LearnWorlds Review (2020): Create, Launch And Sell Highly Engaging Online Courses

Learnworlds is a relatively new online course creation platform and Learning Management System (LMS). Since its launch, Learnworlds has been growing steadily, helping over 1000+ entrepreneurs and corporations create an enhanced digital learning experience for their students and customers. 

I created this extensive LearnWorlds review to help you answer some questions to evaluate the platform:

• What is LearnWorlds?
• What can you build using LearnWorlds?
• Which LearnWorlds Plan is most suited for you?
• How does LearnWorlds compare to some of the other learning management systems (Thinkfic, Teachable, and Podia)?

I’ll also be covering some of LearnWorlds’ best features, some things I like about LearnWorlds and some areas of improvement.

After reading this LearnWorlds review — you will have the necessary information to decide if it’s the best platform for your online courses and also which plan to choose when launching your digital learning business. 

Let’s get started with this LearnWorlds review.

An Introduction To LearnWorlds

LearnWorlds is a relatively new (since 2014) and fast-growing Learning Management System and course creation platform. 

Digital entrepreneurs, corporations, and educational institutions can use LearnWorlds to create a professional, customizable, and highly-engaging online course. 

Here are just a few high-level features of LearnWorlds:

• Create, market, and sell online courses. 
• Add interactive ebooks and videos to your courses.
• Increase student engagement with grading, quizzes, exams, and certifications.
• Create an affiliate marketing program to help boost your course sales.
• Build a private members-only student community.

In this LearnWorlds review, we will go over some of these features in detail. 

LearnWorlds has positioned itself as an industry-leading and trusted platform in the e-learning industry. The testimonials and 5-star reviews are a testament to the quality of the platform and their support.

Here are just a few prominent users of the LearnWorlds platform:

• Tim Stevenson from The School of Calisthenics — virtual physical fitness training and membership programs.

• Mariana Brumpton from Frocks & Frolics — kids fashion eCommerce store and online sewing workshops.
• E and Roe from The Jar Method — financial education courses.
• John Kaplan from ScreamFree  — personal development and relationship building courses. 
• Dr. Jason Ampel from The Learning Liaisons  — certifications and exams preparations for educators and teachers. 
• William Camp from Virtual Kenpo — online martial arts training school.

LearnWorlds Pricing

LearnWorlds has a few different plans depending on the support levels, the programs/products you want to sell (online courses vs memberships, subscriptions), affiliate marketing requirements, types of integrations, white-labelling, etc. 

• Starter  —— $29/month, and $5 for each course sale.
• Pro Trainer  —— $99/month and no transaction fee.
• Learning Center   —— $299/month and no transaction fee.
• Corporate/Enterprise —— Custom pricing.

LearnWorlds includes a 30-day free trial (no credit card required). They also offer a 30-day money-back guarantee if you want to cancel after you activate your account.

All LearnWorlds pricing plans include the following:

• Unlimited courses.
• Page builder.
• Lead generation.
• Coupons, upsells, bundles.
• Quizzes, assignments, exams.
• Reporting and analytics.
• The ability to upload videos.
• Customization options (fonts, themes, branding).

LearnWorlds Support

The support from LearnWorlds varies based on the subscription plan you have.

• Starter  —— 24×5 Support (Email only).
• Pro Trainer  —— 24×7 Priority Email Support, and an onboarding call.
• Learning Center   —— 24×7 Premium Support and premium onboarding.

There’s also an extensive knowledge base with over 400+ unique articles and release notes. 

To help new customers learn about the platform, the LearnDash team also puts on a weekly webinar every Wednesday at 12pm EST. 

If you are a self-paced learner, then the “Ask for Help” feature also displays a list of viable support documents for you to review and learn.

You can also reach out to the Support Team directly from within the platform.

LearnWorlds Integrations

• Payment Gateways — Stripe, PayPal, Shopify, 2Checkout, PagSeguro (Brazil).
• Email Marketing — MailChimp, ActiveCampaign, AWeber, ConvertKit.
• Marketing Automation — HubSpot.
• Analytics — Google Analytics, Google Search Verification, Google Tag Manager, Mixpanel, Facebook Pixel.
• Chat/Customer Service — Intercom, FreshChat, Olark, Zendesk, Tawk to.
• Social Proof  — Fomo.
• Lead Generation  — Fomo, ReferralCandy, SumoMe.
• Zapier — Connect LearnWorlds with 2000+ other platforms using Zapier.

LearnWorlds Features

1. Create Online Courses

The LearnWorlds course wizard makes it simple and easy to create your e-learning, and also add content with step-by-step instructions and tutorials.

The course building wizard walks you through the steps necessary to set up your course framework — the course name, the course URL, the price options (paid vs free vs private), the course price, etc.

If you choose to create a paid e-learning course, then the wizard asks you the course price and also any discount options that you want to set.

If you choose to enable the “Drip Feed” option, you can also choose the cadence when your course content will be delivered to your students.

Once your course details are created — you can then start editing the course. I like the (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) WYSIWYG or real-time editor in the course builder. You can see in real-time what the end result (final course page) looks like, without having to toggle between the editor and the preview page. It can help save you tons of time especially when you have a lot of course content to add, edit, and optimize.

If you have edited and published any type of content on a CMS such as WordPress, Wix — then editing your course content on LearnWorlds will feel like a breeze.

All the aspects of the course page layout can be edited:

• Editing background image.
• Editing fonts and typography
• Editing color schemes, themes, etc.

You can also add blocks (or sections) to your page, and you have the following options to choose from (just to name a few):

• Add a “call to enrollment” or subscribe.
• Add Instructors’ profiles.
• Add payment options.
• Add an image.
• Add a video.
• Add Multimedia — video, background video, or a slider.
• Ad a call-to-action — login forms, email subscriptions box, 
• Add auto-updated content — course contents, blog feed, community posts, 
• Add sales funnels, pricing information, offers, etc.
• Add dividers.

As you can see, LearnWorlds provides a lot of built-in options to create an attractive and compelling course page.

LearnWorlds makes it relatively easy to add a video to your course pages. You can either embed a video hosted elsewhere (YouTube, Vimeo,etc.) or choose a video from your uploaded library.

A successful online course isn’t complete without student engagement features. LearnWorlds provides you with the capability to add quizzes, assignments, exams for each course section, or the entire course. You can also create certificates that students can download and share once they complete the course.

Image Source: LearnWorlds (Learning Units Supported in LearnWorlds)

2. Market and Sell Courses

Create and customize every aspect of your course landing page with LearnWorlds. The Landing page builder comes with pre-made templates and layouts that you can choose from. The real-time editor allows you to add, edit, or customize every aspect of your landing page — text, color schemes, sections, add testimonials, add course lists, add links, etc. 

The Links Manager allows you to choose the design and the destination of all your CTAs. 

LearnWorlds allows you to upload your images to the media library. You can then choose and change images for the various sections of the landing pages. Alternatively, you can also connect your Dropbox or Google Drive. There’s also built-in integration with Unsplash allowing you to search for and use millions of free stock images.  

The editor allows you to add blocks and use existing templates and quickly build attractive and compelling landing pages — all without having to pay for additional landing page software (InstaPage, UnBouncer, etc) or hire a web developer. 

You can also create dedicated sales pages, checkout pages, pricing pages,etc., using the Admin Dashboard. You can add testimonials, images, FAQs, videos,etc., to all your marketing and sales pages. 

Image Source: LearnWorlds (Customize Your School’s Checkout page)

You can also create custom lead capture forms and templates, allowing you to collect leads for email marketing to your list.

Image Source: LearnWorlds (How to use the innovative Pages Builder (Add Newsletter template)

Coupons and Bundles are extremely useful tools that eCommerce marketers use to boost sales during specific events like Black Friday,  Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, etc. You have the option to add either a percentage-discount or a fixed-price discount.

For Coupons — you have the option to create either individual coupons or bulk- coupon;  and for both options, you can set a quantity limit and time limit.

LearnWorlds also offers a more extensive affiliate marketing option (not available in the Starter Plan). 

To help market your affiliate marketing program — you can create and edit a custom affiliate agreement. You can choose the affiliate commission percentage, the payable dates, etc. You can pick and choose specifically which of your courses you want to set up affiliate programs for, and also the payment options (Paypal or bank transfer)

You can also control what’s visible to the affiliates — leads list, customer list, payable commissions. Also, you can choose whether affiliates can self-register or not. 

3. Create a School Website

LearnWorlds provides an extensive and customizable website builder that allows you to create interactive course content and the supporting web pages. This eliminates the need to create another self-hosted website where you might have to pay for web development and hosting charges. A custom domain is available on all the pricing plans.

The Website Builder provides you the option to customize the design, branding, and the look-and-feel of every aspect of your website. 

For instance, you can choose the color scheme of the various elements of your school website:

• Main color and secondary color.
• Navigation bar Background color.
• Buttons Background color. 
• Topbar Background color.
• Footer Background color.
• Login forms Background color.
• Video progress bar color.

You can also pick and choose from 10+ fonts to apply consistency throughout your online course website and also course content.

The Pro Trainer and Learning Center plans also provide you an option to add or edit CSS, so you can further customize the site design.

You can create and edit the login pages or student dashboard. Using the templates library and blocks editor you can add images, videos, FAQs, testimonials, background images, social media feed,etc., to enhance and personalize the student dashboard. 

Image Source: LearnWorlds (How to customize your Students Dashboard with the LearnWorlds Pages Builder)

The LearnWorlds Assistant allows you to add, customize, and launch other pages to help build a complete online course website:

• Course catalog.
• Checkout page.
• Thank you page.
• Privacy page.
• Terms & conditions.
• Affiliate registration.
• Affiliate program terms and conditions.
• Contact us page.
• Pricing page.
• Team page. 

For each page that you add and build, you can add a custom page name and URL. The pre-built templates and real-time editor allows you to quickly launch these pages without having to rely on external copywriters or web designers. 

It’s also worth mentioning that Learnworlds allows you to create and launch a blog to accompany your online courses. You can customize the layout of the Blog Home Page. The options to edit the Blog Home Page is similar to any other course pages — add images, videos, FAQs, sliders, etc. 

The Blog Editor makes it easy to add blocks of content seamless with the help of templates. 

You can also edit the individual URL (slug) for each blog post, and add metadata to help with search engine optimization. 

Learnworlds (Pros)

It’s worth highlighting some of the aspects and features that make Learnworlds a compelling LMS and online course creation platform. In this section, I will mention just a few things that I like about the Learnworlds platform.

1. Extensive LMS 

Yes, I have mentioned this before, and it’s worth repeating. Learnworlds is a course platform that allows you to:

• Create online courses.
• Add interactive videos and eBooks to your courses.
• AI-based transcription and subtitles to your course videos.
• Create a student-community (private social media).
• Create quizzes, assignments, exams, custom certificates.

All of this helps make Leanrwolds an extensive LMS. Not many course creation platforms come with a fully in-built LMS.

2. Enhanced Course Customization

Compared to the other course platforms in the marketplace, Learnworlds offers more options to customize your courses. You can add multiple course sections and add various content types to make your course more extensive:

• Add interactive eBooks
• Add interactive Videos
• Add Zoom meetings and webinars.
• Add audio recordings
• Add PDF documents
• Embed Soundcloud audio, YouTube videos, Slideshare, etc.

There’s also an option to edit the Course Player settings, allowing you to choose the course player skin, video layouts, video navigation settings, etc. 

There are multiple course pricing settings, as well. You can choose whether to display discounts or not, setup bundles, create upsell offers, and make specific sections paid vs. free.

3. Create and Host Interactive Video

You would be hard-pressed to find an online course without any videos. However, just adding videos alone will not make your course content more compelling and help you stand out. To help your students stay engaged in the course, Learnworlds allows you to make interactive videos. 

Image Source: Learnworlds (Uploading Videos to your LearnWorlds online school)

The IVideo authoring feature allows you to add various elements to your video — texts, questions, pointers, overlay images, interactive buttons, etc to create interactive video. 

Learnworlds uses AI to transcribe your videos automatically, which you can then add to your videos. You can also add captions and subtitles. All of this makes your videos much easier to navigate.

All the video content can be hosted on Learnworlds or connect your Wistia or Vimeo accounts.

4. Create and Host Interactive eBooks

Creating and editing eBooks using Learnworlds is simple and easy. If you already have a draft of your eBook in Microsoft Word, the platform allows you to import and continue editing on the platform. Else, you can create a brand new eBook from scratch. 

The Block Editor allows you to add and edit your ebook’s various elements — headings, images, embeds, links, etc. The in-built Ebook Template Library makes it easier for you to create eBooks faster without using multiple editing tools. 

Image Source: LearnWorlds (The E-book template library)

Your eBooks can be interactive (with videos, images, links, questionnaires,etc.) and not just a bland & boring block of text. 

Once the Ebooks are created, you can make it more interactive for students by providing them with options — personal post-it notes, text highlighting, adding personal references, etc.

5. Enhanced Student Engagement 

Most course creators or MOOCs struggle with low student engagement and course completion rates. It’s crucial to craft good content. However, it’s also essential to provide an optimal student experience and engage them throughout the course. 

There are many ways LearnWorlds helps you to ensure that you are keeping your content interactive and students engaged:

• Quizzes — Option to add multiple types of self-assessment or quizzes (multiple-choice, true or false questions, short poll, text with feedback,etc.). There’s also an option to import your quiz questions from other courses you’ve created in Learnworlds.
• Assignments — Create open-ended questions for your students to answer, and your instructors to grade. Once the instructor has graded, the assignment score/grade can also be made visible to the student.
• Exams — Create and customize for each course section or the entire course. You can customize the exam with a time limit, number of attempts, passing grades, etc. 

6. Course Completion Certificates

The certificates feature in Learnworlds allows you to either create a generic certificate or issue a “certificate of completion.”

For “Certificate of completion” — you can set up the specific criteria for which students have to qualify for it.  You can also set up an option for them to share their graduation/completion certificate on social media (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook). There’s also an option to help create and download the certificate as a PDF document. 

7. Drip Feed Courses

LearnWorlds makes it easier to create drip-feed courses, set up the accompanying emails, and also the delivery timelines for each course lesson in the drip sequence.

For course lesson delivery, you can either choose the drip-by-day or drip-by-date option. At any point, you can view at which stage or the drip-feed are each of your students. 

8. Website Builder

LearnWorlds gives your extensive page building capabilities and options, which removes your need to create another website. You can host all your pages, course content, blog posts, videos all-under-one-roof with having to pay extra for website hosting and development fees.

The page builder comes with 400+ readymade templates that allow you to customize all the pages of your website. You have complete control over the look-and-feel and the branding of your website’s theme. 

Please note that to get the full power of Learnworlds Website and Blog builder you need the Pro Trainer or Learning Center Plans (not available in the Starter Plan).

9. Private Social Network

Image Source: Learnworlds (Manage the Community & Social settings of your school)

Build a members-only community for your course students using Learnworlds. Create dedicated groups, private discussion channels, and also a private messenger function. 

All this allows you to create a subreddit or Facebook Groups type private community to interact with you or the entire student community. 

Also, build the interactive features of a social network – adding likes, comments, shares, etc. within your social network. 

10. Payment and eCommerce Options

Learnworlds enables you to integrate with some of the major payment gateways and shopping carts — PayPal, Stripe, Shopify, 2CheckOut, PagSeguro(Brazil).

The platform also allows you to create and launch your course with flexible installment payment options. You have complete control over the types of installment/payment plans you want to create. However, this is not available in the Starter Plan, only in the premium plans. 

You can create either individual coupon codes or bulk-coupons to help boost your sales. You can set up the consumption limit and date limit for bulk-coupons when those coupons are redeemable. 

There are also options to create product bundles, and either offer them as stand-alone offers or upsells.  

In summary, Learnworlds offers you tons of flexibility to increase your course sales with various pricing options and bundles. 

Learnworlds (Cons)

As we have discussed so far, Learnworlds has an extensive feature-set that makes it compelling for many digital entrepreneurs or seasoned course creators to build a highly-functional digital learning experience. 

However, the platform does have some challenges and limitations, which makes it not suitable for everyone. In this section, I will discuss some of the features that  Learnworlds can improve in the future. 

1. Pricing Model 

The lack of a free or basic version might disqualify Learnworlds for many new course creators or solopreneurs. Other platforms such as Thinkfic and Teachable offer a free version, so course creators can use those platforms before they are ready to upgrade to premium versions.

Learnworlds’ Starter Plan starts at $29 per month and charges a $5 per course sales transaction fee.  Comparatively, other platforms (Thinkfic, Podia)  have similar plans that allow course creators to sell unlimited courses with no transaction fees. 

Also, Learnworld’s Starter Plan does not allow you to create and sell subscriptions or membership packages.  

2. Dashboard Can Be Overwhelming 

In the previous sections, I have covered how you will find everything to create, customize, and sell online courses. However, at first glance, the admin dashboard can be a little intimidating. There is a learning curve to learn to use the platform. On the other hand, both Kajabi and Podia have in-built video tutorials and step-by-step guides to help create and launch courses.

Seasoned course creators and designers will love the extensive customization options; however, it might intimidate new course creators who are not tech-savvy.

3. Limited Email Marketing 

There are some built-in email functions such as automated emails, drip courses, etc. However, there is no option to send bulk emails to all students (something that both Kajabi and Podia supports).

The email marketing integrations are limited to MailChimp, ActiveCampaign, AWeber, ConvertKit. There’s an option to integrate with others using Zapier; however, that’s only included in the premium plans (Pro Trainer Plan – $99/month and above).  

LearnWorlds Alternatives

1. LearnWorlds vs Teachable

Teachable is an online course creation platform that allows digital entrepreneurs to create, market, and sell their courses.

Learnworlds and Teachable are similar — both allow you to create courses, sell courses, accept payments, etc.

However, there are many significant differences. In terms of feature-set, Learnworlds is more comprehensive as an LMS compared to Teachable.

Teachable offers a free version (allowing you to create one course) while Learnworlds doesn’t. Teachable might be well-suited for beginners or first-time course creators, while Learnworlds is ideal for established entrepreneurs and corporations & educational institutions.

Let’s review the differences between Learnworlds and Teachable in detail: 

Learn more about Teachable and read my Teachable review.

2. LearnWorlds vs Thinkific

Thinkific is an online course creation platform that allows entrepreneurs, marketers, and coaches to create, market, and sell their courses.

There are many basic similarities between Learnworlds and Thinkific — create courses, sell courses, accept payments, etc.

However, there are a few significant differences as well that make them different, specifically the pricing model. 

Thinkific offers a free version (allowing you to create three courses) while Leanrowlrds doesn’t. Also, Learnworlds offers more extensive LMS options.

Let’s review the differences between Learnworlds and Thinkific in detail:

You can find more information about Thinkific in my Thinkific review.

3. LearnWorlds vs Podia

Podia is an online course creation platform that allows new course creators to quickly create, launch, and sell online courses, membership programs, and digital downloads.

There are many basic similarities between Learnworlds and Podia — create courses, sell courses, sell digital downloads, accept payments, etc.

However, there are a few significant differences as well that make them different, specifically the pricing model. Podia has a simpler pricing model where everything is unlimited (students, courses, products), and does not charge transaction fees on any of its plans.

Learnworlds, on the other hand, is an extensive LMS platform with enhanced design, customization, and student engagement options.

Let’s review the differences between Learnworlds and Podia in detail:

Want to learn more about Podia? Read my Podia extended Podia review here.

LearnWorlds Frequently Asked Questions

Is LearnWorlds the Best Online Course Platform For You?

Learnworlds is one of the most comprehensive and full-featured learning platform or course building tool that I have studied and reviewed.

Using Learnworlds, you can create engaging online courses, sell subscriptions & membership programs, market these courses, build a private social media community, etc.

The biggest differentiator between Learnworlds and the other online course platforms (Thinkific, Teachable, Podia) is its enhanced student engagement feature — quizzes, assignments, exams, custom certificates, etc.  

There are not many platforms that come close to the LMS feature-set of Learnworlds (perhaps only LearnDash).

If you are a beginner online course creator and want basic features and have a limited budget — you should look at Teachable or Thinkific or Podia.

If you want to keep everything under-one-roof and want an all-in-one course marketing platform  — Kajabi is a better option.

Learnworlds is an excellent online course platform and LMS choice for experienced entrepreneurs, corporations, and educational institutions with extensive requirements and needs.