LearnDash Developer Talks About LMS Pricing Plans

As LearnDash developer working with business owners, I often get asked about the pricing and the selection of the right Learning Management System (LMS). They are considering LearnDash and a few other solutions and are curious about which one is best for them.  I was visiting the LearnDash blog site and found an article by Mikelya Fournier that I covers the topic.  I thought I would comment on it giving my insight because she does a good job explaining the pricing and models small business owners have to consider when selecting the LMS for their learning program.

LearnDash Developer Insight #1

Mikelya's article covers Udemy. It's one of the most famous learning platforms available online. Instructors can signup for free to sell their courses. Because Udemy is so popular, a lot of people go to Udemy looking for programs looking for a learning program they need. Udemy become a matchmaker between instructors with learning programs and people looking for those program. That's the good news.

The bad news is that Udemy has strict controls on how sales happen on their site. Prices can range from $9.99 to $199.99. You cannot sell your program outside that range. Udemy takes 63% of all sales. It gets worse. Udemy is constantly working to draw in new customers. You will frequently discount courses, and this would be your course, to $9.99. So your cut of the sale is based on that reduced price.

Udemy could be use to test the market for your program. It's free and fairly easy to use. You can get your program in front of a lot of eyeballs to confirm you have something people want. You can use that to confirm you have something people will buy without having to invest in an LMS like I describe next and the marketing effort you'll need to promote it.

LearnDash Developer Insight #2

Some LMS platforms charge by the number of users in your program. They have inexpensive and sometimes free platforms that give you access to all the features you need upfront. Then the price goes up as you get more and more learners. Mikelya's article points out that Talent LMS offers a lot of really good features. It's a stronger platform than some of the more popular platforms Teachable, Thinktific and Kajabi that are also priced this way. Talent LMS pricing starts at $59 a month for 40 users. It then goes up to $129 for 100 users and up and up.

It does have the benefit that you have all the features they offer from the very beginning, but if you are offering a lower priced solution with tight margins, this may not work. If you are a selling a $2,000 course, you can afford that, but if you have a $20 a year program or if you are needing a platform for training your employees, that per user cost adds up.

LearnDash Developer Insight #3

Please do keep in mind that I'm the LearnDash developer that works with business owners needing a team to work with them to make the most of LearnDash. LearnDash is our preferred platform.

We run into a lot of do-it-yourselfers in this space. LearnDash can be used by someone with a good understanding of how to use Wordpress. Their tutorials and online documentation are excellent.

LearnDash's  approach is they give you the features you need at a set price. The current charge is $159 for the year. You have to pay for your website hosting which can runs from $10 to $30. We recommend bringing on a team like ours to make sure you make the best use of the platform to serve your needs. Some people try LearnDash expecting it will do all they need. It's good, but it works best when it's integrated with add-on products to give you a complete solution.

What I believe is the biggest strength of this approach, and this assumes you can pay for this upfront development assistance, is you have ultimate flexibility. LearnDash integrates with so many tools that enable you to provide for just about any requirement you encounter.

If you need enhanced e-commerce features, it integrates extremely well with WooCommerce. That enables you to sell subscriptions, offer coupons or promo codes. The sky's the limit on e-commerce features you can use to sell your program.

We work with a lot of business owners that want to include community features to their learning program. This allows learners can interact with each other to enhance the learning experience. LearnDash integrates really well with BuddyBoss. That enables you to create Facebook like interaction on your site with no dependency on an outside system.

To promote your learning programs, you may want to build sales funnels. We work with Keap/Infusionsoft for building sales funnels. Using a tool called Memberium, you can build complete sales funnels with features for giving your member automated access to the program they purchase.  It works very nicely.

My main message is that there is likely an add-on for LearnDash to support whatever feature you are needing now and in the future. That is NOT be the case with many hosted solutions.

LearnDash Developer Insight #4

It's hard to tell before you start selling a course all that's going to happen. I like to reference a customer of mine that offers a training course for working with emotional disabled people. Originally, they expected their $20 program to be purchased one at a time by mental health professionals.

In three years, they had unexpected growth from larger organizations that buy their solution in blocks for their employees and associates. She sells it to mental health professionals who have their team and staff go through it. They then offer it to their patience, for example, to parents of autistic children or to people working at prisons or mental health wards.

That opportunity was unexpected. Since they opted for LearnDash from the beginning and made use of Keap/Infusionsoft and Memberium, they were able to address this block sale requirements. It's a feature offered by Memberium.

Selecting a platform that services you when you start and then offers you ways to grow which are straightforward in important. The last thing you want is to get the success you always hoped to get and then find out the features you need to grow are NOT offered by your platform meaning you have to migrate to a new LMS which means a lot of unexpected work.