WP Courseware Review (2020): The Right WP LMS Plugin for you?

WP Courseware is a popular and widely-used WordPress LMS plugin. Online entrepreneurs and course creators have used WP Courseware to build and sell online courses since 2012. To date over 21,000+ WordPress websites have used WP Courseware.

Is WP Courseware the best WordPress LMS plugin for you, and should you purchase and install this plugin?

I created this extensive WP Courseware 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, available integrations, etc.? I cover all that in this guide.

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

After reviewing this WP Courseware Review, you will have the knowledge and confidence to decide if this is the best WordPress LMS Plugin for your online school or online business.

Let’s get started with this WP Courseware review.

What is WP Courseware? Who is WP Courseware Ideal for?

WP Courseware is a WordPress LMS Plugin created by the team at Fly Plugins. Launched in 2012, WP Courseware has been installed and used by over 21,000 WordPress websites.

Here’s what you can do with Tutor LMS:

• Create, launch, and sell online courses on your WordPress website.
• Create courses with interactive learning centres — quizzes, certificates, etc.
• Send out automated and manual email notifications to build a thriving student community.

Here’s who WP Courseware is ideally suited for:

• Individual course creators.
• Online business owners, solopreneurs.
• WordPress developers, webmasters, etc.
• Online Schools.

WP Courseware Pricing

WP Courseware does not offer a freemium option (or free version).

The annual pricing plans are as follows:

• Teacher —— $124.50 (per year) ; 2 WordPress sites.
• Professor —— $149.50 (per year); 10 WordPress sites.
• GURU —— $199.50 (per year); 25 WordPress sites.

All the WP Courseware Plans include:

• 1 year of support.
• 1 year of updates.

WP Courseware Support

• Support Options —  Ticketing system that can be accessed through the Member Portal.

• Support Hours —  Monday to Friday from 0800 to 1700 MST.

• Knowledgebase — Detailed documentation with over 120+ articles (with videos and screenshots) covering many aspects of the software (course builder, integrations, quizzes, certificates,etc.)

• Tutorials — Dedicated YouTube Channel with videos that cover topics such as course creation, integrations, student management, etc.

WP Courseware Integrations

• Payment Gateways  — PayPal Standard, Stripe.
• eCommerce Capabilities  — WooCommerce, Easy Digital Download, Digital Access Pass.
• Membership Plugins — MemberPress, Paid Memberships Pro, WishList Member, MemberMouse, s2 Member, OptimizeMember, MagicMembers, MemberSonic, Memberium, RestrictContent Pro.
• Email Marketing  — ConvertKit, OntraPort.
• Landing Pages  — OptimizePress.
• Workflows  — UnCanny Automator.
• Page Builders — Visual Composer, WP Bakery.
• Gamification — GamiPress, WPAchievements.

WP Courseware Technical Requirements

Here are the minimum technical requirements for installing WP Courseware:

• WordPress version  — 7.3+ or higher.
• PHP version — 5.4 or higher.

Installing and Configuring WP Courseware

If you have purchased and installed any other WordPress theme or plugin, then, doing the same for WP Courseware is straightforward.

Once you purchase one of the three plans (Teacher or Professor or GURU), you will be taken to the Member Portal where you will find your license.

Once downloaded, you can upload the plugin to your WordPress admin dashboard.

• Go to Plugins, and Add New.
• Click on Upload Plugin.
• Next, Activate the plugin.

You will be asked to enter the license key for the plugin, and you will find the license within the Member Portal on FlywheelPlugins.com.

Next, you can start customizing the Settings for the courses you build using WP Courseware. You will notice a dedicated section for WP Courseware in your WordPress Dashboard.

Next, you can start customizing the Settings for the courses you build using WP Courseware. You will notice a dedicated section for WP Courseware in your WordPress Dashboard.

Under Students Settings, you will be able to set up or update the following:

• Student Account Page  — Choose which page on your website is dedicated to your students when they are accessing the course.
• Student Account Endpoints — Set endpoints for specific student actions such as account registration, lost password, log out, etc.

Under Emails Settings, you will be able to set up or update the following:

• Email Notifications  — Choose who receives which type of email notifications. Also, personalize and configure each email (new order, refunded order, student invoice,etc.).
• Email Sender — Choose the from “name” and “email address” from which all the emails will be sent.
• Email Template  — Customize your email templates with a header image. Also customize the colour emails of the element (text colour, background colour,etc.)

Under Styles Settings, customize the branding and look-and-feel of your entire online school, individual courses, notifications, quizzes, lessons,etc., using the CSS customizer.

Under Support Settings, you will see the following:

• Technical Requirements  — You can check if your website meets the minimum technical requirements to work with WP Courseware.
• Shortcodes  — List of shortcodes that you can use when building your course lessons.
• Instant Answers  — Access commonly asked questions with detailed guides on using the platform.

Under Checkout Settings, you will be able to set up or update all the eCommerce and payment settings:

• Checkout Pages  — Choose and edit the individual pages for checkout, order confirmation, terms & conditions, etc.
• Currency  — Choose your currency, and also how you want the currency parameters to be displayed.
• Payment Gateways  — Configure your PayPal and Stripe settings.
• Taxes  — Enable or disable if you want to charge taxes, and choose the tax percentage.
• Coupons  — Enable or disable the use of coupons.
• Checkout process  — Choose the cart and checkout process (SSL settings, redirects,etc.)
• Privacy  — Enable or disable a privacy page to be displayed on your online courses website.

Once you have configured all the settings, you are ready to create your first course using WP Courseware.

The Best Features of WP Courseware

1.   Drag-and-drop Course Builder

Creating a course is relatively simple on WP Courseware.

Find the WP Courseware section in your WordPress Dashboard, and choose Courses. In the Courses section, click Add New.

The WP Courseware Wizard shows tips and suggestions as you go along building your new course.

Let’s look at the settings you can customize for each course in WP Courseware:

• General — Customize how you wanted your students to access a particular course (automatically or manually). Choose if you want all your course units to be visible or not. Also, choose how you want your students to advance or progress through individual units.
• Description — Update your course description by adding/editing text, adding images, or also downloads.
• Payments Type — Choose the pricing model for your course (free, one-time purchase, or subscription payments).
• Messages — Create and edit the messages for the various aspects of the course, such as — unit completion, course completion, etc.
• Emails — Create and edit email notifications for the various aspects of the course, such as — unit completion, course completion, quiz completion, etc.
• Certificates — Enable or disable if a student can download a PDF course completion certificate. Customize your course certificates with your own professional branding.
• Prerequisites — Choose and select the other courses a student should have completed to enrol in this course.
• Bundles — Create a bundled course offer, that allows students to purchase your courses at a discount.
• Instructor — Choose a course instructor for a particular course.

Bulk Grant Access — Grant access to users and administrators.

Once you create a new title for your course, next, you can start building the individual Course Modules (or sections).

I like the fact that you can create modules within the same window. It makes it easier to do everything in one place rather than jumping around between multiple tabs.

You can edit individual modules — add Module Title and customize or edit the Module Description. The editor is similar to any adding or editing a WordPress post or page. There’s the ability to format your text, add images, hyperlinks, etc.

The drag-and-drop course builder allows you to easily move or rearrange the Course Modules.

From here, you can also add new Course Units (lessons), by simply clicking on an existing Course Module, and clicking Add Unit.

You can either create a brand new course unit or “Select Existing Unit” (if you have already created and published all the course lessons).

The Course Unit editor is the same as any WordPress page or post. There’s also an option to choose a drip schedule (more on this later). Also, there’s an option to choose the unit as a Unit Teaser/Preview.

The Unit Teaser can be used if you want to offer certain course lessons for free, to help promote your course.

Once you have added all the Course Units, the drag-and-drop builder allows you:

• To move or rearrange the order of the units.
• To add individual quizzes (more on this later).
• To see a preview of the course.

When editing an individual Course Unit, you have the option to customize the following:

• URL — Edit/update the Permalink/URL.
• Formating — Edit, and format the content in that particular unit (lesson), (similar to any WordPress post).
• Media — Add Images, links, tables, etc.
• Insert Download — Add a file or document that your students can either download or purchase. You can easily create a clickable button into the course unit, without requiring additional coding.

WP Courseware also allows you to create Unit Templates, i.e., you can reuse these templates when creating course lessons. It is especially handy if you are creating many courses on your platform and want to save time with creating and editing content.

2.   Drip Content

The ability to drip-feed content helps you create a learning environment for your student, where they are not overwhelmed with all the information at once. It also helps create a stronger relationship with your student community. You can also ensure that they are engaged with your course content and not just downloading all the material and then never consuming them.

WP Courseware makes it very easy and simple to drip-feed your course content. When creating a course unit, you can change your drip settings under the section “Unit Content Drip”.

If you choose to enable this, you have a couple of options.

You can either choose a specific date and time when this course unit will be available or visible to the students.

Or you can choose a schedule based on when a student enrols in your course.

Once all the settings are made, the platform will automatically schedule and send the individual course units (lessons) to the students based on the internal you have selected.

3.   Quizzes and Surveys

To add a quiz or survey in WP Courseware, head over to the Quizzes section in your WP Courseware dashboard, and click Add New.

You can either create all your quizzes/surveys in the Quizzes section and later add them to the course units. Or you can add individual quizzes to each course unit as you create them.

As you create your quiz, you can also choose the Quiz type. It can either be:

• Survey mode — Useful for collecting information such as course feedback,essay-type answers, etc.
• Quiz Mode – Blocking  — Requires the student to complete that question before moving on to the next one.
• Quiz Mode – Non-Blocking  — Requires the student to answer some questions before proceeding but allows them to progress to the next unit.

You can choose the various aspects of the quiz in the Quiz Behaviour Settings:

• Pass Mark — Choose the minimum pass mark (percentage) a student needs before allowed to move on to the next course unit.
• Number of attempts allowed — Choose the number of times a student can take that quiz (1-30 attempts; unlimited attempts)
• Paginate Questions — Choose whether to display all the quizzes all in one page or one after another.
• Set Time Limit for Quiz — Choose whether the quiz has a time limit or not. If yes, select how long they are allowed to complete the quiz.

Next, you can also edit the Quiz Result Settings:

• Show Answers — Choose whether to show the answers to the questions to the students. If yes, there are additional options on how you choose to display them (see image below).
• Downloadable Quiz Results — Enable or disable the option for your students to download the quiz results in a PDF format.
• Show Results by Tag  — Choose whether to or not to display individual question tags.

WP Courseware provides a wider range of quiz types to choose from, which you can find in the Manage Quizzes section.

• Multiple choice questions.
• True/False questions.
• Open-ended question.
• Add questions from a pool.
• Add Random questions.

You can then edit and customize each of these questions in detail. For instance, you can add images to both your questions and answers to make them more visually appealing. You can also add hints to each question.

In summary, WP Courseware has an extensive and highly-customizable quizzes feature — that will enable you to boost your student engagement for each course.

4.   Certificates

Providing your students with course completion certificates is an excellent way to bolster your brand’s credibility and also course engagement. Adding Certificates using WP Courseware is relatively simple, and you don’t need another 3rd party plugin.

To add or edit a certificate, go to the Course Settings and choose the Certificate Settings. You have multiple options to customize your certificate:

• Signature — Type Add a text-based signature or add an image file.
• Logo — Choose whether you want to display or not display your logo.
• Background —  Choose the built-in certificate background, or upload your own custom background.

Once you have updated all the settings, you can see a preview of how the finished certificate will look like to your students.

If you want to further customize your certificates, it is possible by making some coding changes on your WordPress functions.php file. Here’s a support article on how to do it.

WP Courseware (Pros)

• Simple Pricing Model  — One of my pet peeves about an eLearning platform is confusing pricing models, and I am not usually a fan of add-ons. One of the things I admire about WP Courseware — its transparent and all-inclusive pricing model. You can create unlimited courses and manage unlimited students all for a single annual price. Every add-on, additional plugins, or integrations are all included. This simplicity allows you the course creator or entrepreneur to focus on your online course business rather than worrying about software licensing fees.

• Course Builder  — WP Courseware makes it simple to create courses and course content using the WordPress editor. If you have decent experience using WordPress, then your learning curve is very short when using WP Courseware.

• In-platform Support (Instant Answers) — The platform is built in such a way that it is easy to find answers to your questions. Whether it’s about creating course units or quizzes or certificates. You can get detailed guides without having to leave the WordPress dashboard. The Instant Answers feature in the Support section in the platform provides detailed and step-by-step instructions to all your questions about WP Courseware.

• Inbuilt Email Notifications — WP Courseware allows you to create, edit, and customize automation email notifications for your entire school or for individual courses. Most of the emails are pre-built and can be customized with the help of merge tags. Thus, making it very easy to communicate with your students at any given point. You can also add a header image and customize the colours (text, background,etc.) instead of just sending bland plain-text emails.

• Bulk Enroll Students —  At any point, you can add multiple students at once. It is a tremendous time-saver if you have students who enrol in multiple courses.

• Payment Plans — Using WP Courseware, you can create courses that are either free or paid. For paid courses, you can set up either a one-time purchase fee or offer subscription plans. It helps you offer more payment flexibility for your students.

• Sell Coupons  — To build a course marketing machine, you will need tools such as discounts, bundles, coupons to help you attract more students and sell more courses. WP Courseware allows you to create, customize, and control your coupons. You can choose the coupon type (percentage discount or fixed cart discount or fixed price discount). The Coupon Usage Restrictions allow you to prevent misuse of coupons by placing restrictions such as time limit, spend limit, and also exclude courses.

• Classroom Feature — This feature allows you to get a snapshot of the students enrolled in a particular course and their progress. You can also manually enrol students who are already registered. For within the Classroom, you can also email either an individual student or the entire class (bulk-send emails).

• Gradebook — This WP Courseware feature allows you to view the quiz progress of all your students. You can see how many students have completed the quiz, the overall class average, course completion dates, student certificates, etc. You can also export the entire Gradebook into a CSV format.

• Create a Shopping Cart — You can build all the required pages (checkout pages, account page, etc. easily using WP Courseware. Furthermore, you don’t necessarily need another eCommerce plugin (WooCommerce or Easy Digital Download) to do this; however, there is an integration between WP Courseware and these plugins should you choose to use them.

• Shortcodes — Many WordPress users love the simplicity and ubiquity of shortcodes, and WP Courseware comes with plenty of them. You can use the many available shortcodes on your course pages, checkout pages, enrollment pages, etc.

• Extensive Customization — One of the significant advantages of most WordPress plugins is that they allow you to customize them to match your business needs. WP Courseware is very developer-friendly, and it allows you to update CSS and PHP settings to make your course match your branding guidelines.

• Certificates and Quizzes — I have covered both these features in-depth. However, it’s worth mentioning again. It’s difficult to build your own LMS without these two features. WP Courseware does not disappoint and offers extensive choices and customization options.

WP Courseware (Cons)

• No Front-end Builder — The rise of Gutenberg Block editor and WordPress Page-builders has dramatically shifted the website building experience for many WordPress users. If you are used to using blocks and page builders, then there is a slight learning curve to using the Classic WordPress Editor. Other WordPress LMS Plugins such as LearnDash and Tutor LMS include a front-end course builder.

• Limited Email Marketing Integrations — If you noticed the current integration library of WP Courseware, there’s a heavy emphasis on WordPress membership plugins. Perhaps that’s one of the strengths of the platform. However, when it comes to 3rd-party software outside of WordPress, the choices are limited to ConvertKit and OntraPort.  You can definitely use the Uncanny Automator plugin to build workflows. However, it’s an additional plugin and an added step. I also could not find a current Zapier integration as well.

• Limited Marketing Capabilities — There aren’t many current options to build landing pages using WP Courseware. Also, there are no direct integrations to landing page software  (except Optimize Press integration) or marketing automation platforms (MAP).

• Poorly-designed Website  — Ok, I guess this is pet-peeve rather than a significant drawback. I found the WP Courseware website a bit outdated and lacking information. From just browsing the site, it might appear that WP Courseware doesn’t compare well to its competitors (LearnDash, LifterLMS, Tutor LMS). However, I was blown away by the sheer amount of features once I purchased and installed WP Courseware. I feel that the website might turn away a lot of potential customers because they might have the same apprehension.

• Inability to Add Multiple Instructors — I could not find an option to add multiple instructors to courses. It might be a useful feature if you have a school with a large number of courses and teachers. There’s also not an option to create a detailed Instructor profile, and that’s one feature that Tutor LMS does very well.

• Limited Reporting — There isn’t a dashboard to view how well your school is doing. To view how the course, subscriptions, or quizzes are doing, you need to go to the separate pages (Classroom, Gradebook,etc.)  and view them separately. Overall the reporting functionality is limited in WP Courseware. In contrast, competitors like LearnDash and LifterLMS provide extensive reporting and analytics.

• No Email or Chat Support — The only way to get support from the WP Courseware team is to log in to the Member Portal and send a support ticket. Yes, there is an extensive knowledge base and support documentation available both within and outside the platform. However, today in 2020, most customers prefer faster responses via email or live chat. I don’t think WP Courseware loses experienced developers because of this. However, not having email support can potentially intimidate newbie course creators who are not technically-savvy.

WP Courseware Alternatives

1.   WP Courseware vs LearnDash

LearnDash is one of the most popular WordPress LMS plugins used by course creators, corporations, and educational institutions.

In many ways, WP Courseware and LearnDash are very similar. Both WordPress LMS plugins enable you to create courses, drip content, quizzes, certificates, etc.. But there are a few differences.

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

Interested in LearnDash? Read my extensive LearnDash review.

2.   WP Courseware vs AccessAlly

AccessAlly is a WordPress LMS and Membership plugin that you can use to create, launch, and sell your online courses, membership programs, and digital products.

There are many similarities between WP Courseware and AccessAlly —  both allow you to create courses, drip content, add quizzes, create certificates, etc.

The biggest difference between both platforms is the pricing model. AccessAlly has many additional eCommerce and membership features, and hence it is more expensive on an annual basis. Actually also has more extensive support and knowledge base compared to WP Courseware.

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

Want to learn more about Accessally? Read my Accessally review.

3.   WP Courseware vs LifterLMS

LifterLMS is another WordPress LMS popular plugin that you can use to create, launch, and sell your online courses.

There are many similarities between LifterLMS and WP Courseware —  both allow you to create courses, drip content, add quizzes, etc.

The primary difference would be their pricing models  —  WP Courseware has an all-inclusive pricing model, and Lifter LMS has an a-la-carte pricing model (for add-ons and integrations).

LifterLMS does also provide a stronger support system (extensive resource library, Slack groups, Facebook groups, tutorials,etc.) — compared to WP Courseware.

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

Want to know more about LifterLMS? Read my detailed LifterLMS review.

WP Courseware review: conclusion

My goal of creating this extensive WP Courseware review is to help you learn all its main features and also additional information (pricing model, support options, integrations, etc.). It can get tricky and confusing when comparing WP Courseware to other WordPress LMS plugins and making a final decision (since there are many similarities).

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

• You have a limited budget and want peace-of-mind pricing.
• You want to create an LMS with student engagement options (quizzes, certificates, email notifications,etc. ).
• You are comfortable using the classic WordPress editor to create content.

If you want to build a powerful course marketing platform — then LearnDash or LifterLMS is a better fit.

If you are looking for an all-inclusive LMS and membership plugins — then AccessAlly is a better option.

My final verdict — WP Courseware is an amazing WordPress LMS Plugin that you can start creating and selling online courses and manage your student community. I would recommend it for you to start building an online course business.

Did I miss anything in this comprehensive review of WP Courseware?

Let us know in the comments below.