LifterLMS Alternatives: Comparing LifterLMS to Competitors

Are you looking for a LifterLMS alternative to build your online course or membership site on WordPress?

Read our in-depth overview of native LifterLMS software features and pricing breakdown, as well as, LifterLMS comparisons to popular competitors to see if it’s the right LMS for your business.

Before we get into our list of LifterLMS alternatives, let’s look at why you might consider using the LifterLMS plugin as the foundation for you to build your online course or membership site.

• The free version is great for simple course layouts: LifterLMS has one of the most generous free plans for online course creators – it’s free unless you need more advanced LMS features or membership functionality. While this is attractive at first glance, you’ll likely find yourself paying for add-ons as your business scales.
• Built-in reporting is non-negotiable: Not all learning management systems or membership plugins come with native reporting features, but LifterLMS is one of the few that do. With their LMS reporting dashboard, you can review student progress data, course completion statistics, quiz results, as well as membership sales and enrollment.
• All-in-one LMS + Membership plugin: Unlike most learning management systems for online course creators, LifterLMS is an LMS + membership management plugin combined, similar to AccessAlly. Not having to purchase multiple plugins and connect them with a third-party tool is an attractive benefit for many business owners.

If you’ve tried LifterLMS and found it limiting, or you’ve outgrown the LifterLMS system you might already know why you want to move. Here are some of the other common reasons why people look for LifterLMS substitutes.

• Increasing Costs: LifterLMS’s pricing is covered more below, but it is not the most economical option on the market if you need to extend your functionality outside of the core plugin’s native features. Some people might look for a LifterLMS alternative when their costs start to snowball with the addition of each new add-on.
• Marketing Automation and CRM Integration: With LifterLMS, you’ll need a third-party tool such as Zapier to connect your online courses or memberships built on your WordPress site to pass information back to your CRM, adding one more piece of complexity to your setup to achieve a seamless user experience. Unfortunately, this is only a one-way integration though, meaning you can trigger things in your CRM through the zap from your WordPress site, but you can’t pass information from your CRM back to WordPress.
• No VAT and Shipping Fee Features: If you operate your business internationally making it possible for you to tap into a bigger marketplace, it’s important to have localized payment and language options. In LifterLMS, you can’t add country taxes to collect VAT, offer multiple currency checkout options, or easily handle multiple languages without integrating with another plugin such as WooCommerce.
• Lacks Gamification Features: As more and more online courses become available, one thing that can set you apart from your competition is the user experience you create. LifterLMS doesn’t have a built-in gamification system. You can issue a certificate of completion for completed courses, but there’s no way to award badges and lacks the functionality to create a credits/points system to reward users.
• Lacks Native Affiliate Functionality: If you leverage affiliate marketing to reach a wider pool of potential customers, you will need to purchase an integrate with an affiliate plugin adding complexity to your tech stack. 

LifterLMS’s pricing can be a bit deceiving. At first glance, the price seems reasonable and competitive compared to other tools on the market, especially if you’re evaluating the free version.

But, let’s say you want to collect VAT or need to add shipping fees to your offers, you’ll need to purchase and integrate with an e-commerce plugin such as WooCommerce. If you want to add a member directory or leverage affiliates to increase course sales, you’ll be adding additional expenses and complexity to your tech stack when you use LifterLMS.

Before you know it your costs have skyrocketed and you’re spending more money than if you chose a premium plugin with all the features and functionality you need built into the software.

While cost is not the only thing to look at when you’re considering what membership software or LMS to choose, it does factor into the equation.

Here is the cost breakdown for some of the most commonly compared LifterLMS substitutes:

• You’re looking for a membership and LMS plugin all-in-one
• You’re already using a WordPress website and looking for a WordPress plugin
• You don’t mind using a third-party tool to connect your course with your CRM
• You have a need for more advanced quiz functionality