Many people have great ideas for monetizing their skills via courses and workshops, but lack the tools to do so. Plugins to manage courses and workshops in WordPress can be a great eLearning solution to turn your ideas in reality.
Table of Contents
- What is a Course Plugin
- Top 5 Plugins
What is a Course Plugin
A course or workshop plugin should allow users to select and enroll on courses from a catalog that is flexible yet visually appealing. It’s essential that every course gets its own page, with many fields to describe it.
The eLearning tool must be able to handle user registration, and admins need a dashboard to quickly check which students are registered to which classes.
Note that the LMS (Learning Management System) solution does not have to host the courses. A university, for instance, offers presencial or online courses with its own structure. The course tool will instead showcase them in a portfolio while helping teachers manage the students.
As a bonus, eLearning WordPress plugins could offer:
- Charge users enrolling on certain programmes
- Provide a user dashboard so that the admin can better manage them
- Support custom fields to allow advanced description and filtering
- Waiting list for competitive courses
Now, let’s get to it!
Top 5 Course Catalog Plugins
1) CreativeMinds Course Catalog Plugin
This new eLearning WordPress solution was designed from scratch to provide the best experience possible for both the admin and the users.
The CM Course Catalog plugin also handles student registration and it’s possible to safely manage them from the back-end.
CM Course Catalog – Catalog showing three courses
The course pages are rich, with images, videos and precise information about course availability.
This makes the learning plugin not only a stellar LMS solution, but a great SEO tool as well.
CM Course Catalog – Each course has extensive information and a enroll now button
It also supports payments, user dashboard, waiting list and custom fields via add-ons.
There’s an interesting use case about it: Using a Course Catalog WordPress Plugin to Offer Desert Workshops. It shows how it is implemented in the Institute for Desert Knowledge.
Price: $39 for lifetime access
2) Tutor LMS
Tutor LMS allows you to create, customize, manage, and sell online courses. It boasts features such as teacher profiles, course and lesson manager, email notification and WooCommerce integration.
Tutor LMS
The learning tool comes in a free and pro version. This highers edition also offers a quiz creator with passing grades, a front-end course builder and even an earning and commission system.
These advanced features come at hefty price, however.
Price: $149-$299/year for the full version
3) LearnPress
Aptly named LearnPress – WordPress LMS Plugin, this eLearning option is inspired by Moodle, Udemy and Coursera. It allows you to create and sell courses.
LearnPress
Each curriculum can contain lessons and quizzes, handled with a easy-to-use user interface. It’s possible to communicate with students via BuddyPress.
While the base plugin is free, a series of add-ons unlock its true potential. Some of these locked features include paid memberships, certificates, payment gateways compatibility and more.
Price: $249.99 for the all add-ons package
4) LifterLMS
LifterLMS is an all-in-one solution to create and manage online courses. Being veterans in the market, they boast some interesting numbers, such as over 4 million enrollments.
The platform features multimedia lessons, quiz with time limits, forum integrations, student dashboard and more. Memberships with auto enrollment are also included.
As a differential, it can be connected with other apps via Zapier. Just like most other options, it’s offered with a freemium model, so premium features are locked in the free version.
Price: $99 – $999/year including all add-ons
5) MasterStudy LMS
MasterStudy LMS is an active plugin aimed at creating an online education business.
MasterStudy LMS
Some highlights: course ratings, certificates, course wish list, instructor and student profiles, PayPal and Stripe integration and more. The 24/7 live service chat they offer is a great addition.
This alternative works a bit differently, as it’s tied with the MasterStudy theme. While the theme is indeed powerful, it also means the webpage is limited to what it can provide.
Price: $69
Conclusion
Presenting courses in a catalog is a smart way to entice your students to enroll with your school or institution. They provide a win-win scenario where users learn more about their options while your organization gets a chance to highlight its courses.
There are many alternatives for workshop catalogs in WordPress, and in the end it boils down to preference and budget, as they vary enormously in those regards.
Be sure to know your requirements well before spending money and time implementing solutions.
