AccessAlly Review (2020): Is the Best WordPress LMS and Membership Plugin?

Here in this extensive AccessAlly review, I help you answer a crucial question — Is AccessAlly the best WordPress LMS plugin for building your online courses?

There are quite a few WordPress LMS plugins and course creation platforms that you can choose from. It can get overwhelming!

Before you invest hundreds (or thousands) of dollars in an LMS software, wouldn’t it be useful to know important information? Like all the features, the pros, the cons, installation, pricing, technical requirements, etc.? I cover all that detail in this extensive AccessAlly review.

Finally, I’ll also be comparing AccesAlly to some of the other popular WordPress LMS plugins (LearnDash, LifterLMS, and Tutor LMS).

After reviewing this article — you will have the knowledge and confidence to decide if AccessAlly is the best WordPress LMS and Membership Plugin for your online business.

Let’s get started with this Accessally review.

An Introduction to AccessAlly

AccessAlly is a WordPress LMS and membership plugin that allows you to create a course website, and create & sell new programs (online courses and membership programs).

On AccessAlly, there is a heavy emphasis on building subscription & membership programs and providing members with a learning management system to support their education.

Here’s what you can do with AccessAlly:

• Create, launch, and sell courses on your WordPress website.
• Create strong student engagement features — quizzes, certificates, email notifications.
• Create and sell membership programs and member directories.
• Build a comprehensive affiliate program for your online products (courses and memberships programs).

Here are just a few examples of course creators who use AccessAlly.

• Kate Northup  —  Origin Collective (1000+ users membership site).
• Todd Herman —  90 Day Year (Leadership & Development courses).
• Selena Soo  —  S2 Group (online courses for business owners).
• Hibiscus Moon —  Crystal Academy (certification program for Crystal Healers).
• Rachel Feldman —  Membership program for Health & Wellness professionals.
• Todd Herman —  90 Day Year (Leadership & Development courses).
• Eddie Ferrera —  Game Arts Academy (online digital arts school).
• Staci Ann Lowry —  Ornament Girls (subscription box business).

As you can see from the case studies and examples above, AccessAlly is used by various course creators, entrepreneurs, authors, coaches, entrepreneurs, speakers, trainers, etc.

AccessAlly Pricing

AccessAlly offers two different pricing packages for online course creators:

• AccessAlly Essentials — $99 per month.
• AccessAlly Pro — $129 per month.

• All pricing is monthly.
• There’s also an option to purchase the packages on an annual basis.
• Also, all licenses are valid only for a single site. Currently, there are no options to purchase licenses for multiple sites or unlimited sites.

AccessAlly provides a 30-day refund policy, however, only at the sole discretion of the AccessAlly team. It’s not a risk-free guarantee (like some of the other course creation platforms that we have analyzed).

Here’s what’s included in the AccessAlly Essentials:

• Unlimited courses.
• Unlimited members/students.
• Unlimited protected files (content protection).
• Affiliate tracking.
• Searchable member directories.
• 2 Tune-up training calls every month.

Here’s what’s included in AccessAlly Pro:

• Everything in AccessAlly Essentials.
• ProgressAlly(Built-in LMS).
• Progress tracking checklists.
• Quizzes.
• Certificates.
• Assignment and homework.
• Built-in social sharing and rewards.
• Analytics (course statistics,etc.)

There’s also an additional option for advanced course creators such as educational institutions and corporate training programs (AccessAlly In-House Training priced at $2500 per year).  The plan includes:

• Everything in AccessAlly Pro.
• Additional license.
• 5 Team training seats for members of your staff.

It’s more of a support plan rather than the software plans (Pro and Essentials).

AccessAlly Support

• Support Options — Helpdesk ticketing system and Email support.
• Support Hours — 9 AM to 5 PM CST.
• Documentation and Tutorials — Extensive documentation is available in their knowledge base that covers everything from migration, installation, integrations, etc.
• Facebook Group — AccessAlly Product Community Facebook Group has over 1500+ members.
• Changelog or Release Notes — You will find a list of all their changelogs and software updates arranged in reverse chronological order (latest to oldest).
• Certified Experts —  Recommendations for AccessAlly Certified Experts can help you with your installation and setup on AccessAlly.

AccessAlly Integrations

• Payment Gateways — PayPal, Stripe.
• eCommerce/Shopping Carts — WooCommerce, SamCart, ThriveCart.
• CRM/ Email Marketing — ActiveCampaign, Infusionsoft, ConvertKit, OntraPort, Drip, Keap.
• Storage — AmazonS3.
• List Building or Popups — PopupAlly (AcessAlly’s product).
• Forums — bbPress.
• Multilingual — Polylang, WPML.
• Workflows — WPFusion.
• WordPress Themes  —WordPress Classic Editor, Gutenberg, Beaver Builder, Elementor, DIVI by Elegant Themes.

Installing and Configuring AccessAlly

AccessAlly is a WordPress plugin — so installing it is similar to that of any other WordPress plugins. Once you purchase the license from AccessAlly, you will be able to download the installation files in a *.zip format.

Head over to your WordPress Admin Dashboard, and under Plugins, click on “Add New.”

Next, click on “Upload Plugin” and install and activate the plugin.

Next, you will have to enter your unique license number (serial key) and registered email address. To do this, head over to “License” under “General Settings” of your AccessAlly account inside your WordPress Dashboard.

Next, the “Click to Get Start Onboarding” button will walk you through the rest of the onboarding process.

Verify that you have entered the correct information (Registered Email, AccessAlly License Key, ProgressAlly License Key), and click Next

You will next be given a choice to integrate with your CRM.

These are the available AccessAlly CRM integrations:

• ActiveCampaign.
• Infusionsoft/Keap.
• ConvertKit.
• Drip.
• Ontraport.

Once you choose your CRM, you will then be asked to enter the API information for that CRM.

Next, you will be prompted to integrate with the payment gateways (PayPal and Stripe). You will be asked to enter your Stripe API Keys and PayPal Signature to complete your integration.

The onboarding process is now complete.

Now, let’s look at the additional settings available with your AccessAlly Dashboard.

Under “General Settings” — you will be able to configure your AccessAlly installation further:

• Initial Setup — Allows you to set up integrations, key pages settings, developer settings, etc.
• Payments — Configure currency settings, payment gateways, affiliate tracking, etc.
• Maintenance — Review all your log summaries and sync details.
• Styling — Configure the design for your key pages. Additional Custom CSS options allow you to customize your online course website further.
• ToolKit — Learn more about other AccessAlly products (AccessAlly Pro, PopupAlloy Pro).
• License — Verify the serial key (license information) for your AccessAlly product.

Under “Permissions” — you can edit and modify the page permission settings for the key pages of your online course website, such as:

• Dashboard.
• My Orders.
• My Account/Profile.
• Privacy Policy.
• Login Page.

The “Products” settings is where you will create, configure all your online programs (courses or membership programs), set up payment options for each product.

Here are the additional options or settings that you can configure:

• Products — Setup the product name, payment terms (one-time vs recurring), product price, product image, product description, etc.
• Offers — For each product, set up the workflow for purchasing, payments, etc.
• Promos — Create any promos, coupons that you will use to sell your products.
• Order Bumps — Create an upsell offer (order bump) to help sell more products.
• Toggles — Allows your students to choose, select, or deselect your products without leaving the order form.
• Fees — Add additional fees such as shipping, taxes, etc.
• Order Form Design — Choose from various templates, and customize the design (look-and-feel) of your order forms.

Under “Purchase Logs,” you can see history all of your transactions:

• Orders.
• Subscriptions.
• Payments.
• Coupons.
• Order Details.
• Subscription Details.

You can also export or download the details of any of the above.

Under “User Directory” — you can find the listings of all your users (students, members).

You can also configure the required fields a user needs to register on your website.

AccessAlly also allows you to create lists (or Filters) that you can use to sort and view your users. Furthermore, you can also create member/user directories.

If you have an extensive affiliate network, you can run contests and view the results using the “Affiliate Leaderboard.” This can be set up and configured under the AccessAlly Leaderboard Configuration.

The “Teams” settings enable the bulk course enrollment feature, i.e., you can manually add multiple students to your courses. All you need to do is create specific teams.

Under Affiliate settings, you can configure your entire affiliate program (program tiers, commission details, payout options,etc.)

To view your online programs’ performance, you can see the dashboard/reporting under the “Metrics” tab.

I like that you can add additional metrics that you want to view and create a custom dashboard.

For each of the Settings that we have discussed, AccessAlly displays a link to the respective tutorial on their knowledgebase.

Before proceeding to the nuts-and-bolts of course building using AccessAlly, it’s first essential to understand the concept of “tags.”

AccessAlly uses automation tags to control access to your online programs.

Once set up, the platform will take care of everything. There are 3 types of automation tags:

• Access Tags — control whether a user can view the contents of your online programs.
• Identity Tags — helps define who the client is (partner, student, member,etc.)
• Trigger Tags  — start or stop automation in the AccessAlly CRM.

Building Courses on AccessAlly

1.   Creating New Courses

To create a new course using AccessAlly, head over to the “Course Wizard” in your AccessAlly Dashboard. 

The AccessAlly Course Creation Wizard will walk you through all the steps required to create and launch a new online program (course or membership or download).

You have the option to create two types of courses in AccessAlly:

• Stand-Alone Course
• Stage Released Course (similar to drip-feed content)

The Course Wizard also makes it easier to clone content from previous courses.

Once you choose one of the course options, you can start building the course.

For this illustration, I am choosing a “Stage Released Course.”

The “Course Identity section” asks for the course name. Once you fill in the information and click continue, it takes you to the next page.

Next, you will adjust the “Automation Tags” settings for your new course. You will notice that the platform automatically creates tags based on the course name. You also have the option of using pre-existing tags from the system.

Once you have accepted the tags, click “Create Tags & Continue” to take you to the next section.

Next, under “Module Settings” — you can add the course modules (or sections). Adding a module, naming the module, add tags for modules are all pretty straightforward. Once you have created the modules, click “Next” to proceed to the next step.

Next, under Offer, you can create a course offer (Note that you still need to create an “AccessAlly Products” to release the course after purchase). 

You also are not setting up pricing in this step; that too will be done under “AccessAlly Products”.

Since this is a staged-released course — you can choose which modules will be available immediately to the students after enrollment.

Also, if the course payment is recurring, you can enable or disable it here.

Once you have confirmed all the settings, click the “create product/offer & continue” button.

Next, under “Content” — you can add the individual course lessons/chapters to each of your modules.

To add content/information to each course lesson, click on the “click on edit” button, and it will take you to the course builder.

If you are familiar with any block-editor or page builder (Gutenberg or Beaver Builder), then using the Access Ally course builder will be easy.

The Block Editor allows you to add Content blocks easily.

Simply click the “+” on the top-left corner of the page, and it will provide you with a list of options:

• Text — paragraph, heading, list, quote, etc.
• Media — image, gallery, audio, cover, file, etc.
• Design — Beaver Builder, separator, page break, ProgressAlly, etc.
• Widgets — shortcode, calendar, categories, RSS, etc.
• Embeds — Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Amazon Kindle, etc.
• Patterns — buttons, columns, gallery, headers, etc.

Using WordPress and AccessAlly Content blocks, you can quickly create your content for your course lessons.

At the bottom of the page, you will see options for customizing settings for this particular course content (lesson):

• AccessAlly Member Permission.
• ProgressAlly Page Settings.

When you expand “AccessAlly Member Permission” — you will be able to customize the following settings:

• Access Permission (setup permissions based on tags).
• Conditional Redirects, if any.
• Course icon, if any.

Under “ProgressAlly Page Settings” — you can set up and configure all the LMS related settings:

• Objectives — allows you to create checklists for the various steps in your lessons (quizzes, videos,etc.)
• Media — Add your video content from various sources (YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia, Amazon AWS video, Video file, audio file).
• Social Sharing — create social media links making it easy for students to share.
• Tagging — add AccessAlly tags for the completion of a particular course lesson.
• Quiz — Add quizzes for the lesson (I will expand on this in detail in the next section).
• Private Notes — allow students to write notes, questions/comments.
• Certificates — add a lesson competition certificate. 

Additional course settings can be found on the top-right corner of the course builder.

Click on Gear Icon, and it will show you the following options:

• Choose the Status & Visibility of the course.
• Customize the course URL or Permalink.
• Choose a Feature Image.
• Create a course Excerpt.
• Enable or disable Discussion.
• Add  Page Attributes.

Once you have added and created all the Content ( course lessons), you can then proceed to the next step in the Course Wizard, by clicking the “next” button.

The Course Wizard then takes you to the “Integration” settings, to connect the newly created course to your CRM.

For the sake of this review, I chose ActiveCampaign as my CRM.

I loved that AccessAlly provides an extensive tutorial to ensure that you are properly connecting the two platforms.

Once you configured the integration with your CRM, the final step in the course creation process is “Testing”.

The platform provides a checklist (with links to the knowledge base) to ensure that everything is properly set up (order form, thank you pages, email notifications, etc.). After running through this, you can confidently launch that course.

At any point, you can go back to Course Wizard, to see a list of all your created course;

There is also an option to modify how all your courses are displayed.

You can also view and edit all your Course Content (lessons) under all your Pages.

Under All Pages, you will see a list of all your pages.

From here, you can preview or chose to edit that page.

2.   Creating Quizzes and Certificates

To add a quiz, you can see in your course content.

Under Content, choose the course lesson you want to add your quiz by clicking on the “click to edit” button.

You will find the quiz settings under the “ProgressAlly Page Settings” at the bottom of your course builder.

Click on “Activate Quiz & Create Your Questions” to begin building your quiz.

You have the option to create from 3 different types of quizzes:

• Graded Quiz —  students will receive a percentage grade once completed.
• Personality Test — the test will assign an outcome based on how the student answers.
• Scoring Test — a weighted multiple-choice quiz.

Please note that you can only choose one quiz per lesson.

Under each, there are additional settings that you can configure. For example, when creating a Graded Quiz, you can set up the following:

• Quiz Outcomes — choose the passing grade, and also the automation tags.
• Questions — all your quiz questions for this lesson.
• “Correct” Answer Message Text  — create the message that will display when the student answers correctly.
• How Many Questions To Show At One Time.
• The number of allowed quiz outtakes.
• How to display question choices.
• Customize button text.
• Download Quiz Results — allows you (the instructor) to review the responses of all students.

AccessAlly Pro also allows you to create and display custom certificates.

To create a Certificate, click on “Certificates” under “ProgressAlly Page Settings.“

You can update the name for this certificate.

Next, you have to upload the certificate template (PDF format).

Once uploaded, you can then customize your certificate, by :

• Recipient name.
• Text colour.
• Text font.
• Typography settings (text width, text size)

Once set up, the platform will automatically create custom certificates once a student completes a course.

3.   Automating Email Notifications

AccessAlly allows you to create, customize, and automation email notifications from within the platform. If you plan to use AccessAlly as your CRM — then the infrastructure enables you to handle everything from within the platform.

If you choose to use one of the approved integrations (ActiveCampaign, Convertkit, Drip, InfusionSoft, Ontarport), you can set up workflows between the platforms using automation tags.

To set up and customize your emails, head over to “Emails” under “AccessAlly Settings“.

Under “Emails” settings, you will be able to create, configure, and edit all your email templates.

• Invoices.
• Welcome email.
• Payment failed.
• Affiliate sale.
• Create custom emails.

The block editor allows you to customize and personalize each email.

You can also add your branding guidelines (logo, company names,etc.)

To customize the emails, just pick the one you want, and the email editor will open.

You can add email personalization (merge tags) to either your email subject line or body. The available personalization options are:

• Name (first name & last name).
• Dates (payment date, email sent date).
• URLs (login page, my orders).
• Company name
• Signature.

To edit the email body, click on the body, and it will popup a new edit window.

Here, you can edit, personalize, and adjust the font size.

At any point, you can send yourself an email preview before entering by clicking on “Send Test email”.

AccessAlly (Pros)

• More than just another LMS Plugin —  AccessAlly is more than WordPress LMS Plugin. It’s an all-in-one platform that allows you to build membership programs, member directories, affiliate marketing capabilities, and eCommerce capabilities. Thus, reducing your need to install, manage, and pay off multiple WordPress plugins.

• Extensive Platform Support —  Of all the WordPress LMS plugins I have reviewed, I can confidently say that AccessAlly has one of the best in-platform support. Throughout the platform, there are links to tutorials in case you get stuck with any features. The knowledge base is filled with tutorials (mostly videos) to walk you through the platform’s features. Both the Installation Wizard and the Course Wizard also provide excellent guidance when setting up the platform.

• Block-Editor Course Builder —  The rise of block-editors and page builders such as Gutenberg, Beaver Builder, Elementor has enabled business owners with limited or technical knowledge to help build WordPress pages. The Block-editor on AccessAlly has extensive content blocks and is relatively simple to build your course content.

• Subscriptions and Membership Programs —  You can create multiple free and paid-membership tiers. The 1-click feature allows you students (or members) to easily upgrade or downgrade their membership programs. The bulk enrollment feature will enable you to add multiple students to a membership program.

• eCommerce Features  —  You can create order bumps, upsells, offers, promos (coupons), etc. You can choose and edit from five different order form designs.

• Deep Integrations   —  I loved the deep integration AccessAlly with some of the most commonly used CRMs/Email Marketing Platforms (ConvertKit, Ontraport, Drip, ActiveCampaign). Also, there is an extensive tutorial for each CRM to help ensure that you connect both the platforms properly.

• Affiliate   —  AccessAlly has an extensive affiliate tracking system (included in all plans). The platform gives you the flexibility to create multiple affiliate tiers and choose payout options (percentage or fixed-price). You can also create an Affiliate Hub and provide extensive documentation and resources for your affiliates.

• Reporting (Metrics)  —  AccessAlly allows you to create a customized and extensive reporting dashboard to see how well your courses are doing. Get in-depth reporting for course sales, membership sales, refunds, affiliate users, etc. There is also additional reporting for abandoned shopping carts (abandoned cart %, # of abandoned orders, # of orders).

• Customizable Member Directories  —  Create customizable and mobile-friendly member directors (both private and public) that allow the listing of user (student or member) profiles.

AccessAlly (Cons)

• Price — Of all the WordPress LMS Plugins I have reviewed —  AccessAlly is the most expensive. To create a full-blown LMS for your students/members, you would need AccessAlly Pro ($129 per month). Other platforms, such as LearnDash or TutorLMS, have a flat annual fee. Yes, there are tons of features and extensive customization options. However, the high subscription costs can potentially discourage many new course creators from choosing the platform. Furthermore, unlike LearnDash or WP Courseware, you cannot purchase a license for multiple websites. All AccessAlly pricing is for a single site.

• Learning Curve — It will take a little longer to configure and set up the platform. Once installed, there is also a bit of a learning curve. There are a few specific platform-specific lingoes that you need to learn (ProgressAlly, Tags,etc.) to be comfortable with the platform. AccessAlly is transparent on its website about the complexity of the platform and the learning curve.

• Limited Quiz Options  — There are only 3 quiz types (graded type, personality tests, scoring tests. In contrast, other LMS plugins (LifterLMS, TutorLMS, LearnDash) have more quiz options. Plus, you can only add one quiz type for each course lesson, which is significantly different from other LMS plugins.

Limited Marketing Capabilities  — There are currently few options (or additional integrations) to build landing pages, further customize the order forms, etc.

AccessAlly Alternatives

1.   AccessAlly vs LearnDash

LearnDash is one of the most popular WordPress LMS plugins that allows you to build a self-hosted LMS and create courses, certificates, and quizzes.

The LMS features of AccessAlly and LearnDash are similar (build courses, sell courses, create quizzes, etc.). However, there is no direct option in LearnDash to create and manage membership programs (requires external membership plugins).

LearnDash also has an extensive integration library that allows you to connect with other WordPress plugins and 3rd-party software.

Let’s review the differences between AccessAlly and LearnDash in detail:

Read my Learndash review for more information about Learndash.

2.   AccessAlly vs LifterLMS

LifterLMS is another popular WordPress LMS plugin. This plugin helps course creators and online entrepreneurs build their own self-hosted LMS and create & sell courses.

Both LifterLMS and AccessAlly have similar LMS features; however, LifterLMS has extensive documentation and support that is unparalleled amongst WordPress LMS plugins.

The pricing model is also different where you can purchase LifterLMS plans for unlimited sites and get its extensive feature set.

Let’s review the differences between AccessAlly and LifterLMS in detail.

For more information about LifterLMS, read my extended LifterLMS review.

3.   AccessAlly vs TutorLMS

Tutor LMS is a relatively new WordPress LMS plugin (since 2019). However, it is gaining tremendous buzz and traction within the WordPress community as a viable course creation platform.

The primary difference between Tutor LMS and AccessAlly is that the former (Tutor LMS) allows your instructors to create courses. Therefore allowing you to create an eLearning platform like SimpliLearn or Udemy. 

Another difference would be that Tutor LMS offers a freemium pricing model for users to test the platform, whereas AccessAlly does not.

Let’s review the differences between AccessAlly and Tutor LMS in detail.

Do you want to learn more about Tutor LMS? Read the Tutor LMS review.

AccessAlly Review: Conclusion

I created this extensive, honest, and unbiased AccessAlly review to help course creators like you answer two simple questions:

• Is AccessAlly the best WordPress LMS plugin?
• Should I choose AccessAlly to create my online courses?

I have tried to be as detailed as possible to understand AccessAlly’s features, pricing model, features that make it exceptional, and areas that they can improve.

Here are the scenarios when AccessAlly would be an ideal fit for you:

• You are looking for an all-in-one LMS and Membership Plugin.
• You are willing to invest time and effort to learn the platform. Or have the budget to hire additional support from an experience AccessAlly Certified Developer.
• You only need to install and set up your online courses on one single website.

If you are looking for a WordPress LMS platform with a limited learning curve — then LearnDash is a better option.

If you are looking to build a full-blown LMS with extensive student engagement features — then LifterLMS is a better option.

My final verdict — AccessAlly is a robust WordPress LMS and Membership Plugin that you can create, launch, and sell online programs (courses and membership programs). You can build an extensive membership directory and offer structured learning to your members at a controlled pace.

Did I miss anything in this comprehensive AccessAlly review?

Let us know in the comments below.