Memberium Developer Advice, “Memberium & LearnDash Are a Solution You Should Consider”

As a Memberium developer with 8 years working with Memberium and related tools, my team and I have worked a good number of sites that use both Memberium and LearnDash. We've established ourselves as an experienced Memberium developer team so a lot of people come to us with questions. This is a question I've been hearing a lot lately. It goes something like, "Should I build a Memberium/LearnDash site?" They are looking for advice for building a Wordpress solution and they are wanting some guidance.

What's interesting is they refer to the two products as if they were one and the same.  The two definitely work well together. They are both implemented as Wordpress plugins, but they play two very different roles. Let me review the two for you so you are clear about:

• what each does,
• what roles they play in the solution, and
• when they are the right choice for your solution.

It will give you some help deciding on a technology platform so you have what you need to compare these to other possible options.

Memberium Developer Explains LearnDash

LearnDash is a learning management system (LMS). It enables you to build a course. LearnDash courses are made up of lessons. If you have a longer course, you can consider separating your lessons into smaller sections. LearnDash refers to those topics.

Courses can be set up so they allow students to hop from lesson to lesson freely. It can be set up so lessons MUST be taken in order. LearnDash has a quiz builder so you can assess if people have understood the materials. The quizzes can be used to keep members from moving past a lesson until they have mastered the content. You can slow people down so they can't move ahead until they have mastered prerequisite material.

It has many options most course builders will want and it's supported by other providers that fill in gap features not included in LearnDash. Most of what you would need to build an online course is available from LearnDash and supporting third-party addons.

Memberium Developer Explains Memberium

Memberium is NOT an LMS. It's main role is to connect Wordpress and the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system you are using.  Our preference, because of years working with Keap (formerly known as Infusionsoft), is to use it to connect Wordpress with Keap. Memberium does have a version that supports ActiveCampaign.

With Memberium, a Wordpress page can be configured so it can only be seen by people who have purchased a specific course. A set of posts in a given category can be protected so it can only be viewed by certain members. When used with LearnDash, it can be used to keep LearnDash from ever seeing a course or used to enroll members only after they have purchased a course or have requested free access to it.

Since Keap has e-commerce features, students can purchase a course, Keap assigns them membership access and Memberium works with Wordpress to implement the rules configured in Keap.

Used correctly, Memberium can also do the following.

• You can drip lessons out based on simple or complicated campaigns built in Keap.
• You can keep people from getting into the hands of people who haven't purchased it.
• You can use Memberium short codes to display content dynamically using information controlled in Keap.

My Memberium developer recommendation is that you select a tool that is best-in-breed for what it is you need. LearnDash is a best-in-breed LMS. Memberium is a best-in-breed membership tool. Keap is a CRM that integrated really well with Memberium and has automation e-commerce and automation features that enable it to serve as a control panel for what it is you need done in Wordpress.

You will find that LearnDash offers e-commerce features. It works, but it's built for very simple use cases. Use Keap instead. LearnDash has simple enrollment, lesson drip features, and a feature that allows students to sample lessons before buying them. It's not best-in-breed for that. Keap with Memberium is best-in-breed for all of these.

Before LearnDash had established itself as a Wordpress LMS, we used Memberium and Wordpress posts and pages to build courses. Did it work? "Yes." Was it best-in-breed? "No." Memberium and LearnDash together are a best-in-breed combination.

So remember, LearnDash is all about LMS. Memberium is about protection. LearnDash with Memberium connected to Keap, is a killer combination when you use them right.