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What Should You Do with the Membership Plugin? -

Apr 4, 2022

If you are creating an online course using WordPress you'll find that many paths to the desired destination.

WordPress is the ideal platform for creating and selling online classes because it's flexible and it you own the platform. There numerous plugins to choose from that sometimes it can be somewhat confusing.

Perhaps you are currently facing this dilemma in relation to your online class and aren't sure of what to do. If you decide to manage your own WordPress site, you will end up making the following choices to run your course:

  1. Only use for the courses you have chosen.
  2. Only use a membership plugin
  3. Use both

The answer will depend on the details of your project, so it is not possible to offer a strict guidelines on when you should apply every. Let's take a look at various situations.

1. Using only

If you're looking into then the truth is that you do not require a membership plugin for protection of content. Our LMS can protect your content and not require the help of a membership plugin using our Access Settings.

As an example, suppose that you wish to market three different course. The content of the courses (lessons and quizzes, for instance.) are not accessible to those who have not yet registered. Only registered users to take the course have access to the course's content. If someone buys one course, they do not have access to the others. They only have access to the one.

If the course you are taking isn't free then you may be wondering how to add an option to pay for your classes. It is compatible with these popular shopping carts:

  • Simple Digital Downloads
  • SamCart
  • ThriveCart (beta)

The WordPress shopping carts (1 and 2 above) are compatible with hundreds of payment processors. comes with the following three payment options if you want to not utilize a shopping cart:

  • PayPal
  • Stripe
  • 2Checkout

There is no problem using any of these options for accepting payments. will protect your course contents without having to use an additional membership plug-in. The people who opt for this method will appreciate the simplified process of creating their course offering because it eliminates the need to master a different solution.

2. Using a Membership Plugin (Only)

It is important to note that there are certain situations when using an LMS plugin like isn't necessary.

If the project you are working on only demands protection of a few posts, pages or even assets that are on your WordPress site A membership plugin is what you need. The use of a learning management software in this case would be excessive.

One example would be if your site offers a community forum as well as maybe some useful downloads for your members. In this scenario, you don't need an a plugin like because there isn't a need for enrolling students in courses, scheduling quizzes, certificates, badges as well as points reporting.

3. Utilizing Both and a membership plugin

Though a membership plugin isn't essential but there could be benefits when using the membership plugin, based on the requirements you have.

If, for instance, you're interested in having additional metrics on your members then using the membership plugin is a nice value-add. A lot of membership platforms have the ability to report on their members. Used in conjunction with this provides you with more insights into your members.

Another scenario where you can use both of them is when you already have an existing membership website but you would like to add the course features in a more formaland organized fashion. The addition of a plugin makes it simple to increase the value of your membership website through the creation of classes for members to enroll in. It is not necessary to alter the way you manage your customers either, since it's the same by using the membership plugin.

can be directly connected to the following solutions for membership:

A word of warning Avoid locking in vendors!

Learning programs can vary in demands and at times, these needs change. You can begin your course using any of the above options and then switch between them as required.

One thing I know after over a decade in the e-learning industry is that learning programs as well as online courses aren't one-size-fits all. Learning evolves and so do expectations.

If you do or don't, I strongly encourage you to avoid any method that focuses on using an e-commerce site that is a singular method for content protection. In the same vein, be cautious of the products that advertise with the tagline "all-in-one". This is rarely the case and if it's the case, then that means you're locked-in too. Don't take on this kind of risk. This has caused many people major problems in the past.

Still confused? Take a look at this video!

In this webcast, we will discuss the most common scenarios where the use of a membership plugin combined with a membership plugin could be beneficial.