I started creating courses in 2018, from three short webinars about working with clients to more than 15 courses about copywriting, job seeking, and video editing in 2022. When I decided to do it, I asked myself what I needed to start? Where would I publish my courses? And how would I sell them? In this post, I’ll tell you why I choose the LifterLMS plugin for creating courses and how much it costs for me.
Options for course creation
I had three options for creating my very first course.
Course platforms like Udemy
They charge about an 8% fee and have their own audience. Since I created courses in my local language and already had my audience, I thought it wouldn’t be profitable.
Course management systems like Teachable, Thinkific, Kijabi, and others
They allow you to publish your course content with customizable access, create landing pages and sales funnels, have a domain, make sales, send emails, and track your customers in CRM.
It is convenient and even not so expensive as you can suppose: from $500 to $1000 yearly and sometimes they have additional fees from every purchase (1-10%). It looks good if you haven’t a website with a trusted domain already and want to start from scratch. You don’t need to search for hosting, mailing service, CRM, etc.–you have all-in-one.
I have already got a website and a blog with a warm audience who knew and trusted me. So I wanted to create courses on my trusted domain and have full access to everything I do without a fear that I could lose it if these platforms’ owners decided to close my account for some reason. When the question is about money, I always want full control. So I chose the following option.
WordPress website with LMS plugins
Usually, the basic features of the plugins are free, and if you want to add something like payment gateways, mailing, or assignments, you pay extra. It fits me well: I wanted to try different options and see which ones would work best for me. Also, I already used some tools which I just needed to link to this plugin.
Right now, all needed tools for course creation, including web hosting (I use DreamHost), domain, emails (I use Mailerlite), payments, and video hosting (I use Vimeo), cost about $300 per year.
I researched and found several plugins for creating and selling courses: LifterLMS, LearnDash, and LearnPress. I’ve read reviews and comparisons and decided to choose LifterLMS.
Why I think LifterLMS is the best option for creating courses – cheap, fast, and user-friendly
Here are the advantages of LifterLMS that was crucial for me.
LifterLMS is free
When I started, it was vital for me to have the ability to test the waters and create several courses to check how they looked and worked, would it be convenient and UX-friendly for my students, and would I be satisfied with the results. Spoiler: I was.
The basic features are free in LifterLMS, and when I tested all I wanted, I purchased a payment gateway add-on to have the ability to sell my courses, which costs me only $99 a year.
LifterLMS looks good
I compared several plugins, and I was IN LOVE with how professional LifterLMS courses look in the front end.
It was the most important criteria for me: to have a great menu of lessons (curriculum), simple navigation, and a list of lessons on the same page where the current one is opened.
The most attractive option for me is that you can mark a lesson as passed to see your progress. Also, you have a progress bar, which is even more convenient for effective learning!
LifterLMS is simple to set up
I tried other plugins, and it wasn’t easy to understand without instructions on where to click to create a new course, place the content, set up sales pages, etc. LifterLMS is more intuitive, in my view.
Other plugins are cheaper and sometimes have more features (different types of assignments, for example), but the advantages of LifterLMS, especially basic course design, win for me.
In addition, if you work with different websites with courses or create online courses for clients, LifterLMS will be cheaper for you: you can purchase Infinity Bundle for $999 a year and use it on 5 websites, which means it will cost you $200 per site – and you will get the most of this plugin, including all payment methods, assignments, and premium support. You can receive payments via PayPal, Stripe, Autorize.net, and WooCommerce, and set up individual and automatic access to your courses, including recurrent prices, bundles, and memberships.
I use LifterLMS with the WooCommerce plugin to sell courses as products, and I linked Mailerlite to WooCommerce for transactional emails, segmentation, and sales funnels. For example, when people purchase copywriting courses, they are added to the “copywriting” segment. When I launch a new copywriting course, I send them an email, which increases the conversion.
If you want to test LifterLMS for free, download it here and upload it to your WordPress site. If you haven’t a website yet, check out this simple guide on how to easily and quickly create a website yourself.
Don’t know how to launch your very first online course with LifterLMS? Contact me on Facebook, and I will consult and help you with that!
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