Creative Hosting News

What Should You Do with the Membership Plugin? -

Apr 4, 2022

When creating an online course with WordPress you'll find that many ways to get there.

WordPress is the perfect platform for creating and selling online classes because it's adaptable and you control the platform. However, there are so many available plugins that it is sometimes quite confusing.

Maybe you're experiencing this issue in relation to your online class and aren't sure of how to proceed. Assuming you are going to manage your own WordPress website, you'll end up making the following choices regarding your course:

  1. Make sure you only use it for your classes.
  2. Use a membership plugin only
  3. Use both

The answer to this question is dependent on the particulars of your work, therefore I can't offer a strict rule as to when to make use of every. But let's look at the most common scenarios.

1. Using only

If you're considering it, you actually do not need a plugin for membership for protection of content. Our LMS will protect your content and not require the help of a membership plugin . It's all in our Access Settings.

Let's take for instance you're trying to sell three course. Content of the courses (lessons, quizzes, etc.) are not accessible to those who are not yet enrolled. Only registered users to take the course have access to the material. When someone buys a course, they won't have access to the others. They are only able to access only one course.

If your class isn't free then you may be looking for a way to include an option to pay for your classes. Integrates with the most popular shopping carts:

  • Simple Digital Downloads
  • SamCart
  • ThriveCart (beta)

The WordPress shopping carts (1 and 2 above) connect to numerous payment gateways. comes with the following three payment options if you want to use no shopping cart

  • PayPal
  • Stripe
  • 2Checkout

You can very easily use one of these methods to take payments. This will safeguard your course's contents without having to use the use of a membership plugin. Users who use this option benefit from the speedier process when making their own course offerings since it reduces the need for the need to master a different solution.

2. Use a Membership plugin (Only)

It's important to remember that there may be instances where using an LMS plugin, such as this one, isn't needed.

If the project you are working on only demands that you protect a couple pages, posts, or a assets within your WordPress website Then a membership plugin is all you require. A learning management tool in this case would be too much.

A good example of this is when you have a site that includes a community forum and maybe some useful downloads for your members. If this is the case, you don't need an application like this since it doesn't require courses, or quizzing. certificates, badges as well as points reports.

3. Utilizing Both and a Membership Plugin

Though a membership plugin isn't required however, there are advantages of using the membership plugin, based upon your needs.

For instance, if you're looking to add additional metrics on your members , then installing an Membership plugin is a nice value-add. Most membership platforms offer reports built-in to them. Used in conjunction with this gives you more insight into your users.

Another scenario where you can use both is if you have an existing membership website and you want to incorporate the course features with a formal, structured manner. Inserting makes it easy to add value to your membership website through the creation of classes for members to learn. You don't have to change how you manage your customers either, since it's the same with your membership plugin.

can be directly connected to these membership services:

A word of warning Avoid locking in vendors!

Programs for learning can be different in demands and at times, these requirements alter. With you can start your program with any of the options above and switch to another program as you need.

One thing I know after over a decade in the field of e-learning is that learning programs and online classes are not the same for everyone. The way we learn changes and with it the requirements.

Whether you use or not whether you use or not strongly encourage you to avoid any solution that advocates using one e-commerce platform, or method for content protection. The same way Be wary of solutions that are advertised with the tagline "all-in-one". This is rarely the case however if it's true, then that means you're locked-in too. You don't want to accept this type of risk. I've seen this cause individuals major pain in the past.

Still confused? Take a look at this video!

This webinar will cover the most common scenarios where using a membership plugin and combined with a membership plugin could be beneficial.