LifterLMS Review 2020: Ultimate Showdown With Pros & Cons

When searching for a WordPress LMS plugin to create and sell online courses, a viable option that usually pops up is LifterLMS.

Is LifterLMS the best WordPress LMS plugin, and should you purchase and install this plugin on your WordPress website?

I created this extensive LifterLMS review to answer that question. 

Before you invest a few hundred dollars in an LMS software, wouldn’t it be useful to know all the features? The pros, the cons, installation, pricing, technical requirements, etc.? I cover all that in detail in this extensive LifterLMS review.

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

After reviewing this LifterLMS Review — you will have the knowledge and confidence to decide if LifterLMS is the best WordPress LMS Plugin for your online course website.

Let’s get started with this LifterLMS review. 

LifterLMS is an all-one solution that allows you to create, launch, and sell your online courses on your self-hosted WordPress website.

Its comprehensive learning centre and a strong focus on student engagement make it a compelling Learning Management System (LMS).

Here’s what you can do with LifterLMS:  

• Create, launch, and sell courses on your WordPress website.  
• Create strong student engagement features — quizzes, certificates, badges/achievements, email notifications, assignments, social learning centre, discussion groups, etc. 
• Create and sell membership programs. 
• Use the drag-and-drop course builder and content blocks to easily create and modify course content (without any coding knowledge). 

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

• The Marketing Fix. 
• WP 101. 
• Dr. Claudia Six.  
• Tizzit. 
• Association of Internal Control Practitioners. 
• DIVI Academy.   
• Insomnia Coach. 
• Healthcare Transformation. 
• MCAT Self Prep. 
• Skills and More. 
• OpticianWorks. 
• LifeSmarts Online Courses.  
• Christ Mission Academy.  
• Event Leadership Institute.  
• Ladypreneur Academy. 
• Modern Law Practice.  

The case studies and examples above show that LifterLMS is used by companies of all size — solopreneurs, artists, entrepreneurs, non-profit organizations, religious organizations, online schools, professional training companies, etc.   

LifterLMS Pricing 

Full Disclaimer — LifterLMS does offer a free LifterLMS LMS plugin. You can download it, install it, and start creating courses. However, to sell courses or to integrate with WooCommerce, you will need to purchase the Add-ons. So, it’s never really free. By the time you have added all the add-ons required, you will realize that it’s better to choose the Universal Bundle (more info below).

LifterLMS offers three different pricing packages depending on the number of websites and the features you would need: 

• Individual Add-ons — $99/each add-on; Per year; (Single Site). 
• Universal Bundle  — $299/year; (Up to 5 Sites). 
• Infinity Bundle — $999/year; (Unlimited sites). 

Renewals — The licenses renew automatically unless you cancel your subscription. Unlike many WordPress plugins, there is no lifetime license on any of all the plans.

Free Trial/ Freemium — LifterLMS offers a 30-day demo/trial (entire platform with all add-ons unlocked) for $1. It’s a great way to take the platform for a test ride and check if it’s a good fit for your needs or not.

Refund Policy — LifterLMS provides a 30-day money-back guarantee. I like you to try out the entire platform (including the Infinity Bundle) for 30 days.

LifterLMS Add-ons 

The pricing can get a little complicated when considering add-ons (integrations and extensions). Here’s a rundown of how the add-ons pricing works for each plan.  

• Payment Gateways Add-ons — Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.Net.  
• eCommerce Integrations Add-ons— WooCommerce.  
• Email Marketing, CRM  Add-ons— MailChimp, ConvertKit. 
• Forms Add-ons — Gravity Forms, Ninja Forms, WPForms, Formidable Forms. 
• Text Messaging  — Twilio. 

However, the following modules are not included in the Individual Add-ons and Universal Bundle plans:  

• Advanced Quizzing System. 
• Assignment System. 
• Private Coaching System. 
• Social Learning System. 
• Advanced Video System. 
• Custom Fields System. 
• Groups System. 

Each requires an additional purchase of $199/year. The additional modules are included in the Infinity Bundle.  

LifterLMS Support 

I can confidently say that LifterLMS has the most comprehensive and extensive support that I have seen in all WordPress LMS Plugins. 

Support Options 

The support from LifterLMS varies based on the pricing plan you subscribe to.  

• Individual  — Standard Support. 
• Universal Bundle  — Priority Support. 
• Infinity Bundle  — Priority Support + Live Office Hours. 

The Standard support includes a ticketing system (support help desk) that can be accessed from your account login.  

Priority Support means that your tickets (Universal Bundle) will get a higher priority than those with Standard Support. 

It is rare to find a WordPress plugin with a published SLA; LifterLMS offers a guaranteed response time of 12 hours (PST).  

LifterLMS currently does not offer phone support. 

The Live Office Hours is a live Mastermind Call hosted by LifterLMS CEO (Chris Badgett. They discuss various topics of interest for Infinity Bundle customers (building courses, running an online business, etc.).  

Documentation and Additional Resources 

• Knowledgebase and Documentation — LifterLMS has an extensive knowledge base with over 400+ articles on various topics such as installation, creating courses, integrations, add-ons, etc. 

• Changelog — It’s not unusual to find a public changelog or version history for a WordPress plugin. You can find the Release Notes for LifterLMS here.  

• Academy — You will also find useful information in their LifterLMS Academy section — a collection of video tutorials put together both the LifterLMS team and their partners. 

• Webinars  — A collection of informational webinars hosted by the LifterLMS team. 

• Blog — Their blog also has some excellent information about using LifterLMS and other topics that course creators will find useful. 

• Podcast  — LMSCast is a podcast hosted by Chris Badgett (LifterLMS), and they cover topics on course creation, online business, partnerships, etc.  

• Facebook Group — An active and private LifterLMS Community for Smart Course Creators Facebook Group has over 7200+ members. 

• Slack Group  — A dedicated Slack group managed by the LifterLMS team, where you can chat with LifterLMS users, experts, developers, etc.  

LifterLMS Quickstart Course 

As soon as you sign up (even for the 30-day trial) — you are prompted to check out their Quickstart Course, a mini-course that will help you with the LifterLMS platform,, and how to create & launch your first course. 

LifterLMS Integrations 

LifterLMS integrates with many popular WordPress plugins and a variety of 3rd party tools and software.  

Suppose you are purchasing the Individual Add-ons plan. In that case, each one of these is an additional purchase of $99/year (please refer to the pricing section above). 

• eCommerce — WooCommerce, UpSell Plugin. 
• Payment Gateways — Stripe, Authorize.net, PayPal. 
• CRM/ Email Marketing — ActiveCampaign, MailChimp, Groundhogg, Infusionsoft, Ontraport, Drip, ConvertKit,AgileCRM (WPFusion). 
• Affiliate Marketing  — AffiliateWP, iDevAffiliate.  
• Text Messaging  — Twilio. 
• Forums  — BuddyPress, bbPress. 
• Forms  — Gravity Forms, Ninja Forms, WPForms, Formidable Forms. 
• SEO — Yoast SEO. 
• Analytics — Google Analytics, MonsterInsight. 
• Scheduling Software — Calendly, Acuity Scheduling, Simply Schedule Appointments, Course Scheduler. 
• Webinars — Zoom. 
• Live Chat —  Drift. 
• Project Management — Trello. 
• Video Editing — Screenflow, Camtasia. 
• Video Hosting  — Vimeo Pro, Wistia. 
• Integrations or Workflows — Uncanny Automator, WPFusion. 
• Membership — WishList Member. 
• Gamification — GamiPress. 
• Badges — BadgeOS (through WooNinjas). 
• Giveaways — RafflePress. 
• APIs — GrassBlade. 
• Security  — iThemes Security Pro. 

LifterLMS Technical Information 

Minimum Technical Requirements 

To install and use LifterLMS, you need a self-hosted WordPress installation. 

Here are the minimum technical requirements for installing and using LifterLMS: 

• WordPress version  — 5.1+ or higher. 
• PHP version — 7.2 or higher. 
• Database  — MariaDB 10.0 or higher. OR MySQL 5.6 or higher. 
• Server Modules  — Nginx or Apache with mod_rewrite module. 

WordPress Themes  for LifterLMS

In general, LifterLMS works with well-coded WordPress themes. Here are a few WordPress themes have been tested for compatibility by the LifterLMS team: 

• Astra. 
• Astra Pro. 
• Authority Pro. 
• BuddyBoss. 
• Course Maker Pro. 
• Divi. 
• Emerson. 
• Genesis. 
• Magazine Pro. 
• Monochrome Pro. 
• Neve. 
• Ocean WP. 
• Revolution Pro. 
• Ventura. 
• Sage LifterLMS Divi Child Website Template.  
• LaunchPad (created by LifterLMS). 

If your WordPress theme is not listed here, I will encourage you to reach out to LifterLMS for clarification. Also, check out an extensive knowledge base.  

WordPress Page Builders 

• Beaver Builder. 
• Divi Builder. 
• Elementor. 

Installing and Configuring LifterLMS 

As soon as you sign up on LifterLMS, you will get an email from them with your login credentials. I received the credentials as I was testing on their 30-day demo.  

If you purchased one of your plans (Individual Add-ons vs. Universal Bundle vs. Infinity Bundle). In that case, you can proceed by installing, activating, and configuring your LifterLMS account within your WordPress dashboard. 

To install LifterLMS on your self-hosted WordPress website: 

• Head over to your WordPress Admin Dashboard.  
• Under Plugins, click on Add New. 
• Search for LifterLMS, and you will be able to find the LMS plugin. 
• Next, click Install. Then Activate the LifterLMS plugin. 

You will be able to see your License information in your LifterLMS account. 

The LifterLMS Setup Wizard will pop up and guide you through the rest of the installation. 

Under Page Setup, you will see a message that the following pages will be automatically created: 

• Course Catalog — Shows a paginated listing of all your published courses. 
• Membership Catalog — Shows a paginated listing of all your published and available membership programs. 
• Checkout — Shows the page where students will purchase or subscribe to your courses. 
• Student Dashboard — The page where you students can log in and access all their courses, course progress, membership programs, etc.  

You don’t have to worry about making all the changes to these pages. Once the setup is completed, you can always update your course website’s appearance using your WordPress Admin Dashboard. 

The next page is to set up your defaults Payments settings. You can choose your primary currency. Also, you can enable or display offline payments. 

Once the setup is complete, you are provided a few options. You can get further training from their Getting Started Guide or Video Tutorials.  

You can choose if you want to create a course from scratch or install a sample course.  

Once you return to your WordPress Admin Dashboard, you will notice the LifterLMS Dashboard.  

Since I have not built any courses, my enrollments and registrations are 0. However, it is good to see that they have a reporting dashboard built right in and quickly accessible. 

Next, let’s look at how to configure and personalize your LifterLMS installation. 

Under Courses settings, you will see the following options: 

• Retake Lessons — Enable/Disable the option for students to mark a lesson “incomplete” after they have completed a course lesson. 
• Course Catalog Courses Per Page — Choose how many courses you want to display in your course library. 
• Catalog Sorting — Choose how to display all your courses, either by published date or Title (ascending or descending). 

Under Memberships settings, you will see the following options: 

• Restrict Site by Membership Level — Enable/Disable the option to allow access to site users with a specific membership level.  
• Memberships Per Page — Choose how many membership programs you want to display on a page. 
• Memberships Sorting — Choose how to display all your membership programs, either by published date or Title (ascending or descending). 

Under Accounts settings, you can set up the options for your Students Dashboard:  

• Student Dashboard — Choose the general display for your students when they login to their dashboards.  
• Student Endpoints — Customize the endpoints or URL-suffixes for the various pages that your students will access as they browse your website. 
• User Information  — Customize all the required fields on all the other pages (checkout pages, registration pages,etc.) 

Under Checkout settings, you can set up the options for your checkout page and eCommerce settings:  

• Checkout Settings — Customize the checkout pages settings. 
• Currency Options  — Choose and customize the currency you will use for your online school. 
• Payment Gateways  — Setup offline and online payments. It also lists the payment gateways that you have chosen for your online school.  

Under Engagements settings, you will see the following options: 

• Email Settings — Customize your email notification settings. 
• Email Delivery — If you are using an email delivery system such as MailHawk or SendWP, you can integrate that system with LifterLMS here. 
• Certificate Settings  — Customize the background image size that you will be used for student certificates. 

Under Notifications settings, you will see all the system-generated and automated email notifications that will be students for the various scenarios, such as: 

• Courses (enrollment, completions,etc). 
• Course Sections or Course Lessons completion. 
• Quizzes (failed, graded, or passed). 

You can further customize and personalize each of these emails.  

The email editor looks similar to the WordPress editor, and also comes with LifterLMS Merge Codes. It helps you set up all the emails within LifterLMS and not having to rely on another platform. 

Under Integrations settings, you can see the status of your integration with bbPress and BuddyPress. 

To see a list of all available Add-ons — you can find them in your LifterLMS Dashboard, under Adds-ons & More, and it will pull up a list of all the add-ons. You can find additional information under each listing right within your WordPress dashboard. To enable or purchase the add-ons, it will take you to the respective page on LifterLMS’s website. 

The Best Features of LifterLMS 

1. Create Courses 

To create a new course using LifterLMS, go to your WordPress Dashboard and open Courses under LifterLMS.  

Then click on Add Course to start the course creation process. 

I am impressed with the course builder in LifterLMS, and it uses a block editor that you will see in many page builders such as Elementror, DIVI, etc.  

Adding Content blocks is easy.  

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

• Most used — page break, quotes, paragraph, gallery, etc.  
• Common Blocks — paragraph, audio, cover, file, etc. 
• Formatting — table, code, classic editor, verse, etc. 
• Layout Elements — buttons, columns, spacer, separator, etc. 
• Widgets — shortcode, categories, latest comments,RSS,etc. 
• Embeds — YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Vimeo, etc. 
• LifterLMS Blocks — Course continue button, Course information, Course progress, Course syllabus, Instructors, LifterLMS pricing table. 

Using the combination of WordPress and LifterLMS Content blocks, you can quickly create your course information page, display pricing, display instructors, etc. This can all be done in a record of time.   

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

• Course Options. 
• Access Plans. 
• Student Management. 

Let’s review each of these settings further.  

Under Course Options, you will find: 

• General  — Select the features of the video and audio for the course (if any). 
• Sales Page — Select the page where prospects (not students) will be sent before enrolling in the course. 
• Restrictions — Select enrollment periods, prerequisites, course capacity, etc.  
• Reviews  — Enable or disable course reviews. 
• Advanced Videos — Customize the additional settings (auto-play, auto-advance,etc.) for Wistia and Vimeo videos. 

Under Access Plans — you will be able to create the purchase or payment plans for the course.  

When you click on Add New, it will allow you to customize the plan for that particular course.  

Here are the following ways you can customize your payment options: 

• Price. 
• Plan Title  — Name for your specific payment plan. 
• Visibility  — is the course hidden, visible, or featured? 
• Is Free  — Is it a free course or requires a purchase? 
• Frequency — Option to choose if it’s a one-time payment or a subscription plan?  
• Access Expiration — Does the course access expire? If so, when? 
• Plan availability — Is it available for members only or anyone can purchase? 
• Sale Price — Show or hide if there is a sale price for the course. 
• Checkout redirect  — Choose which page enrolled students will be redirected to once they finish the purchase. 

Under Student Management — you can find a list of all your enrolled students.  

It also displays each student’s enrollment (course progress, grade, last lesson, order information, etc). 

You can also manually enroll other students easily.  

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. 
• Select or Create Categories. 
• Select or Create Difficulties. 
• Select or Create Tags. 
• Select or Add the Tracks for the course (individual course lessons). 
• Choose a Feature Image. 
• Create a course Excerpt. 
• Enable or disable Discussion. 
• Launch the Course Builder.  

To start building your course or adding content — click on the Launch Course Builder button.  

You can also launch the Builder for any of your courses from your LifterLMS WordPress Dashboard. 

The Drag-and-drop Course Builder is one of LifterLMS’s strengths amongst other WordPress LMS Plugins.  

To create a new Section (course module), simply drag the Section element from the right-hand side.  

To create a new Lessons (course lesson), drag the New Lesson element into the Course Builder. 

You can then start adding content (text, links, videos,etc.) to each Lesson.  When you click on each Lesson, the builder shows you additional options to customize the lesson content: 

• Add an Assignment. 
• Add a Quiz. 
• Includes (or not includes) Content (text-based). 
• Includes (or not includes) Video. 
• Includes (or not includes) Audio. 
• Requires (or not includes) Prerequisites. 
• Open to Enrolled Students Only (or not). 
• Drip enabled/disabled. 

You can also access the additional Lesson settings by clicking on the Settings icon: 

• Lesson — Customize the URL for the particular lesson. Also, set up the video settings for the lesson. If the lesson is drip-feed enabled, then choose the drip schedule. 
• Assignment — Create a new assignment or add an existing one. 
• Quiz — Create a new quiz or add an existing one.  

(I will expand more about Assignments and Quizzes in the next section). 

To add content for the course Lesson, open the WordPress Lesson Editor.  You will notice that the Lesson Builder has the same editable content blocks as the course information page.   

Once your course lessons and sections are complete, you can see a preview of the course. I like the simplistic UI/UX design of the courses built on LifterLMS. 

2. Student Engagement — Quizzes 

To add a Quiz for a course lesson, click on the “?” icon under one of the lessons. 

You will see two options: 

• Create a New Quiz. 
• Add Existing Quiz. 

When creating a new quiz, the Builder will first help customize the settings.  

You have the option to : 

• Create a Permalink/URL for that quiz. 
• Add Media. 
• Add a description. 
• Choose a passing percentage. 
• Choose the number of attempts. 
• Select the time limit. 
• Display/not display correct answers. 
• Randomize question orders. 

Next, you can choose the quiz type. LifterLMS offers the following quiz types: 

• Basic Quiz Questions 
  • Multiple choice questions. 
  • Picture choice questions. 
  • True or False questions. 

• Advanced Quizzing. 
  • Fill in the blanks questions. 
  • Reorders Items questions. 
  • Reorder Pictures. 
  • Short Answer. 
  • File Upload. 
  • Long Answer. 

NOTE — that the Advanced Quizzing is only included in the Infinity Bundle.  To enable it in the Individual Add-ons or Universal Bundle you will need to purchase the Advanced Quizzing Add-on at $199/year. 

Once you select the quiz question type, you can then create your individual questions. Once you are ready, you can go ahead and publish the quiz. 

Image source: LifterLMS (How do I create a Quiz in LMS)? 

You also have the choice to create all the quizzes at once, and then adding them up to individual lessons later. 

3. Student Engagement — Certificates & Badges 

To create your course certificates, head over to the WordPress Dashboard. 

• Under Engagements, click on Certificates. 
• Then Add Certificate to create a new one.  

Next, you can customize your certificate you just created.  You can upload a certificate template, and also add custom fields to personalize certificates to match your brand.  

Once created you can see a preview of your course certificate. 

Next, you will need to add an engagement to trigger the certificate.  To create a new engagement: 

• Click on Add New Engagement under Engagement. 

Under Engagement Options, you can choose the parameters for this particular engagement: 

• Triggering Event — Choose the student action that will trigger this engagement. 
• Select a course — Pick which course this engagement applies to. 
• Engagement Type — Select if this is an award, certificate, or an email. 
• Engagement Delay — Select the number of days after which you want this triggered. 

Your students can see all their course completion certificates under their individual Student Dashboards.  

4. Student Engagement — Achievements 

Achievements (Badges) can be used to gamify your student experience. LifterLMS allows you to create and display badges next to a student’s profile in their dashboard. 

To create an Achievement – head over to your WordPress dashboard.  

• Under Engagements, click on  Achievements.  
• Then Add Achievement. 

Next, you can customize the achievement: 

• Add a Achievement Title. 
• Add or update the Achievement Content (information about the badge) 
• Add a Background image. 

LifterLMS (Pros) 

• Full-blown LMS — LifterLMS does not disappoint at all with all its LMS features. The platform allows the ability to create a course, create quizzes and certificates, protect content, setting up payments —  the feature-set is extensive. LifterLMS has managed to create a true one-stop-shop for helping you create and launch an online school.  

• Drag-and-drop Page Builder — I have illustrated how easy it is to use the drag-and-drop builder to create and customize your new course (or course sections). The learning curve is quick, and even newbies with limited or no WordPress experience will be able to launch courses quickly.  

• Simplistic UI/UX — When creating an online school or a course library, you don’t want to distract your students with a confusing UI. Using LifterLMS, you can build courses and course libraries housed in a simple, clean, and intuitive way. The Student Dashboard houses all the student’s information (courses, certificates, achievements,etc.) in one place.   

• Content Protection — LifterLMS by default protects all your content such that only students who have enrolled in your courses can view the course content. You do not need additional content protection or membership plugin (Paid Content Pro, RestrictContentPro,etc.) to do this. This feature is available in all plans.  

• Drip-feed Content  — LifterLMS by default allows you to drip-feed your course lessons to your students. You can choose whether to drip the content on a specific date or automate it based on your students’ enrollments. This feature is available in all plans.  

• Create and Sell Membership Programs — Create and sell custom membership programs using LifterLMS. It’s easy to restrict or protect your content (pages, blogs, or courses) from non-members. No need to install a 3rd party membership plugin such as WooCommerce Subscriptions or MemberPress. You can do that directly from LifterLMS. 

• Checkout Pages  — Create professional-looking checkout pages for your courses and membership programs. You can do this directly in LifterLMS without the need of an additional plugin. 

• Payment Options  —  You have extensive flexibility in pricing and selling your courses and membership programs —  free courses, one-time payments or recurring payments. The choices for installment or subscription payment plans are the most extensive I have seen in comparing WordPress LMS plugins.  

• Coupons and Vouchers —   Easily create coupons and vouchers to boost your revenues. You can set up restrictions (limits, expiration dates, usage limits,etc.) for your coupons. 

• Extensive Knowledgebase and Resources —  I have extensively covered the various LifterLMS resources available for new, and experienced course creators. Of all the WordPress LMS plugins that I have studied and reviewed — LifterLMS is a clear winner in this area. From video tutorials to documentation to support groups to podcasts (the list is endless).  

• Reporting and Analytics —  You can get detailed reporting about the performance of your online school, about individual courses right within your WordPress dashboard. There is also additional reporting available for how your students are performing, your overall sales, etc. Of all the WordPress LMS plugins, I can confidently say LifterLMS has the most comprehensive reporting, and it’s included in all plans. 

• Student Engagement —  Another LifterLMS benefit that I have extensively spoken about in this article is the comprehensive learning center or student engagement features (Quizzes, Achievements, Certificates). All of them are easy to create, customize, manage, and add to your course lessons. Please note that certain Advanced quizzes are only available in the Infinity Bundle. To use it in the other plans requires a premium add-on priced at $199/year. 

• Customizable Email Notifications —  LifterLMS includes a library of email notifications based on the student action (course enrollment, course completion,etc.).You can customize and personalize all the notifications using the WordPress editor.  

LifterLMS (Cons) 

• Pricing Model  —  Here’s my candid feedback about the LifterLMS pricing model — it’s one of the most expensive options amongst all the WordPress LMS Plugins (LearnDash, WP Courseware, Tutor LMS). Yes, there is a free LifterLMS Plugin using which you can create courses, membership programs. However, in order to sell the courses, you will need to start purchasing the add-ons. So, effectively it is never free. 

• Limited Email Marketing Integrations  —  LifterLMS currently integrates with MailChimp and ConvertKit, but the choices are limited. You can use WPFusion to build workflows and connections, however, that’s an added cost.  

• Limited Marketing Capabilities  —  Currently there’s no capability to build landing pages or build a marketing funnel. There’s also no current integration with landing page softwares. 

LifterLMS Alternatives 

1. LifterLMS vs LearnDash 

LearnDash is a platform that comes close to LifterLMS in terms of features and functionalities. LearnDash is a popular WordPress LMS plugin that allows you to create courses, certificates, and quizzes and build a self-hosted LMS. 

Currently, learnDash doesn’t offer a free plan. It also requires purchases of additional add-ons; however, tons of free add-ons can help you build an online school. Also, LearnDash has an extensive integration list that will help you create a complete course marketing platform.

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

For more information on LearnDash, read my extended LearnDash review.

2. LifterLMS 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. 

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

Another difference would be that Tutor LMS has a simplistic all-inclusive pricing model, while LifterLMS can become expensive because of the add-ons.  

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

For more information on TutorLMS, read my Tutor LMS review.

3. LifterLMS vs WPCourseware 

Since 2012 WP Courseware is a popular LMS plugin that has been helping WordPress users in creating and selling online courses (and has over 20000+ installations). 

There are many similarities between LifterLMS and WP Courseware. The biggest difference would be the pricing model —WP Courseware has an all-inclusive pricing model while LifterLMS offers an a-la-carte model.  

The support and documentation for LifterLMS is much more extensive than WP Courseware. 

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

LifterLMS Review: conclusion 

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

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

I have tried to be as detailed as possible so you can understand LifterLMS’s features, pricing model, features that make it exceptional, and areas of improvement.  

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

• You are looking for a one-stop-shop, in other words, a complete LMS solution. 
• Student engagement is important to you.  
• You are comfortable using WordPress, but not technically savvy as a WordPress developer. 

If you want to build a full-blown online course marketing platform that connects with your other software systems — then perhaps LearnDash is a better option. 

If you want to build an eLearning platform where your instructors can create and sell their courses — then Tutor LMS is a better option. 

My final verdict — LifterLMS is an extensive WordPress LMS Plugin that you can create, launch, and sell online courses; and you can also create a highly-engaged student community. I would recommend it for you to start building an online course business on your WordPress website. 

Did I miss anything in this comprehensive LifterLMS review? 

Let us know in the comments below.