AccessAlly vs. LifterLMS: a comparison

If you’re shopping for a WordPress LMS plugin, you’ll quickly discover AccessAlly and LifterLMS will be on your list to review. We think you’ll love AccessAlly’s power software features, along with its’ sophisticated interface and focus on student engagement.

In this article we compare LifterLMS vs. AccessAlly so you can see who is the true leader of WordPress LMS software.

LifterLMS delivers on its Learning Management System (LMS) name, but it might not include everything you need to run a successful course or membership business on WordPress.

You might need to purchase and integrate additional plugins to handle:

• Affiliate tracking and management
• Integration with your CRM for marketing automation
• Member directories or advanced payment options

Expect to install additional LifterLMS add-ons (and pay more) to do things like handle course assignments, set up quizzes, and take payments with Stripe or PayPal.

With AccessAlly, you sign up for one tool that seamlessly handles everything from recurring subscriptions, one-time payments, course creation with robust LMS plugin functionality, deep integrations to popular CRM software, member management, affiliate management, and much more.

LifterLMS lets you create course related emails directly inside WordPress. So you might set up notification emails, and try to design them in a platform not created to style emails.

You also won’t have all of the key data about your students and members stored back into your CRM or email marketing platform, and LifterLMS only has add-ons for Mailchimp or ConvertKit, which are only available on their higher priced tiers.

On the flip side, AccessAlly offers deep 2-way street integration with ActiveCampaign, ConvertKit, Drip, Keap, Infusionsoft, and Ontraport. So you can track member activity, apply tags, and even unlock content or drip it out based on automations.

All of your emails can be beautifully designed in your email platform, and everything stays in sync for your members and students. This allows you to follow up with people in a more personalized, and profitable way.

LifterLMS allows you to import students in bulk, but you’ll need to buy and install their Groups add-on to sell seats in bulk for an additional $240 per year.

AccessAlly on the other hand, allows you to design a “member management” dashboard to your liking, including custom operations to kick off automations directly by group administrators.

If you’d like to run your courses through teaching assistants, or have someone monitoring participant progress, with AccessAlly Pro you can build a more robust high level teaching center. In this case, a team leader would be able to see student progress, quiz results, and even notes or questions asked.

LifterLMS offers simple order forms, where you can choose one currency and offer one-time or subscription payments through Stripe, PayPal, WooCommerce, or Authorize.net. You can also offer coupons and trials, too.

AccessAlly takes things one step further, with the option to swap between currencies on an order form, and to follow up with abandoned carts via email to recapture lost sales.

Plus, you can easily do 1-click upsells and order bumps during check-out, or later within the membership site. There are also advanced “individual coupons” that expire for each person, for evergreen offers.

The best part? Because AccessAlly has built-in payments and integrates directly with your CRM, you can segment your email marketing so your customers and prospects get the right communication.

LifterLMS focuses on the online learning aspect, and although it does bring in some social elements for students to communicate with each other, it does not offer a member directory feature.

With AccessAlly, you can create beautiful searchable member directories, sorted by marketing automation tags. This allows members to opt-in or out of your member directory, and even to purchase a premium listing.

You decide what to include in your public or private member directory — like a biography, gamification points earned, and even course progress.

Plus, with AccessAlly’s profile editing functionality, a member can update their name, email, address, and password… or any other custom field inside of your email automation platform.

The extent of gamification you can implement in LifterLMS is that you can give people badges when they complete courses, but not points.

With AccessAlly, members can earn points for completing quizzes or courses, or being paid members in good standing. They can then use points that they earned to unlock content, or other bonuses. (And of course, you can unlock badges too.)

AccessAlly also allows you to display progress tracking, pie charts, and checklists beautifully.

Plus, you can create video bookmarks and track video view progress. With AccessAlly, people can also resume where they left off in a course.

LifterLMS offers advanced quizzes and question types, along with homework assignments. AccessAlly offers 3 different multiple-choice quiz types, as well as homework submissions.

• • You want something that comes with pre-built templates for your course pages, and you don’t want to be able to customize the look and feel of your dashboards or lessons too much
  • You enjoy duct-taping solutions together, and using a lot of different plugins to achieve your goals
  • You need really advanced or flexible quizzing functionality
  • You don’t mind that your members’ activities won’t be reflected back into your email marketing automation platform for added personalization

• • You want everything to work seamlessly from one end to the other (payments, courses, and memberships) with as few plugins as possible
  • You’re looking to create an amazing customer experience, that’s functional, profitable, and helps you stand out in the marketplace
  • You know keeping your client information centralized inside your CRM will help you scale