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Are you looking for a Gumroad alternative to create an online store?
Gumroad is a popular eCommerce platform that lets you sell digital products, online courses, and membership-only content. However, their service isn’t flexible, and they recently increased their fees by quite a lot.
In this article, we’ll share the best Gumroad alternatives and competitors that you can use to sell digital products and make money online without the high costs.
Gumroad is a hosted eCommerce platform where you can upload your products and start selling. You don’t need a hosting service, a payment service, or an online store to sell digital goods.
While it is beginner-friendly, there are several drawbacks to using Gumroad.
For starters, the platform now charges a flat 10% fee for every sale. These charges are in addition to the transaction fee.
Previously, the percentage would decrease as your revenue grew. However, the new pricing change takes a significant amount of your income.
For creators, this means aside from your local government taxes, now you’re going to be paying a Gumroad tax which simply isn’t acceptable.
Besides that, Gumroad doesn’t offer much flexibility compared to other eCommerce solutions.
For instance, you don’t get features for cross-sell or upsell products to boost sales. If you’re selling online courses, then Gumroad is at a disadvantage as it doesn’t include a learning management system (LMS).
Other alternatives to Gumroad provide more features for personalizing your online store and providing a better customer experience.
That said, let’s look at some of the best Gumroad alternatives.
MemberPress is the best WordPress membership plugin that lets you sell subscription-based digital products and online courses.
It’s a great alternative to Gumroad, as the plugin is user-friendly. You can easily create a membership site, set up multiple subscription levels, and control who can access content and products.
MemberPress also offers a built-in drag-and-drop course builder functionality to create and sell online courses. Besides that, it includes a virtual classroom feature, which produces an immersive learning experience.
Another feature offered by MemberPress that you won’t find in Gumroad is automatic drip content. The plugin allows you to release paid content to subscribers over time or once they’ve cleared a particular module.
MemberPress also integrates with other popular WordPress plugins. For instance, you can track your site’s performance by combining it with MonsterInsights or create your affiliate marketing program by connecting it with AffiliateWP.
Pricing: MemberPress pricing starts from $179.50 per year with their Basic plan. If you want more features like quizzes and premium integrations, then you can go for the Pro plan.
Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) is another Gumroad alternative you can use for selling digital products like ebooks, plugins, software, PDF files, and more.
The plugin is best for bloggers, developers, marketers, artists, designers, and other creators to sell products online. It offers powerful features and allows you to create beautiful digital goods stores.
You can start with EDD for free with SiteGround EDD hosting or just try the free version from their website.
We use Easy Digital Downloads ourselves to sell our MonsterInsights and WPForms software, which shows just how powerful the plugin is. Plus, there are managed hosting services that come with EDD pre-installed.
Other than that, Easy Digital Downloads offers multiple extensions. You can easily integrate different payment services, email marketing tools, messaging services, and more.
The best part about using EDD is that it has a software licensing feature. It allows you to sell SaaS products, apps, and other tools with proper digital rights.
Pricing: Easy Digital Downloads premium pricing plans start from $99.50 per year. However, you can also use a free version of EDD to get started and start selling online.
WP Simple Pay is the best Stripe payment plugin for WordPress, and you can use it to accept online payments without setting up a shopping cart.
It’s a great alternative to Gumroad, as you can sell digital products by simply adding a payment form using the plugin. The best part, WP Simple Pay offers a free version. You can accept one-time or recurring payments directly from your WordPress site.
With WP Simple Pay, you get 13 payment methods in 135+ currencies spread across 45+ countries. Some popular methods include credit card payments, ACH debit payments, Google Pay and Apple Pay services, and more.
You can also offer to buy now, pay later payment plans using WP Simple Pay. The plugin supports Klarna and Afterpay/Clearpay, which allow customers to pay in installments. This is great if you’re selling high-value or luxury products.
Pricing: WP Simple Pay premium plan starts from $49.50 per year with the Personal plan. If you want to add recurring payments or buy now, pay later options, then you’ll need the Pro license. To get started, you can also use a WP Simple Pay Lite version for free.
WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce plugin for WordPress. It is an open-source platform that you can use to create any kind of digital store.
For instance, it lets you sell physical products online, set up membership plans, offer digital downloads and affiliate products, create dropshipping stores, and more.
The best part is that there are many themes designed for WooCommerce. This allows you to fully customize and control the design of your eCommerce store.
Another advantage of using WooCommerce over Gumroad is that you can use built-in options or third-party plugins to upsell and cross-sell products, recover cart abandonments, offer discount codes, free shipping, and more by using powerful tools like FunnelKit.
Plus, it easily integrates with different payment services and third-party plugins. WooCommerce also offers premium extensions. You can easily optimize your store for SEO and boost search engine rankings to attract more visitors.
To create a WooCommerce store, you’ll need WordPress hosting and a domain name. However, many hosting companies like Bluehost come with WooCommerce pre-installed.
Pricing: WooCommerce is a free eCommerce platform you can use as a Gumroad alternative. While the plugin is free, you’ll still need to pay for website hosting. Please see our guide on how much does an eCommerce store cost for more details.
WPForms is the best drag & drop online form builder, and it can be an excellent alternative to Gumroad if you want a simple way to accept credit card payments.
It lets you easily build payment forms, so you can accept credit card payments using Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.net, and Square payment gateway.
Aside from that, WPForms also integrates with hundreds of email marketing services, so you can automatically add your customers to your marketing automation drip campaigns.
You can use WPForms to accept both one-time as well as recurring payments, and the best part is that it doesn’t charge any additional transactional fees.
Pricing: While WPForms has a free version, you will need the WPForms Pro plan which costs $199.50 to accept payments.
LearnDash is one of the best LMS plugin for WordPress and allows you to run online courses. The plugin offers powerful features to manage your courses, add quizzes, run surveys, and easily accept online payments.
Since Gumroad doesn’t offer a learning management system, LearnDash is an excellent alternative for anyone looking to sell online courses.
With LearnDash, you get a drag-and-drop course builder and multimedia support to run webinars, videos, and tutorials. The plugin also lets you add badges and rewards using different gamification tools. This helps make your lessons engaging.
Pricing: LearnDash premium plans start from $199 per year for 1 website.
ConvertKit is a popular email marketing and eCommerce platform built specifically for creators. They allow you to easily sell digital products, run paid newsletters, sell recurring subscriptions, and even set up tip jars.
The best part is that you get an integrated eCommerce and marketing platform, so when someone becomes a customer, you can send them automated email sequences, targeted marketing, and other subscriber engaging content.
ConvertKit is a hosted platform so it comes with a landing page builder, custom form templates, and it allows you to get unlimited traffic.
Pricing: ConvertKit is free to use for up to 300 subscribers, but your pricing will increase based on the number of subscribers you have. To access the CreatorPro tools, you will need to upgrade to the $25 per month plan.
Teachable is another popular course-building platform that lets you create and sell online courses. You can use it as an alternative to Gumroad to market and promote your online courses.
It is similar to LearnDash and provides a complete solution for creating courses. What makes Teachable different is that it is a hosted platform, so you don’t have to worry about managing any additional software or installing updates.
Teachable is beginner friendly to use and offers a drag-and-drop course builder. It also takes care of online payments and offers multiple payment options. Other features provided by the service include integration with third-party marketing and analytics tools.
Pricing: You can get started on Teachable for free, but it will charge a $1 to 10% transaction fee. There are also premium pricing plans starting from $29 per month.
Thinkific is similar to Teachable and also a self-hosted platform to sell online courses. It is easy to use and is a fitting Gumroad alternative to creating courses.
It offers a drag-and-drop course builder that is very easy to use. Plus, you get different themes and templates to get started quickly. Thinkific also allows you to create subscription-based programs, landing pages, and a membership community.
Besides that, it also easily integrates with 40+ different tools and platforms like MailChimp, Shopify, Google Analytics, and Salesforce.
Pricing: Thinkific offers a 6-month premium plan for $196.
Payhip is another Gumroad alternative that you can use as an eCommerce platform. It lets you sell digital downloads, online courses, memberships, coaching, and physical products.
Besides that, it offers a lot of customization, which isn’t available in Gumroad. For instance, you can use the store builder to create a beautiful and professional online business site within minutes.
If your customers are from Europe or the United Kingdom, then the platform will take full responsibility for complying with the value-added tax (VAT) laws. It will automatically detect their location and apply the correct sales tax or VAT amount to their transaction.
Other features offered by Payhip include different marketing tools to boost conversion rates. For example, it lets you add coupons, cross-sell or upsell products, order bumps, add referrals and affiliates, and show customer reviews to add social proof.
Pricing: Payhip offers a free plan that you can use to get started. However, Stripe and PayPal will charge a 5% transaction fee in the free plan. There are also premium plans starting from $29 per month.
Sellfy is the next Gumroad alternative on our list, and it helps you create a storefront for selling digital and physical products. It lets you promote your products anywhere online. Simply embed the Sellfy checkout process on your own website and market your digital goods.
You can also launch a print-on-demand merchandise store using Sellfy. Simply design, create, and sell using different storefront themes. Other than that, you can use it to sell digital downloads and subscriptions.
What makes Sellfy different from Gumroad is that it includes built-in marketing features like upselling, email marketing, and discount codes. Plus, it offers more customization features compared to Gumroad.
Pricing: Sellfy offers premium pricing plans starting from $22 per month (billed annually), and you get a 14-day free trial.
BigCommerce is a popular eCommerce platform, and you can use it as a Gumroad alternative.
It is a fully hosted eCommerce service that easily integrates with WordPress. You can use it to sell all kinds of digital and physical products.
The service automatically creates different pages for your store, including a shopping cart, sign-in page, account area, sales page, and more.
What makes BigCommerce different is that it lets you sell products across various channels like Amazon and social media platforms like Instagram. Plus, the eCommerce solution doesn’t charge any transaction fees and lets you choose from multiple payment gateways.
Pricing: BigCommerce pricing plans start from $29.99 per month, and you get a 15-day free trial.
Shopify is the last Gumroad alternative on our list. It is an all-in-one eCommerce solution that you can use to create an online store. It offers more customization options and third-party integrations compared to Gumroad.
With Shopify, you don’t have to worry about web hosting, security, backups, updates, and caching. It does this for you, so you can focus on uploading products to the site and promoting them.
Shopify offers pre-built themes that you can use to set up a store. Plus, it makes it easy to manage inventory and accept online payments from a single platform. You can even use Shopify with WordPress to sell products online.
Pricing: Shopify pricing starts from $1 per month with the Basic plan. However, if you want low transaction costs and advanced features, then there is an Advanced plan costing you $299 per month.
After comparing different eCommerce solutions, we believe MemberPress is the best Gumroad alternative. It is a paid WordPress plugin that helps create subscriptions, sell digital products to premium members, and set up online courses without any extra fees.
If you’re looking for a free alternative to Gumroad, then we highly recommend Easy Digital Downloads. You can use its free version to get started and start selling digital products like ebooks, PDFs, spreadsheets, videos, digital art, apps, plugins, and more.
If you’re looking for a simple solution that lets you accept online payments without the complexity of creating a shopping cart, then WP Simple Pay is your best option.
On the other hand, if you’re looking to create an online store from scratch and have full control over it, then WooCommerce is the best option. You get more customization options, online store management features, and integrations compared to Gumroad.
We hope this article helped you find the best Gumroad alternative. You may also want to read our guide on how much does it cost to build a WordPress website and must have WordPress plugins for business sites.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
The post 13 Best Gumroad Alternatives (Cheaper + More Powerful) first appeared on WPBeginner.
Are you comparing the best online course platforms?
Whether you’re a content creator looking for an online course platform to sell courses, or a student looking to learn from online courses, you’re in the right place.
In this comprehensive guide, we will compare the best online course platforms with their pros and cons.
Following are a few things that you should look for in an online course builder platform. These things may affect your ability to build better courses and grow your business over time.
1. Course building features
Depending on what kind of online course you want to sell, you may have specific features in mind that you’ll need. For instance, you may want to give assignments to students, create quizzes, or offer multiple payment methods.
Different learning management systems (LMS) offer different course creation features. Make sure you review them before you sign up, so that you don’t have to switch platforms later on.
2. Payment solutions
You may also want to make sure that they offer payment solutions that are affordable for you as the business owner. Some online course builder platforms may charge a percentage of revenue generated from selling each course, and this amount adds up over time.
3. Integrations
Integrations help you connect your online courses to third-party platforms and marketing automation tools. For instance, you may want to connect it with your email marketing service, social media marketing tool, or your CRM software.
Make sure that your online course platform supports third-party integrations and already has many important ones ready to use.
4. Flexibility and freedom
Many online course platforms may have their own terms and conditions that may affect your business. For example, they may not allow you to sell certain types of courses or may have the ability to shutdown your entire business without any notice.
Some platforms compromise on flexibility for ease of use, which means you have less control on your courses, and you cannot add new customization / features on your own course.
5. Ease of use and Support
As a course creator and entrepreneur, you want to choose a course builder that is easy for you to use. It should come with customizable templates, work with your own website, and offer good customer support.
You also want to make sure that it is user-friendly for your students and customers too.
Keeping these criteria in mind, let’s take a look at the best online course platforms on the market today,
We are breaking our guide into two sections. The first six course platforms are for content creators looking to build and sell online courses.
If you’re looking for best online learning platforms for students, then please click the link to jump to that section.
Having that said, here are the best online course platforms for content creators and teachers:
MemberPress is the best WordPress LMS plugin on the market and the easiest way to build online courses.
It runs on top of WordPress, which powers over 39% of all websites on the internet.
MemberPress comes with an online courses addon that allows you to easily create, manage, and sell online courses. Their drag and drop course builder is super easy to use.
You also don’t need to worry about design skills. MemberPress includes a virtual classroom functionality that takes care of styling and works with all WordPress themes.
The classroom mode is designed to offer an interactive learning experience on your course website. You can add high-quality video content along with additional downloadable resources.
The best part is that you get access to MemberPress’s powerful content access controls. This allows you to sell unlimited courses with different pricing options and subscription plans.
You can also add digital downloads with access control, so only logged-in students can access them.
MemberPress checkout seamlessly integrates with your email marketing service, so you can add each student to your email list, so you can notify them of new course upsell or discounts in the future.
You can add a discussion forum using bbPress to boost engagement, add a referral system or affiliate program using Affiliate Royale to boost sales, and create custom sales pages / webinar pages using SeedProd to grow your online course business.
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing: Starts from $149 per year for a single site license (no monthly fee).
How to Get Started with MemberPress:
To build and sell courses with MemberPress, you will need to create a WordPress website.
We have created a complete step by step on how to create a membership site in WordPress with MemberPress.
LearnDash is another popular WordPress LMS plugin and online course builder. It allows you to easily sell online courses using WordPress.
LearnDash comes with an intuitive drag and drop course builder that allows you to create any type of course, add interactive video lessons, quizzes, assignments, and more.
You can give all course contents right-way, or use drip content feature to release content as users move along a course. It is super easy to use and gives you lots of tools you would want to see in an LMS platform.
It integrates with all popular payment services, WordPress eCommerce plugins, bbPress, and more. It even works with MemberPress allowing you to let MemberPress manage subscriptions and LearnDash handle the course management.
You can create sales funnels for your courses by using the SeedProd landing page builder, and add gamification by using any of the WordPress gamification plugins.
If you’re looking to create SCORM or TinCan content, then you will need the UncannyOwl Toolkit with the all access pass. They allow you to add many powerful features to LearnDash.
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing: Starting from $159 for a single site license.
How to Get Started with LearnDash:
To build and sell courses with LearnDash, you will need to create a WordPress website.
To get started, you will need your own domain name and web hosting. Domain name is your website’s address on the internet such as wpbeginner.com, and web hosting is where your website files are stored.
We recommend using Bluehost. They are offering WPBeginner users a generous 60% discount on hosting, a free domain name and free SSL certificate. Basically, you can get started for $2.75 per month.
→ Click Here to Claim This Exclusive Bluehost Offer ←
After your website is setup, you’ll need to install the LearnDash plugin and continue creating your courses.
Teachable is a hosted all-in-one platform that allows you to easily create courses and sell them without managing any software or installing updates.
You can use Teachable on your own custom domain name or add it as a subdomain to your existing website.
It is super easy to use and allows you an easy drag and drop platform to make courses, upload content, and publish it. It also includes marketing and analytics to help promote your course.
Teachable also takes care of payments for you and offers your customers multiple ways to pay. You can also use its highly optimized sales to create landing pages for your courses.
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing Starting from $29 per month for basic plan with 5% transaction fee. You can upgrade to the Pro plan which has no transaction fees but costs $99 per month.
Thinkific is another fully-hosted online course platform similar to Teachable.
It comes with an intuitive drag and drop visual course builder that lets you make highly interactive courses. You can upload any content to your course including videos.
Thinkific supports all features you can expect from an LMS plugin. Plus, you can create different multiple subscription programs, create landing pages, and make a membership community.
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing: Limited free plan that allows you to offer up to three courses. Paid plans start at $39 per month.
LifterLMS is a popular WordPress LMS plugin that you can use to create and see courses online.
LifterLMS is a powerful platform and comes with tools that help you easily create online courses. It also offers a better learning experience for your users which is important to build a community around your website.
It is flexible enough to set up an small online coaching website or a full-fledged degree program. It supports multi-tier courses, where you can add training modules, lessons, categories, and more.
It has advanced features like drip content, course progression requirements, group memberships, and more.
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing: Starting from $99 per year for a single site. You’ll need to purchase addons separately and pricing for addons typically starts at $99 per year.
How to Get Started with LifterLMS:
You’ll need to purchase a domain name and web hosting to setup your WordPress site.
You can use Bluehost, SiteGround, or any other recommended WordPress hosting provider.
WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce platform in the world. It is incredibly easy and flexible which makes it a good base to build your online course.
For selling and managing an online courses with WooCommerce, you’ll need their Sensei LMS extension.
Sensei LMS is a simple and straightforward LMS addon that allows you to create courses, add modules, lessons, and quizzes.
It is easy to use, and you can quickly setup a course website using the WooCommerce storefront theme.
If you want to create custom sales pages, then you can use SeedProd page builder. For real-time analytics, you can use the MonsterInsights analytics plugin.
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing: Sensie LMS itself is free, but you’ll need WooCommerce Paid Subscriptions addon to create paid courses which costs $129 per year.
Whether you’re a student or an aspiring professional, acquiring new skills and continue improving on them can open many doors of opportunities in the modern economy.
There are ton of online learning platforms for students that you can join to acquire a new skill or to follow your passion.
LinkedIn Learning (formerly, Lynda) is a popular platform to learn digital, creative, and other professional skills. They a large variety of subjects and classes for all levels of users (not just beginners).
LinkedIn Learning’s courses are taught by professionals with real-world experience and qualifications in their field.
You can learn at your own pace using the their online teaching platform, or their iOS / Android app.
You also get to earn certificates upon completion of a course which you can then display as a badge on your LinkedIn profile.
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing: Free trial, but pricing starts at $29.99 per month.
Skillshare is one of the largest online course platform for students offering hundreds of courses on a wide variety of subjects and categories.
It has a limited free trial, after that, you can upgrade to premium which gives you access to thousands of premium online courses that you can join.
Courses are created by professionals and teachers, not by Skillshare itself. Teachers are paid for these courses by views. This acts as an incentive for teachers to offer better quality and highly engaging courses.
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing: Skillshare Premium starts from $3.29 per month paid annually.
Coursera is another good place to learn new skills.
They offer a variety of free and paid courses and even online degree programs. They have partnered with technology companies like Google and IBM who want to promote the usage of their technologies by offering free courses.
In addition, Coursera also collaborates with colleges offering online degree programs. The courses offered are prepared by professionals with qualifications and skills in the subject matter.
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing Varies based on the courses or programs you choose to enroll.
After evaluating all the popular online course platforms, we recommend MemberPress as the best online course platform to build and sell online courses.
If you’re a student looking for the best online learning platform to expand your skills, then LinkedIn Learning and Skillshare are the best online learning platforms for students.
We hope this article helped you choose the best online course platforms. If you are selling your own online courses, then you may want to see our guide on how to grow your business online without spending a fortune.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Disclaimer: to help avoid choice paralysis, we only compared the top online course platforms. This list doesn’t include other elearning platforms or course marketplace like Udemy, Kajabi, Podia, LearnWorlds, WizIQ, iSpring, Academy of Mine, etc.
The post 9 Best Online Course Platforms for 2021 (Compared) appeared first on WPBeginner.
Web development has become an essential part of business development. The web development process includes technical and non-technical processes, like the look and feel of the website, a process known as user experience (UX). Sometimes, a web developer might also develop applications for customers. To learn any and all of these skills, you need to take web development courses. Thousands of peoples are sharing their knowledge using online platforms. Here is the list of the seven best web development courses for beginner programmers that can help you learn web development and its essential technologies like HTML, CSS, JavaScript (JS), and JS frameworks.
Code Academy is one of the best web development courses and tutorials for beginners. For a beginner, it offers fundamental structures of the front-end and backend languages like CSS, HTML, Ruby, and Python. You can masters the tools used for front-end development and use server-side libraries. With Code Academy, you can learn front-end and backend development while communicating with other web developers. You even get a certificate after you complete their courses!
Did you know that you can create a successful online course with WordPress?
Selling online courses is a popular online business idea that you can start with a very small investment and no technical knowledge.
Whether you’re looking to create an online course to sell or simply add an online course for your existing students, this tutorial is for you!
In this guide, we will show you how to easily create an online course using WordPress. We will also show you how to make money from it and make your online course a success.
Here are the steps we will cover to help you create an online course with WordPress:
Ready? Let’s get started.
You will need the following things to create an online course.
You can build an online course with WordPress in less than an hour, and we’ll walk you through every step of the process.
Let’s get started.
There are plenty of website builders and online course platforms that you can use to build your own website. However, we always recommend WordPress because it offers you the maximum flexibility and freedom.
WordPress powers over 39% of all websites on the internet.
There are two types of WordPress, and beginners often end up confusing them.
First, there is WordPress.com which is a hosting service, and then you have the original WordPress.org also known as self-hosted WordPress. See our guide on the difference between WordPress.com vs WordPress.org.
We recommend using WordPress.org because it gives you access to all the WordPress features that you’ll need.
To start a self-hosted WordPress.org website, you’ll need a domain name ($14.99 / year), WordPress hosting ($7.99 / month), and SSL certificate to accept online payments ($69.99 / year).
This is quite a lot of startup money.
Luckily, Bluehost, an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider, has agreed to offer our users a free domain name, free SSL certificate, and a 60% discount on web hosting. Basically, you can get started for $2.75 per month.
→ Click Here to Claim This Exclusive Bluehost Offer ←
After purchasing hosting, head over to our guide on how to create a WordPress website for step by step set up instructions.
Now that your WordPress website is ready, the next step is to install and setup a Learning Management System add-on. This will allow you to create your online course and add it to your website.
First, you need to install and activate the MemberPress plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
MemberPress is the best LMS plugin for WordPress. It is an all-in-one solution with complete course management, lesson plans, subscriptions, access control, payment management, and more.
Course creators around the world use MemberPress to create profitable courses and earn over $400 million dollars every year.
Upon activation, you need to visit MemberPress » Settings page to enter your license key. You can find this information under your account on the MemberPress website.
Once you have entered the information, click on the ‘Activate License Key’ button to store your settings.
Next, you need to switch to the ‘Payments’ tab and click on the (+) add button to set up a payment gateway. MemberPress supports PayPal and Stripe (Authorize.net support included in Pro and Plus plans).
Simply select your payment gateway and then fill in the required information. You can also set up multiple payment methods by clicking on the (+) button again and repeat the process.
Don’t forget to click on the ‘Update Options’ button to save your payment settings.
The course creation process in MemberPress makes it super easy to create and manage online courses. It comes with a very easy to use course builder that allows you to create courses, add sections, edit lessons, and more.
First, you need to visit MemberPress » Courses page where you’ll see a button to install and activate the courses addon.
Clicking on it will automatically install and activate the MemberPress courses addon, and you’ll be redirected to the courses page.
Simply click on the ‘Add New’ button at the top to create your first course. This will launch the MemberPress course builder screen.
First, you’ll see the ‘Course Page’ where you need to provide a course topic, title, and description. MemberPress course builder uses the default WordPress block editor, so you can get creative and make an impressive course page layout.
You can also add ‘Course Categories’ and ‘Course Tags’, set a featured image, and provide a course page excerpt under the course page settings.
MemberPress also makes it easy to quickly start adding course contents for each course without switching to a different page.
Simply switch to the ‘Curriculum’ tab and click on the Add Section button to create your course outline.
You need to provide a title for a section and then click on the Add Lesson button under the section to add lessons.
After adding a lesson, you can start adding lesson content by clicking on the edit button next to each lesson.
You will be asked to save your changes after that your lesson will open up with the familiar block editor screen.
You can add your lesson content here with the full advantage of the block editor. This allows you to upload images, embed videos, add text, offer downloadable digital products such as powerpoints, PDF eBooks, actionable worksheets, and other course materials.
Don’t forget to click on the Update button to save your lesson. You can return back to the Course by clicking on the ‘Back’ link at the top of the editor.
Repeat the process to add more lessons to your course.
Once you are finished adding course content, don’t forget to click on the ‘Publish’ button to make your course accessible to eligible users.
MemberPress allows you to easily sell online courses with subscription plans. You can create as many membership plans as you like, and users can select a plan to pay for your online course.
You can also sell all your courses under single membership, offer free courses, or you can add different courses for each plan. This depends on how you plan to structure your sales funnel.
A lot of people use a combination of free courses and paid courses to build their audience and maximize passive income.
To add a membership, simply go to MemberPress » Memberships page and click on the Add New button.
Next, you will reach the create new membership page. From here, you first need to provide a title for this membership plan and then add some description.
After that, you can enter the membership pricing under ‘Membership Terms’ box on the right. You can also choose the access duration from lifetime, expire (recurring), or fixed expire.
Next, you need to scroll down to the Membership Options section. This where you can configure advanced membership options like sign up button, welcome email, pricing box, and more.
Once you are finished, you can click on the Publish button to save your changes.
Repeat the process if you need to create more membership plans.
The best part about using MemberPress is its powerful access control rules. They allow you to decide who gets access to your online course.
Simply, go to MemberPress » Rules page and click on the ‘Add New’ button.
This will bring you to the Rule wizard page. First, you need to select the content you want to protect under the ‘Protected’ content section.
For instance, here we have chosen a single course under the protected content.
Below that, you need to select the conditions that need to be matched for users to access that content. For instance, we have chosen our membership plan here.
Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Rule’ button to save your settings.
MemberPress makes it easy to easily send users to the page where they can register and sign up for your course by purchasing a membership plan.
It automatically generates a link for each membership plan that you can add anywhere on your site.
Simply edit a membership plan and you’ll see the link below the membership title. You can also manually type in your domain name followed by /register/your-membership-title/
You can add this link anywhere on your website in a post, page, or navigation menu and it will take users to the registration page.
You can even share this link in your sales pages, webinars, podcasts, Facebook group, social media, and other traffic channels.
Pro Tip: We recommend using PrettyLinks to create memorable short links to share in podcasts, webinars, and social media.
MemberPress allows you to use the classroom mode by default, which means your course pages and content will always look good regardless of which WordPress theme you are using.
You can simply go to view a course by visiting:
https://example.com/courses/
Don’t forget to replace the example.com with your own domain name.
You’ll see all your courses listed there. You can click on the ‘Preview as’ menu to see how it would look to the logged out users.
Clicking on a course will open the course, and you will be able to see course overview, sections, and lessons. It is super easy to navigate and also keeps tracks of user’s progress so that they can continue where they left off.
You can also customize the course page templates by visiting Appearance » Customize page and clicking on the ‘MemberPress Classroom’ tab.
Here, you can upload your brand logo and change colors to match rest of your website.
Don’t forget to click on the Publish button to save your changes.
Both MemberPress and WordPress are super flexible. This allows you to use them with any other tools to grow your business and reach more users.
For example, you can create a powerful membership site / community that offers paid content and perks along with courses.
You can also use MemberPress with other LMS plugins like LearnDash. This allows you to use LearnDash for course creation and use MemberPress for powerful subscription, payments, memberships, and other features.
Alternatively, if you want to sell other items like physical goods related to your course, swags, etc, then you can use WooCommerce to manage payments and orders. This will let you build a proper online store for your website.
The other advantage of WordPress + MemberPress combo is that it also makes it easier for you to promote your online course and make money online.
Let’s take a look at few ways to promote your online course, attract target audience, and make it successful.
1. Create Landing Pages for Your Online Courses
Your WordPress theme would be able to help you create a highly engaging website. However, you may need to quickly create landing pages to describe course details, showcase instructors, highlight special offers, etc.
Custom landing pages and sales pages are proven to increase course sales.
We recommend using SeedProd. It is the best WordPress page builder and allows you to create professional landing page layouts without writing any code.
For detailed instructions, see our guide on how to create a custom page in WordPress.
2. Learn The SEO Basics
Search engines are the #1 traffic source for most websites on the internet. This is why you’ll need to learn how to make your online course website rank higher in search engines.
With the help of WordPress plugins and some basic SEO best practices, you’d be easily able to compete with the big guys.
We now recommend users to use All in One SEO for WordPress plugin.
To learn more, see our complete WordPress SEO guide for beginners with step by step instructions.
3. Track Marketing Data
A lot of beginners develop their marketing strategy based on guesswork. You don’t have to do that when you can get actual data to make informed decisions.
For that, you’ll need MonsterInsights. It helps you install Google Analytics and see human-readable reports inside your WordPress dashboard.
You can see where your visitors are coming from, what they do on your website, your most popular pages, and more. You can then improve your website to improve your conversions and boost sales.
4. Start Building an Email List
After a while, you would notice that most visitors who come to your website don’t sign up for your online course. The problem is that you would not be able to reach out to those users once they leave your website.
To address this, you need to start an email newsletter. This way you would be able to collect email addresses and reach out to those users and bring them back to your website.
We recommend using Constant Contact or ConvertKit for email marketing.
If you’re looking for alternatives, see our comparison of the best email marketing services.
5. Convert Website Visitors into Subscribers and Customers
Most visitors who come to your website will leave without enrolling into your online course. This is why it’s important to convert those abandoning visitors into subscribers or paying customers.
This is called conversion optimization.
The best tool for the job is OptinMonster. It is the best conversion optimization software on the market and helps you grow your business with more leads and sales.
For more details, see our guide on how to convert website visitors into customers.
Need even more tools? See our complete list of the best tools to grow your WordPress website like a total pro.
Over the last 10 years, we have helped thousands of entrepreneurs create their own online course. Below are the answers to the most frequently asked questions about creating an online course.
How can I create high-quality videos for my course?
Videos are an important element of online courses. It helps you better demonstrate your subject matter expertise and connect with your audience.
When first starting out, you don’t need to invest in fancy video equipments. A good Ultra HD webcam like Logitech Brio is sufficient for most users.
For screencasts and screen recording, you can use Camtasia or Screenflow for Mac.
Recently, our team has started using Descript online video editing platform, and it can significantly improve your workflow.
Can I use other online learning platforms with WordPress?
There are many online course platforms that you can use to build and sell courses.
This includes Teachable, Thinkific, Kajabi, Udemy, etc.
You can use any of them alongside your WordPress website. Depending on your needs, these platforms may offer an easier online course creation solution.
However they’re generally more expensive and/or take a revenue share from your course sales.
Which is the best webinar platform for course creators?
Nothing beats live webinars when it comes to online education. You can use to boost your audience engagement and improve membership retention.
We have compared the best webinar platforms here.
Most of these solutions will let you create live webinars, automated evergreen webinars, and come with tons of webinar engagement features.
How can I validate my course idea?
Creating online course content takes a lot of time and effort. This is why we always recommend users to validate their course idea before hands.
There are several ways to validate a course idea.
You can run a poll or survey on your website, ask for audience feedback on social media, or look at your most popular blog posts or YouTube videos because often the most popular ones can be turned into courses.
What’s the one “little-known” thing that I can do to make my online course successful?
While there are many tactics that you can use to make your online course idea successful and profitable.
The little-known tactic that works really well is case studies. Unfortunately not enough course creators use them.
A case study allows you to highlight the most successful students in your community. This not only provides encouragement to others, but it can also help those who don’t know how to take maximum advantage of your products.
We use case studies in many of our own businesses for social proof to boost conversions, but also to help our new users find encouragement and motivation.
We hope this article helped you easily create a successful online course in WordPress. You may also want to see our tips on how to add push notifications to connect with visitors after they leave your website, our our comparison of best live chat software for membership sites.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
The post How to Create and Sell Online Courses with WordPress (Step by Step) appeared first on WPBeginner.