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Tags – LifterLMS, LMS (Learning Management Systems), WP Courseware

LifterLMS vs WP Courseware: Which is the Better Course Building Plugin?

By Dianna Gunn
Last updated: May 23, 2022
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If you want to teach courses and you have a WordPress site, using a course building plugin is the obvious solution. But what plugin should you use? In this guide — LifterLMS vs WP Courseware — I’ll compare two of the most popular options to help you to answer that question.

In the past few weeks, I’ve tested a variety of course building plugins, also known as Learning Management Systems (LMSs). I’ve pitted WP Courseware against LearnDash and found them to be equal in many ways. Now it’s time to see how well LifterLMS holds up against the competition.

What to Look for in a Course Building Plugin
LifterLMS review
WP Courseware Review
LifterLMS vs WP Courseware: Similarities
LifterLMS vs WP Courseware: Differences
LifterLMS vs WP Courseware: The Verdict

What to Look for in a Course Building Plugin

Before you dive into comparing LifterLMS and WP Courseware, it’s important to consider what actually makes an LMS worthwhile. There are a variety of features you’ll want to look for — all designed to give you flexibility during the course creation process.

Course Builder

The most important component is, of course, the course builder itself. You want the process of building new courses and editing existing courses to be simple, without any requirement for code. The course builder should also offer extensive customization, including the ability to control how students progress through the course.

Quiz builder

Some online courses consist only of lectures, and allow students to progress as they listen — but for many other courses, tests are an important component. Look for a plugin with a code-free quiz builder that allows you to configure a variety of question types. You should also be able to customize the grade students need to pass and what happens when they complete a quiz.

Content dripping

Content dripping is the practice of making content available over a period of time. For example, you may send lessons out once a week.

Forums

Building a community around your course is a great way to keep students engaged, and forums are one of the best ways to build that community. Most course building plugins provide this functionality through compatibility with bbPress. Some may also have this functionality built in.

Email Capability

Email is the best way to get course updates to your students. Along with automated emails when students complete parts of the course, you should be able to manually send emails to students.

Subscriptions

Some course building plugins offer the option to sell courses as subscriptions. This is a great way to build recurring income.

Memberships

Memberships are another great way to build a recurring income. You can also offer memberships as a way for students to access all of your courses as they come out. Some course building plugins have this functionality built-in, while others provide it through integrations with plugins such as MemberPress.

Payment Processing Options

Most course building plugins are only compatible with a limited number of payment processing options. If you have a preferred system to work with, make sure the plugin you’re considering is compatible.

Coupons

Coupons are a great way to win over potential customers who may be on the fence about your courses. You should be able to create unlimited coupons, choose between a percentage discount and a dollar discount, and set the precise discount of each coupon. Like everything else, this should be easy to do without previous coding experience.

Ease of Use

Ease of use boils down to two things. First, you shouldn’t need previous coding experience to use the plugin. Second, the course creation process should be an intuitive one.

Support and Documentation

There should be a plethora of resources available to help you to effectively work with the plugin you choose. You should also be able to access customer support in a timely manner, as issues with your course building plugin can have major ramifications for your business.

Cost

This may not be a feature, but it’s important to consider. Most course building plugins charge an annual fee for continued access. Make sure you know how much you’re willing to spend before you start comparing the options.

LifterLMS review

LifterLMS vs WP Courseware: LifterLMS home

Features

The core LifterLMS plugin comes with the following features:

Unlimited courses
Unlimited students
Multi-tier drag-and-drop course builder
Multimedia lessons
Content dripping
Course tracks, allowing you to create certification and degree programs
Quiz builder
Student dashboard
Capacity for multiple instructors
Form integrations
Graphics pack
Course review collection
Quick course export (ideal for site migration or backups)

You can also select one premium LifterLMS add-on with the basic plan. Payment gateways are purchased as add-ons.

How to use LifterLMS

Setting LifterLMS up on your WordPress site

The first step to setting up LifterLMS is to purchase it.

The payment options seem a bit unusual at first glance, as the lowest tier is billed as including the plugin ‘plus one add-on’ and the plugin itself is free. However, there’s no built-in compatibility with any payment processor, so you’re stuck choosing your preferred payment option as your add-on. This means that, really, you’re just getting the base plugin.

Once you’ve selected your add-on, you’ll be directed to enter payment information. You can pay with credit card or PayPal. LifterLMS will also require you to enter your email address and a password.

Completing your payment will take you to a page where you can view your payment details, download your extension and grab your license key. To get the plugin itself, scroll down the page to ‘Related Subscriptions’. This is where you’ll be able to see your actual LifterLMS subscription.

If you click ‘Get a Quick Start’, you’ll be taken to a short video course that walks you through how to use LifterLMS. To get to the plugin itself, click on either your subscription number or the ‘My Account’ button. This will take you to the LifterLMS account dashboard.

Here, click on the ‘Licenses’ link.

This will take you to a page where you can view and download both your extension and LifterLMS. Click ‘Downloads’ to see the download links. These will download your plugin and extensions, including the LifterLMS Helper, as ZIP folders.

Next, open your WordPress dashboard in a new page and go to ‘Plugins > Add New’. Click the ‘Upload Plugin’ button. A box will appear asking you to select a file. You can either click the ‘Choose File’ button to find the plugin manually or drag-and-drop the plugin into the box.

Click ‘Install’, and WordPress will automatically unpack the plugin. When the process is complete, press the ‘Activate’ button.

When the plugin is activated, you’ll be taken to the LifterLMS setup guide. This will walk you through some of the basics of the plugin, but doesn’t provide the opportunity to do much setup, so you can skip this and dive right into configuring the plugin.

Setting up a Payment Gateway

Next, grab your payment extension and the LifterLMS Helper from the Downloads area of your LifterLMS account. These are both plugins, so you can install them on your site using the same process used to install the main plugin. You need both plugins to accept payments. This is the first important point in LifterLMS vs WP Courseware, as it makes the setup process for LifterLMS rather clunky.

When your plugins are activated, go to the newly visible ‘Add-ons & More’ area of LifterLMS and click the ‘My License Keys’ button near the top of the page.

Copy and paste your license key from the ‘Licenses’ page of your LifterLMS account to the box that appears and click ‘Add New’ to activate your extension.

Now go to the ‘Settings’ area of LifterLMS and click the ‘Checkout’ link near the top of the page.

LifterLMS vs WP Courseware: LifterLMS settings

You’ll be taken to a page where you can choose the currency in which payments should be made, the page your customers see when they complete checkout and how the system interacts with failed payments. Scroll to the bottom of the page to find your options for payment gateways. By default, only manual payments will be enabled.

Click on the payment option you want to configure — for the purposes of this article, I’ve chosen to use PayPal payments.

On the next page, you’ll be given options to enable PayPal payments and PayPal sandbox.

Further down the page, you’ll find places to enter information about your PayPal account. You’ll need your PayPal API credentials, including username, password and signature. You can find more details about how to get this information in the PayPal knowledgebase.

When you’re confident you’ve entered all of the information correctly, click the ‘Check Now’ button at the bottom of the page. This will verify your account information and connect PayPal to LifterLMS.

Creating a Course

With payment processing set up, you’re ready to create your first course! To get started, click the ‘Courses’ link in your sidebar (Note: This is on your main sidebar, not contained within a submenu.)

This will take you to a page where you can view and manage existing courses. Click the ‘Add New’ button at the top of the page to open the course editor.

At first glance, the course editor looks a lot like the regular WordPress editor — you have space for a title, a larger text block for a description and a sidebar with information about the document.

However, you’ll also notice a few key differences:

Tools — along the top of the screen, you’ll find quick-access buttons for adding blocks and accessing tools. The button with three horizontal lines will open a menu that provides access to the LifterLMS pricing table, course syllabus and other modules. These can help you to fully customize your course description.
Course instructor — LifterLMS course descriptions include an area at the bottom where course instructors are listed. This includes the instructor’s username, profile photo and bio, so make sure all of your teachers have posted up-to-date information!
Difficulties — this is the difficulty level of the course, which will be displayed prominently on the information page. This helps to give customers an idea of what they’re getting themselves into.
Track — this area allows you to make the course part of a certification or degree program.

Further down the page, you’ll find the Course Options area. This is where you can choose the pricing, set prerequisites and enable review collection.

What really impressed me at this point in the debate of LifterLMS vs WP Courseware are the Access Plans — i.e. the payment options you provide to people who want to access your course — which are highly customizable:

LifterLMS vs WP Courseware: LifterLMS Access Plans

The cool thing here is you can add as many access plans as you want, meaning that for every course you can have a one-time payment option, a recurring payment option and a discounted version that’s only available to existing members of your site. This allows you to transform every course into multiple streams of income, as well as providing potential students with a variety of options.

Adding Content to Your Course

To add lessons and quizzes to your course, scroll down to the bottom of the sidebar and click the ‘Course Builder’ button.

This will open the course builder, which, at this point, is a blank page with some buttons in the sidebar. Click ‘Add Section’ to start building your course.

Next, click ‘Add Lesson’. This will appear as ‘New Lesson’ in the course outline, and you can click on the name to edit it.

If you hover your mouse over the title of this lesson, a series of small buttons will appear. Click on the ‘W’ button to open the lesson editor.

This will take you to a page that combines the WordPress block editor seamlessly with LifterLMS tech. The first portion of the page will already be devoted to specialized course modules inviting students to take a quiz or switch between lessons.

LifterLMS vs WP Courseware: Lesson creator

You can rearrange these easily by clicking on a module and pressing the up and down arrows that appear above it.

Once you’re happy with the placement of these modules, you can start adding content. Any block you can use in a regular WordPress blog post can be used in a LifterLMS lesson.

Below the lesson content, you’ll find lesson settings, which allow you to customize several aspects of the lesson:

Settings — the permalink for the audio and/or video associated with the lesson, content drip settings and whether or not the lesson is available for free.
Prerequisites — this allows you to choose a specific lesson that must be completed before students can view this lesson.
Drip settings — lets you control when students will receive this lesson, either in relation to their enrollment or by a specific date.
Quiz — where you can choose whether or not students must achieve a passing grade on the associated quiz to complete the lesson. Quizzes must be edited from the course builder.

When you’re happy with these settings, click the ‘Update’ button at the top of the page. You can then return to the course builder.

To edit the quiz for this lesson, click on the question mark button below the lesson title.

This will open the LifterLMS quiz editor on the left side of the page.

LifterLMS vs WP Courseware: LifterLMS Quiz Editor

Here, you’ll be able to specify several things about the quiz:

Quiz description
Passing percentage
Attempt limit
Time limit
Show answers
Randomize question order

To add an actual question, click the ‘Add Question’ button in the bottom left corner, which will make a menu appear with options for question types. With the most basic plan, you’ll note that only multiple choice, picture choice, and true or false questions are available.

LifterLMS vs WP Courseware: LifterLMS Quiz Editor 2

I had a moment of confusion here, because when I selected the type of question I wanted, it didn’t appear on the screen. You must collapse the General Settings area to access the questions.

Once this is done, though, the interface is quite friendly. Along with easily editing the question and answers, you can add a description, image or video to each question, which is a great way to create a truly immersive experience.

When you’re satisfied with the questions, click the ‘Save’ button at the bottom of the quiz editor. This will save the quiz to the appropriate lesson.

Moving Content Around

There are two ways to change the order of content within your course:

Click on the circle beside your lesson title — this will highlight the lesson block, which you can then drag and drop to its new position.
Hover your mouse over the title of the lesson you want to move, and a row of small buttons will appear — including two circular buttons with up and down arrows. Use these to move the lesson one module up or down.

This makes it easy to rearrange the course as it’s updated.

Creating Tracks

One thing that really stands out in the debate of LifterLMS vs WP Courseware is the LifterLMS Tracks function. This allows you to group courses together into a certification or degree program. To access it, go to ‘Courses > Tracks’, and you’ll be taken to a page where you can add a new track or view existing tracks.

LifterLMS vs WP Courseware: LifterLMS Tracks

To add a new track, fill in the information requested in the boxes on the right side of the page. You’ll note that you can actually nest tracks, allowing you to create multi-layer certification programs. Once the information is complete, scroll down the page and click ‘Add New Course Track’. Courses can be assigned to tracks within the course builder.

Add-ons and Integrations

As far as I was able to determine, LifterLMS only offers built-in integration with three plugins: bbPress, BuddyPress and Monarch.

To integrate LifterLMS with other plugins and software, you’ll need to purchase premium add-ons, which can integrate LifterLMS with a variety of popular marketing tools, including ConvertKit, GravityForms, MailChimp and WooCommerce. However, you must pay separately for each one. This is a major deciding factor in the debate of LifterLMS vs WP Courseware, as the add-ons offered by WP Courseware are free.

You can also use add-ons to increase the functionality of LifterLMS, adding things such as assignments, advanced quizzes and advanced user profiles.

Pricing

I mentioned before that the LifterLMS pricing structure is unusual. The core plugin is free; what you pay for are the add-ons. However, the core plugin doesn’t have payment processing capacity, so, if you want to sell your courses, you’ll need at least one add-on.

There are three payment tiers to choose from:

Individual add-ons: Available for $99 a year each.
Universe Bundle: Available for $299 a year. Comes with add-ons for design, marketing and CRM, ecommerce, and forms. All add-ons purchased with this plan can be used on up to five sites.
Infinity Bundle: Available for $999 a year. Comes with everything in the Universe Bundle plus advanced quizzes & assignments, private coaching features, advanced video features, custom fields features, and groups features. Can be used on unlimited sites.

It’s important to note that there’s no single plan that includes all premium add-ons. The Social Learning add-on, for instance, is only available as a separate purchase.

Overall Thoughts

LifterLMS seemed quite promising at first, and, in some ways, I was impressed. I loved the integration of the block editor with LifterLMS modules in the course description and lesson content areas. The visual course editor was quite intuitive, and the outline format made me feel like I was working on a real university course. The Tracks function allows for the creation of advanced academic programs.

However, there were several things I disliked about LifterLMS. First, I found the pricing structure somewhat misleading. I also found the contents of the bundles somewhat lacklustre; things such as forms were prioritized in the Universe Bundle, but I felt that assignments and advanced quizzes would be more useful for most people.

Some aspects of the plugin also seemed engineered to sell you add-ons. For example, the top of the screen where you view the quiz editor also has ‘Lesson’ and ‘Assignment’ tabs. If you click on ‘Lesson’, you’ll see a screen where you can edit some basic information about the lesson; if you click ‘Assignment’, you’ll see a button to create an assignment, but when you click on it, you’ll be told this feature is only available through an add-on.

The quiz editor itself also seemed engineered to upsell folks. Only having access to multiple choice, picture choice, and true/false questions significantly limits your ability to create complex quizzes. This is particularly egregious when you take into consideration that every other course building plugin lets you use several question types in quizzes.