More in common than the table shows
Masteriyo and Learnomy are close cousins. Both are free WordPress plugins, both take payment without a platform cut, and neither forces you through WooCommerce. Masteriyo’s own site lists an order system, payment gateways, quizzes and certificates as free, with a drag-and-drop builder for courses, lessons and chapters.
It also lists features many people assume are paid elsewhere: certificate templates with QR validation, matching questions in quizzes, and SCORM and H5P content in its builder description. The vendor’s pages are not consistent about which items sit in Free and which in Pro, for example with coupons and the gradebook, so check the current pricing page before you plan around either.
That matters for how you read our comparison. The gap between these two plugins is smaller than between most pairs, so a short trial on a staging site tells you more than a feature list does.
Setting up one course
Imagine a six week writing course with weekly lessons, a graded essay and a certificate. In Learnomy Free, you build sections and lessons, choose a lesson type for each (rich text, video, audio, PDF, embed, download or a live session link) and add a quiz with an essay question. Essays go to a grading inbox, where an instructor scores each attempt and leaves feedback. Then you switch on the certificate and set a price.
In Masteriyo the flow is similar, with chapters in place of sections. The thing to test is the grading step. Create the essay, submit it as a student and see how you grade it as the instructor. That one test shows you more about day to day teaching than any list.
If you want weekly release on a schedule, note that Learnomy Free gives every lesson an Available date, while scheduled drip is Pro. Check how Masteriyo handles the same weekly pattern on the plan you would buy.
How money moves, and who gets paid
Both plugins let the buyer pay on your site, with funds going to your own Stripe or PayPal account. In Learnomy, Stripe and PayPal checkout, coupons and memberships are in Free. Delayed methods such as bank debits are handled on the Stripe side, and the student is enrolled when the money clears, not at checkout. Partial refunds are supported.
Masteriyo’s site also names Mollie and Lemon Squeezy among its gateways, and Razorpay under Pro. If you sell in a region where one of those is the local standard, that is a real point in Masteriyo’s favour.
Guest checkout in Learnomy is off until you switch it on in the payment settings. An email that already has an account is asked to log in first.
Instructors and payouts
Multi-instructor sites are a clear difference to test. Learnomy Free supports instructors with a configurable commission, overrides per course or per instructor, and a request-based withdrawal queue. Pro adds Stripe Connect, so payouts go to instructors without a manual transfer.
Masteriyo lists multiple instructors per course as a Pro feature. If you run a marketplace of independent teachers, set up two test instructors in each plugin and follow a sale all the way to a payout.
Where the student data sits
Both run on your own server. In Learnomy, enrolments, attempts, orders and progress live in dedicated database tables, and the REST API reads them with a token. Students can request an export, and the erase tools remove learner data while keeping financial and audit records unlinked. We suggest a note about that in your privacy policy.
Moving between the two
There is no importer for Masteriyo. Our importer reads LearnDash, Tutor LMS and LifterLMS, so a move from Masteriyo is a hand rebuild or a script.
For a small site, rebuild by hand: copy lesson text, re-embed media, recreate quizzes and set prices. For a large one, script it against the REST API or WP-CLI, creating courses as drafts so nothing goes live by mistake. A short checklist:
- Back up and work on a staging copy.
- Rebuild one course by hand to learn the structure.
- Add students in bulk by pasting emails or uploading a CSV.
- Rebuild certificates in the designer.
- Set prices and pricing models.
- Compare two courses side by side before you switch.
Learner progress will not carry over automatically, so decide how to treat people who were halfway through. Many owners grant access to the whole course and let students start from the lesson they remember.
Testing the two side by side
A quick test beats a long article. Install both on one staging site, one after the other, and run the same three checks. Create a course with a video lesson, a quiz and a certificate. Buy it with a test payment. Then log in as the student on a phone and finish it.
Write down how many clicks each step took and where you hesitated. Owners tend to notice small things, like where the price field sits or whether a quiz can be edited after students have started it. Those details decide whether you enjoy the plugin six months from now.
Who should not switch
Stay with Masteriyo if its interface suits you and your needs are covered by the free plugin. A working site with happy students gains little from a migration.
Stay if you rely on its regional gateways or on a feature we do not have. Learnomy has no built-in live video, so a team that wants meetings inside the plugin should look at what Masteriyo lists for Zoom and Google Meet on its Pro plan.
Choose Learnomy if you expect to need memberships, commissions and a public certificate check without moving to a paid plan first.