The simplest way to sell online courses wordpress sites support is a course plugin, a store plugin (WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads) and a payment gateway. The store takes the order and the course plugin enrolls the buyer. TrueCommunity Pro does this with Private courses, so your community and courses share one member list.
Quick Summary
- TrueCommunity Pro sells Private courses through WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads, enrolls buyers on purchase and can renew expired access. See the sell a course doc.
- Plans: Solo $119/year (1 site), Studio $199/year (5 sites), Agency $299/year (30 sites). Lifetime is $249, $399 and $599. Every plan has every feature, and renewals stay at the same price.
- TrueCommunity does not process payments or take a cut. Fees come from your store and payment gateway.
- The free plugin already includes courses and quizzes, so you can build before you pay.
- TrueCommunity has no certificates, SCORM or subscription billing. If you need those, a dedicated LMS is the better fit.
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The stack to sell online courses wordpress sites need
Every WordPress course business is built from the same parts. You can swap any part, but each one has to exist.
| Layer | What it does | Typical options |
|---|---|---|
| Course and community plugin | Lessons, quizzes, progress, member area | TrueCommunity, or a separate LMS plugin |
| Store plugin | Product page, cart, checkout, orders, taxes | WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads |
| Payment gateway | Charges the card | Stripe, PayPal and others, added through the store |
| Hosting | Runs the site | Any WordPress host |
The link between the course layer and the store is the important part. It decides whether a buyer is enrolled automatically after paying or whether you do it by hand.
If you enroll people manually, every sale at 2 a.m. waits until you wake up. That is the first thing to test in any setup.
Key takeaway: Selling on WordPress means you pay for the tools, not a share of each sale. Your costs are the plugins, hosting and the gateway’s own processing fee.
WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads?
Both have free cores and both work for digital products. WooCommerce is the broader store: it suits you if you also sell physical goods, bundles or merchandise next to courses. Easy Digital Downloads is built for digital products and tends to feel simpler when courses are all you sell.
Which one is better depends mostly on what your course plugin supports, so check that before you install anything. TrueCommunity Pro supports both, so you can choose by store preference. Add-on prices differ between the two ecosystems, so price the extensions you need (tax tools, payment methods, anything recurring) before you commit.
- Choose WooCommerce if you already run a shop, want a large extension catalog or sell more than courses.
- Choose EDD if you sell digital products only and want a lighter checkout setup.
How TrueCommunity Pro sells courses
TrueCommunity is a community and LMS plugin for WordPress: your community and courses, on your own site. The free plugin on WordPress.org gives you the feed, profiles, groups, messages, and courses with sections, lessons and auto-graded quizzes.
Pro is an add-on that adds course selling, advanced course rules and gamification. See the Free vs Pro comparison for the exact split.
Selling works like this. You mark a course as Private, connect it to a WooCommerce or EDD product, and a buy button appears with an optional sale price.
When someone completes the purchase, they are enrolled automatically. When access expires, you can renew it for that student.
Watch out: Only Private courses can be sold. Open and Locked enrollment types are not sold through the store.
TrueCommunity does not process payments itself. Fees come from your store and gateway. Purchases of TrueCommunity itself go through Paddle, which is a separate matter from how your students pay you.
Step by step: launch a paid course
- Install the plugins. You need WordPress 6.3+, PHP 8.0+ and pretty permalinks. Follow the install guide, then activate Pro with your license.
- Install your store. Add WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads and connect a gateway such as Stripe or PayPal. Check how taxes or VAT are handled for your country.
- Build the course. Follow create a course, then add sections and lessons and quizzes. Only site administrators can create courses.
- Set the rules. In course settings, choose sequential or any-order progress, prerequisites, a seat limit, open and close dates, and access expiry.
- Make it Private and connect the product. Use the steps in sell a course to attach the store product and set the price.
- Test a purchase. Buy it yourself with a test order, confirm enrollment, and check the student’s view with the student guide.
- Open the community. Add a group for each cohort so students talk to each other next to the lessons.
What buyers see before and after they pay
A paid course sells better when the buyer can judge it first. Pro lets you show the lesson list before people enroll and mark selected lessons as free previews. Visitors see what they are paying for without getting the whole course.
After purchase, the course settings shape the experience. You can run a course as a cohort with a seat limit and open and close dates, or sell self-paced access that ends after a set number of days.
Expiry can optionally delete progress, and you can renew access for an expired student when they come back. Progress can be sequential, where each step unlocks the next, or any-order.
Students get a Continue learning card, progress tracking, personal notes and lesson comments, so they have a reason to return to the site rather than a stack of files. Because purchases enroll the buyer, there is no manual spreadsheet between your store and your classroom.
Drip content, quizzes and other course rules
Quizzes come with the free plugin: seven question types, a passing score, attempt limits and a results tab. Pro adds the rules that make a paid course feel structured. Lesson rules cover drip release (days after joining or a fixed date), free previews, required video with resume, minimum lesson time, assignments with uploads and live classes.
- Topics inside lessons break long lessons into steps.
- Assignment review gives approval and written feedback.
- Challenge exams let experienced students test out.
- Quiz submission details show every answer and the lesson where it was given.
Certificates are not part of TrueCommunity. If your buyers expect a downloadable certificate, plan for that before choosing it.
Try TrueCommunity free, upgrade when you need more
Keeping students finishing: community and gamification
Completion rates are what make a course business renew and refer. A community next to the lessons helps because students ask questions in a group feed instead of emailing you. Groups can be public, private or locked, and you can enroll a whole group into a course so future members are added automatically.
Pro also includes gamification. You pick a points name such as XP, Coins or Stars, build a rank ladder, award badges and run time-limited challenges with prizes. Members get a Rewards page with a leaderboard.
Points come from badges, challenges and lesson or topic completion points, so you decide what behavior to reward. Start with the gamification overview if you want to try it.
It is optional. Gamification is off by default and you turn it on in the modules screen, so a plain paid course stays plain.
What does it cost compared with Teachable or Thinkific?
Hosted platforms bill a monthly plan, and their transaction fees and plan limits change, so read each platform’s current pricing page before you compare. On WordPress you pay for hosting, plugins and the gateway fee. Hosting varies widely by provider, so get a quote for the traffic you expect.
| TrueCommunity Pro plan | Sites | Yearly | Per site | Lifetime |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solo | 1 | $119 | $119.00 | $249 |
| Studio | 5 | $199 | $39.80 | $399 |
| Agency | 30 | $299 | $9.97 | $599 |
Prices as shown on the pricing page in October 2026, in US dollars, with taxes or VAT added at checkout. Every plan includes all Pro features and differs only by site count and support. Yearly plans renew at the same price, with no intro discount followed by a jump.
Your total WordPress cost is then Pro, plus hosting, plus any paid store extensions, plus the gateway’s per-sale fee. The TrueCommunity part of that total does not grow with your member count or your revenue, while the gateway fee naturally scales with sales. If a license lapses, the plugin keeps working, while updates and support stop until renewal.
Cost check: Add up hosting, store extensions and gateway fees before comparing with a hosted platform. A flat plugin license is only one line of the bill.
Yearly or lifetime for a course seller?
If you plan to sell for more than two years on the same site, lifetime is worth a look. The arithmetic, using the plan prices above:
| Plan | 2 years yearly | 3 years yearly | Lifetime |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo | $238 | $357 | $249 |
| Studio | $398 | $597 | $399 |
| Agency | $598 | $897 | $599 |
In every plan, lifetime costs about the same as two yearly payments, so it pays for itself from the third year. Lifetime keeps core Pro plugin updates coming for life at the same support level as the yearly plan.
It does not cover future separate paid add-ons, which would be sold on their own. Yearly gives 12 months of updates and lets you stop renewing at any time.
Every payment, including renewals, has a 14-day money-back guarantee. The details are in the refund policy.
Transaction fees when you sell on WordPress
WordPress, WooCommerce and EDD cores do not charge a platform cut of your sales. TrueCommunity does not either.
You still pay your payment gateway’s processing fee on every order, and some store extensions carry their own price. Taxes and VAT depend on your location and need to be set up in the store.
That is the real difference from a hosted course platform: your costs are known line items rather than a percentage that rises as you succeed. LearnDash, for example, has been reported to revise its plan tiers recently, so confirm any LMS price on the vendor’s own site on the day you buy.
Stacking an LMS plugin versus using one plugin
The common route is a dedicated LMS plugin plus a store plugin. Then, if you want a real community, a third plugin for profiles, groups and messaging. That means three sets of updates, three licenses and more places for conflicts.
TrueCommunity puts the community and the courses in one plugin on the same WordPress accounts, so a student is already a community member. Gamification (points, ranks, badges, leaderboards) is part of Pro rather than another add-on. Your data stays in your own WordPress database, and the plugin does not send it to the company.
Dedicated LMS plugins such as LearnDash, Tutor LMS and LifterLMS are deeper and more mature course products, with certificates, larger-scale reporting and bigger ecosystems. TrueCommunity does not match that depth.
If you run a compliance or enterprise training program, start there. If you sell cohort or self-paced courses to a community, you may not need it.
Memberships and community alongside courses
Yes, you can run a community and courses together. The community half includes an activity feed, public, private and locked groups, messages and notifications.
You can enroll a whole group into a course, and future group members are enrolled automatically. See course members.
Paid memberships and recurring subscription billing are planned but not shipped. Today, course selling is a one-time purchase through WooCommerce or EDD. If recurring billing is central to your model, choose a tool built for it.
Switching risk is low. Pro is an add-on to the free plugin, so your posts, groups, courses and members stay when you upgrade. You can learn the system on the free plugin and add Pro when you are ready to sell.
When TrueCommunity fits (and when it does not)
It fits when you want courses and a community on one site you own, with a flat license and no per-member fees. It suits coaches, course creators moving off hosted platforms, associations and small schools who sell one-time course purchases. You can test everything except selling and the advanced rules on the free plugin first, and see the numbers on the pricing page.
It does not fit when you need:
- Certificates or SCORM/xAPI.
- Subscription billing or paid membership tiers.
- A course marketplace or multi-instructor payouts.
- A dedicated mobile app (it works in phone browsers).
- Course creation by instructors who are not admins, since only administrators can create courses and groups.
A hosted platform also wins if you do not want to manage hosting, updates or a store. WordPress gives ownership, and ownership brings a bit of maintenance. If you decide to sell online courses wordpress style, budget for that time as well as the plugin cost.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best way to sell online courses on WordPress?
Use a course plugin connected to a store plugin, with Stripe or PayPal for payment. The best choice is the one that enrolls buyers automatically after checkout. Try the free TrueCommunity plugin first to build your course, then add Pro when you are ready to sell.
Do I need an LMS plugin plus WooCommerce or EDD?
Yes, unless your LMS includes its own checkout. Most WordPress course tools use a store plugin for orders and a course plugin for learning. TrueCommunity Pro connects to either store, so you do not need custom code for enrollment.
WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads: which is better for courses?
Neither is better in general. WooCommerce fits if you also sell other products and want many extensions; EDD fits a digital-only catalog. Check that your course plugin supports the one you pick, and price any extensions you need.
Are there transaction fees when I sell courses on WordPress?
There is no platform cut from WordPress, WooCommerce, EDD or TrueCommunity. Your payment gateway still charges its processing fee per order. Taxes or VAT may also apply depending on where you and your buyers are.
Can I sell courses on WordPress for free?
You can build courses and quizzes for free with the free plugin, but selling them with TrueCommunity needs Pro. The store plugins themselves have free cores, though some extensions are paid. Pro has a 14-day refund policy, so you can test selling with limited risk.
How do I add drip content, quizzes and certificates?
Quizzes are in the free plugin and drip release is in Pro, set per lesson. Certificates are not available in TrueCommunity, so you would need a different LMS for them. Decide whether buyers truly need one before you choose.
Can I run memberships and a community with my courses?
You can run a community and courses together today. Paid membership tiers and subscription billing are not shipped yet. Use the store for one-time course purchases and read the pricing page to choose a plan.
Build your community on a site you own