions on file types or maximum file sizes. Upon submission, you can decide whether to approve assignments automatically or manually.
To ensure students are putting forth their best effort, you can hold them back from progressing until you have reviewed their submissions.
Additionally, LearnDash featuresAdaptive Learning Paths. This allows you to implement a challenge exam at the beginning of a course to assess the learner’s readiness. If they succeed, they can advance to more complex content.
LearnDash also includes a Focus Mode that enhances the learning experience. This mode eliminates distractions such as sidebars and navigation menus, allowing learners to fully concentrate on the course material.
You can create a custom menu that appears only when the student hovers over their profile picture, providing easy access to essential pages without causing distractions.
MemberPress Courses – Features for eLearning Success
MemberPress Courses is an excellent solution for creating and selling courses on your WordPress website, whether you’re launching a single course or developing a comprehensive online school.
We appreciate how the virtual classroom feature automatically styles your course, ensuring it looks professional and integrates seamlessly with your WordPress eLearning theme.
Additionally, the classroom is designed to minimize distractions, helping students stay focused and increasing course completion rates.
We also value the Quizzes add-on offered by MemberPress Courses.
This feature enables you to create engaging assessments that enhance student interaction, improve knowledge retention, and monitor their progress.
You can select from various question types, including multiple choice, short answer, and essay questions.
It also includes advanced question formats, such as Sort the Values and Match Matrix, which challenge students to organize jumbled answers and link corresponding question and answer pairs, respectively.
Furthermore, you can establish passing scores, permit retakes, and provide personalized feedback to support student improvement.
Enhance student engagement effortlessly by assigning projects through the Assignments add-on, which accommodates everything from task links to multimedia submissions, allowing students to integrate text, images, videos, and more.
All assignments can be submitted directly within the course interface, ensuring a smooth experience for both instructors and students.
The MemberPress Courses Gradebook add-on consolidates all quizzes and assignments in one location, providing a comprehensive overview.
This feature allows for quick performance evaluations and offers a streamlined grading process.
If you’re interested in developing a coaching program, consider integrating the MemberPress CoachKit™ add-on with your courses.
This add-on enables the creation of unlimited online coaching programs with milestones (goals with deadlines) and habits (tasks with deadlines) to monitor learners’ progress.
It also facilitates the scheduling of one-on-one or group coaching sessions, whether in-person or online, and supports cohort-based learning.
Winner – MemberPress Courses
While LearnDash provides robust quiz features and customizable learning paths, MemberPress Courses excels with its comprehensive all-in-one solution.
This plugin provides all the essential tools to create a comprehensive online course. It features a distraction-free learning environment, engaging quizzes with various question formats, and an assignment system that accommodates different submission methods.
The integrated gradebook consolidates all information, allowing you to easily monitor and assess student performance. Additionally, if you offer coaching services, the CoachKit™ add-on enhances your program with specialized tools for client support and progress monitoring.
Options for Customizing Your Course
To maintain communication with your students and monitor their progress, it’s important to configure notification emails and tracking features. You may also want to adjust settings to manage enrollment, limit content access, and increase your course’s profitability.
In the upcoming sections, we will explore the various customization features available in LearnDash and MemberPress Courses.
LearnDash – Customization Features
With the LearnDash Notifications add-on, you can automate email notifications triggered by specific learner activities, such as course completion or assignment success. You can also personalize these messages by including the learner’s name, score, and course title.
Utilize these emails to maintain learner engagement and connection. For instance, you can recommend additional courses or inform them about upcoming releases.
LearnDash also allows you to establish course expiration dates. You can set a specific time limit that begins when a student enrolls. This feature can motivate learners to complete their training promptly or renew their subscriptions.
Alternatively, you can choose to apply the same start and end dates for all students.
By setting a start date, you can leverage FOMO (fear of missing out) to generate excitement by pre-selling your course ahead of its launch.
MemberPress Courses – Customization Features
One of the greatest advantages of using MemberPress for course creation and sales is its remarkable flexibility. You can provide various pricing options or develop subscription membership plans.
However, setting up your initial plan may take some time and careful attention, especially if you’re new to membership platforms.
Creating membership levels is relatively easy. You can also restrict access to various content types, including posts, pages, categories, tags, and even online courses.
Managing content restrictions is simple as well. With just a few clicks, you can limit access to specific pages or entire sections of your website.
To enhance member engagement, you can activate the built-in welcome and payment confirmation emails. These emails can be easily customized using a user-friendly editor.
You have the flexibility to personalize your messaging, logo, and branding, making the emails feel more tailored. Additionally, smart tags can be utilized to include the member’s name, membership level, and other relevant details to boost engagement.
In terms of integration, MemberPress seamlessly connects with leading email marketing services. This allows you to effortlessly add new students to your email list and keep them informed.
MemberPress also enables you to schedule lesson releases through its automatic drip content feature. If you want to create urgency and motivate learners to act before the content expires, you can set an expiration date.
Furthermore, MemberPress allows you to establish a content paywall.
This feature lets you restrict access to specific content, requiring members to either pay or sign up for a free account. In my experience, this is an effective strategy for growing your email list or generating revenue over time.
You can also permit non-members to access a portion of the content for free, encouraging them to register for full access.
Champion –MemberPress Courses
MemberPress Courses excels in customization options. You can effortlessly create flexible membership plans and levels directly from the MemberPress dashboard to sell your courses.
The platform’s built-in emails, including welcome messages and payment receipts, can be fully customized with your branding and smart tags. Additionally, features like content dripping, expiration dates, and paywalls enable you to manage access effectively, create urgency, and boost sign-ups.
Additional Features and Integrations
Enhanced features and third-party integrations can significantly enhance an online course. They provide new functionalities, automate processes, and improve data management.
Now, let’s compare MemberPress Courses and LearnDash regarding additional features and integrations.
LearnDash – Additional Features and Integrations
LearnDash provides robust additional features and integrations tailored for eLearning platforms.
If you need to reuse content across various courses, you can easily clone an existing course with a single click. This is ideal for creating multiple versions, such as beginner and advanced levels, or for launching new courses using your standard template.
LearnDash supports multiple payment gateways, including PayPal, Stripe, Razorpay, and 2Checkout. It also integrates seamlessly with other eCommerce plugins like Easy Digital Downloads.
LearnDash offers templates from Kadence and various other themes specifically designed for the plugin, allowing for enhanced site customization.
MemberPress Courses – Key Features and Integrations
MemberPress Courses is a robust eLearning platform that provides a range of powerful features.
You can offer group memberships through the Corporate Accounts add-on, enabling group members to create and manage sub-accounts easily. You can also set restrictions to prevent misuse of these corporate accounts.
This feature is particularly useful if you aim to extend your online courses to businesses and corporate entities.
MemberPress supports popular payment gateways, including PayPal and Stripe.
The LMS plugin is compatible with many well-known email marketing services such as AWeber, Mailchimp, and GetResponse.
For added flexibility, the plugin integrates with WooCommerce, allowing you to sell products or set up a private members-only online store. It can also connect with Zapier and Uncanny Automator to streamline workflows.
Winner – MemberPress Courses
While LearnDash offers impressive features, MemberPress Courses stands out with its flexible tools. With options like group memberships, it simplifies content and membership management, and seamlessly integrates with PayPal, Stripe, WooCommerce, and various email marketing tools.
Pricing Plans
When evaluating the best value for your investment, pricing is a crucial factor. In this section, we will compare the costs of MemberPress Courses and LearnDash.
LearnDash – Pricing Plans
LearnDash provides three pricing plans for its plugin, tailored to the number of sites you wish to use it on:
- The 1 Site plan is available for $199 per year, making it an excellent choice for individual course creators or small businesses. It includes all features and support.
- The 10 Site plan is priced at $399 per year, perfect for users managing multiple sites or niches.
- For ultimate flexibility, the Unlimited Sites plan costs $799 per year. This option allows usage on an unlimited number of sites, making it ideal for agencies or larger businesses.
🎟️ Insider Note: Take advantage of our LearnDash coupon code to receive a discount, access a free demo site template, and enjoy a 15-day free trial.
MemberPress Courses – Pricing Plans
MemberPress provides three pricing plans tailored to various requirements. Each plan includes unlimited members, zero transaction fees, and scalability, making it an excellent choice for managing membership sites.
- The Basic plan is priced at $179.50 per year and offers essential features for newcomers, including no transaction fees and integrations with Stripe and PayPal for membership sales.
- The Plus plan, available for $299.50 per year, includes additional engagement features such as forums, quizzes, and certificates, making it perfect for small businesses.
- The Pro plan, costing $399.50 per year, caters to larger websites with high-volume membership sales and includes tools like OptinMonster and TrustPulse to enhance growth.
🎟️Insider Tip: Apply our MemberPress coupon code to receive up to 50% off your first year.
Overall Winner – Tie
In terms of pricing, both MemberPress Courses and LearnDash present strong options based on your requirements, but they cater to different user types.
MemberPress is an excellent option for developing online courses and membership sites, featuring content protection, subscription management, and integration with popular payment gateways. Its scalable pricing plans make it suitable for growing businesses.
In contrast, LearnDash is ideal for users seeking a traditional Learning Management System (LMS) that emphasizes course creation, delivery, and student management. Its multi-site plans are particularly appealing if you intend to operate several training websites.
💡 Important Note: Both options are competitively priced, but your best choice depends on whether you require a comprehensive membership site platform (MemberPress) or a specialized learning management system (LearnDash).
MemberPress Courses vs. LearnDash: Which Is the Superior Choice?
Both MemberPress Courses and LearnDash are excellent options. However, if you seek an all-in-one solution, then MemberPress Courses is our top recommendation.
While LearnDash excels in powerful course creation features, MemberPress Courses provides additional functionality by allowing you to manage memberships as well.
This integration enables you to sell courses and manage memberships from a single platform, making it an ideal choice for those who want a streamlined approach to handling both courses and members without relying on multiple plugins.
Additionally, MemberPress Courses includes everything necessary to create an engaging online course:
- The Classroom mode provides a focused learning environment free from distractions.
- The Quizzes add-on offers a diverse selection of question types to enhance your assessments.
- The Assignments add-on enables users to upload media and share links seamlessly.
- The Gradebook add-on consolidates everything, simplifying the process of tracking and assessing student progress.
Additionally, for educators aiming to elevate their teaching methods, the CoachKit™ add-on provides robust features tailored for coaching programs.
MemberPress Courses integrates seamlessly with the WordPress block editor, streamlining the process of creating and organizing your content.
LearnDash provides advanced features for course creators seeking greater flexibility, including complex quizzes and detailed content scheduling. If your primary focus is on developing feature-rich courses, LearnDash is certainly a strong option.
Frequently Asked Questions About MemberPress Courses and LearnDash
Let’s address some common inquiries regarding MemberPress and LearnDash. We hope these responses assist you in determining which platform is ideal for your online courses and membership needs.
Is LearnDash a Learning Management System (LMS)?
Yes, LearnDash is a comprehensive learning management system (LMS) designed for creating and selling online courses, equipped with tools for building lessons, quizzes, and various educational content.
Is MemberPress a worthwhile investment?
Certainly! MemberPress is a fantastic option for selling courses and managing memberships. Its intuitive features and versatility make it a worthwhile investment for anyone looking to increase their online revenue.
What is the purpose of MemberPress?
MemberPress is a WordPress plugin designed for managing memberships and selling various types of content, including online courses. It allows you to restrict access to specific pages, posts, and files while providing flexible pricing options.
How can I create a course using MemberPress?
Creating a course with MemberPress is straightforward using the MemberPress Courses addon. You can utilize the integrated course builder with the WordPress block editor to design lessons, incorporate videos, and organize topics. For more information, check out our article on how to create and sell online courses.
Do membership sites generate revenue?
Yes, membership sites can be very lucrative. By providing valuable content such as courses or exclusive resources, you can earn recurring income through subscriptions or one-time payments.
Additional Resources: WordPress Learning Management Systems
We hope this article comparing MemberPress Courses and LearnDash has been informative. If you found this useful, you may also want to explore our other guides on:
- Top LMS Plugins for WordPress
- Teachable vs Skillshare vs MemberPress: Which Online Course Platform is the Best?
- A Comprehensive Guide to Creating and Selling Online Courses (Top Platforms and Expert Advice)
- Step-by-Step Guide to Adding a Learning Management System to Your WordPress Site
- How to Effectively Run a Virtual Classroom Using WordPress
- The Ultimate Guide to Creating and Selling Online Courses
- How to Build an Engaging eLearning Website
- Top WordPress Education Themes Perfect for Educators
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