LMS plugin
Courses, lessons, quizzes and certificates in one plugin, with checkout and payment gateways in the free core rather than behind an add-on. It runs on the WordPress site you own, so nothing takes a cut of what you charge.
The free core
The usual pattern is a free plugin that teaches and a paid add-on that takes money. Here the selling is in the free core, which changes what a free LMS is worth.
When teaching gets serious
Structure and scale rather than basics. If you are running one self-paced course, you may genuinely not need any of this.
Pro starts at $149 a year. The free versus Pro breakdown lists what sits on each side.
The real question
Taking payment
In the free core here: checkout, gateways, coupons, tax and a transactions ledger. In much of this category it is the first add-on you buy.
Certificates
Issue and verify from templates, and let learners download or print. Pro adds Open Badges, Credly and a local tamper-evident hash registry if you need them recognised outside your site.
Subscriptions and memberships
Recurring plans, course bundles and refunds in the free core. Pro adds pauses, plan changes with proration, and dunning.
The honest version: a cheap LMS with four paid add-ons is not a cheap LMS. Price the whole stack you would actually run, then compare.
Which one you want
You are selling what people learn
Learnomy. A plan buys access to a bundle of courses, and the teaching is the product.
You are selling where people belong
BuddyNext, in the same family. A plan opens spaces in a community, and the room and the people in it are the product. Run both with BuddyNext Pro and course completions and certificates show up in the community feed.
Questions
Yes, and that is the unusual part. Checkout, payment gateways, coupons, tax and the transactions ledger are in the free core. Most WordPress LMS plugins treat payments as a paid add-on, so a free LMS turns into a paid one the moment you want money to change hands.
No. Learnomy runs on your own WordPress site, so there is no platform fee on course sales. You pay your payment gateway their processing fee, exactly as you would for any other checkout on your own site.
No. Courses, lessons, release dates, prerequisites, quizzes, certificates and selling are all in one plugin. The add-on shopping list is the thing this is designed to avoid, and it is the main reason the free tier goes as far as it does.
Structure and scale rather than basics: content drip, cohorts, learning paths, assignments, five more quiz types with question pools and rubric grading, a frontend course builder, AI authoring and white label. If you are teaching one self-paced course, you may not need any of it.
Yes, and it is worth knowing which product does which job. Learnomy charges for what people learn, a plan buying access to a bundle of courses. BuddyNext in the same family charges for where they belong, a plan opening spaces in a community. Run both with BuddyNext Pro and course completions and certificates appear in the community feed.
Your courses, learners and transactions are rows in your own database on your own server. A lapsed license stops updates and support. It does not take your content away or put your academy behind someone else's login.
Start on the free core, sell from day one, and add Pro when cohorts and assignments become the thing you need.
