The instructor’s view: where courses get built
Tutor LMS is known for its drag-and-drop course builder, and the vendor’s site describes adding lessons, quizzes, assignments, live classes and text lessons in any order. That builder is a large part of why it is popular with teams who hand course creation to instructors.
Learnomy has two builders. Free has a course builder inside the WordPress admin, where you add sections, lessons and quizzes. Pro adds a front-end course builder, so an instructor can create and edit courses without opening the admin area at all. Pro also has AI authoring, which drafts courses, lessons and quiz questions once you connect a provider under Settings. It is off until you do that.
If your instructors are not technical, the deciding test is simple. Give a sample instructor each builder and a lesson plan, and time how long they take to publish a lesson with a video and a quiz.
Taking a course to market
Both plugins can sell from the free plugin. The vendor’s site describes a native eCommerce system with checkout, order management, course subscriptions and site memberships, with WooCommerce as an integration. Learnomy Free has Stripe and PayPal checkout, coupons, memberships and instructor commissions.
For a single course, the steps in Learnomy are short. Build the course, choose a pricing model, add your keys, create a coupon for the launch and run one test purchase with the built-in test gateway. A student then receives an email receipt and lands in the course.
For what you pay in time, think about the weeks after launch. Tutor’s list of features is long, and the vendor’s own pages sort them into tiers, so check them for the plan you would buy. In Learnomy the weekly work is mostly the same whichever tier you are on: reviewing the grading inbox, answering questions and watching the earnings screen.
Quizzes, drip and certificates
Tutor lists a large range of quiz formats, a certificate builder and content drip on its site. Learnomy Free has six question types, two quiz layouts and a drag-and-drop certificate designer, with each certificate carrying a public check page. Every lesson also gets an Available date in Free, and scheduled drip is Pro.
Where Tutor is ahead on quizzes, say so: its site advertises a longer list. If your assessments lean on unusual question formats, test them in both. Where Learnomy is ahead is in the habits of a long exam: it autosaves, shows a question map, lets students flag questions for review and resumes at the exact question after a dropped connection.
Where student data lives
Both are WordPress plugins on your server. Learnomy keeps enrolments, attempts, orders and progress in dedicated tables, and its REST API exposes them to a token-holding client. Export and erase tools exist for personal data requests. Orders and audit entries are kept but unlinked from the person.
If you use community features, Tutor lists BuddyPress as an integration. Learnomy connects to a BuddyNext community site through a bridge that posts activity such as course completions, though courses are not searchable in that community.
Moving over from Tutor LMS
Learnomy includes an importer that reads Tutor LMS, so you do not start from zero. It brings across categories, courses, sections, lessons, quizzes and questions. Tutor co-instructors are carried over onto the imported course, with a 0% commission share until you set one. You can choose to bring enrolments and progress as well.
Be exact about the enrolments. Only completed enrolments come across, which is how Tutor marks an active enrolment, and lesson progress comes from its completed-lesson records. These stay behind:
- Prices. Every course arrives free, and you set prices afterwards.
- Certificates and the templates you designed.
- Drip settings.
- Quiz attempt scores. Passing status carries over, but per-question results do not.
- Orders, subscriptions and coupons.
The importer only reads from Tutor, and each run has an undo. Some question types have no exact match and are downgraded or skipped, and the preview lists every one before you commit.
Staging checklist
- Back up and clone the site to staging.
- Keep Tutor LMS active so the importer can read it.
- Run the preview and read the question warnings.
- Import content, then run enrolments and progress.
- Set prices, rebuild certificates and recreate drip.
- Test as a student and as an instructor before you switch.
Instructors and revenue, then the first week
Tutor lists multiple instructors among its features, and the vendor’s site shows which tier you need for commissions and payouts. In Learnomy Free, instructors apply, an owner approves or declines with a reason, and revenue is shared by a configurable commission that can be overridden per course or per instructor. Instructors request withdrawals, and Pro pays them automatically through Stripe Connect.
If you run a marketplace of teachers, test the whole loop in both: an instructor applies, builds a course, a student buys it, a refund happens and the earnings screen updates. Refunds are the step that most often exposes gaps, so do not skip it.
The first week after you switch
Plan for the week after launch, not only the day. Tell students where their courses now live, because the course URLs change. Keep a short message ready for the first password reset or missing certificate email, and watch the email log, which records delivery status for the messages Learnomy sends.
If you imported enrolments, spot check five students who had finished a course and make sure they show as complete. Then spot check five who were halfway through and confirm that they can reach the lessons they had completed.
Who should not switch
Stay with Tutor if your instructors love its builder and your theme integrations are working. Its larger installed base means more tutorials and more people who can help. Stay if you rely on features from its higher tier that we do not have.
Move if you want memberships and commissions without stepping up a plan, or a data model built for large catalogues. Move sooner rather than later, since a smaller catalogue is easier to check after an import.