In this LearnWorlds review, I will give you all the information you need about the promising online course platform. I will also reveal my honest thoughts on whether it’s worth trying.
With that short introduction, let’s begin.
Table of Contents
What is LearnWorlds?
LearnWorlds is an online course creation platform where you can create, host and sell your online courses.
But, it is far more than a standard online course platform. With LearnWorlds, it’s all about creating a social community to bring students together in your very own Facebook-style learning centre.
LearnWorlds pricing
So let’s kick off this LearnWorlds review by mentioning how much the platform will set you back.
There are 4 LearnWorlds pricing plans available:
- Starter – $29 per month (monthly billing) or $24 per month (annual billing)
- Pro Trainer – $99 per month (monthly billing) or $79 per month (annual billing)
- Learning Center – $299 per month (monthly billing) or $249 per month (annual billing)
- Corporate High Volume – price on request
As is the case with most online course platforms, purchasing an annual plan will save you more money over the year compared with a monthly plan.
To see just how much you could save, I have put together a simple table below.
| Plan | Monthly billing | Annual billing | Saving* |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $348 | $288 | $60 |
| Pro Trainer | $1,188 | $948 | $240 |
| Learning Center | $3,588 | $2,988 | $600 |
So, if you want to stick with LearnWorlds for a long time, then I recommend you go for their annual pricing options; it could save you up to $600 a year!
Is there a LearnWorlds free trial?
Yes. LearnWorlds offer a long 30-day completely free trial.
I recommend you start your own free trial to see the platform for yourself, right after you have read this review, of course 😉.
LearnWorlds features
Now you know how much LearnWorlds will cost you, let me now focus this LearnWorlds review to what you will actually get for your money.
The features vary depending on what pricing plan you have, with less features in their Starter plan and the most features in their High Volume and Corporate plan.
Note, I will not be covering all of the features available, as there is a lot! Instead, I will focus on the main features included. For more detailed comparisons, then check out this page here.
Basic features
The Basic features are those that are included in all of LearnWorlds pricing plans; these include:
- Unlimited courses
- Unlimited students
- Unlimited hosting
- Custom domain support
- Gamification
- Coupons, bundles and upsells
- Quizzes, assignments and exams
- Branding and theme editor
- Interactive Ebook
- Built-in social network
- Mobile and tablet ready
- Learner analytics
- Free SSL certificate
So, as you can see, there are a lot of core features.
Unlimited courses, students and hostings is a standout perk of all pricing plans. This means you are not forced to upgrade your plan should you have a increased student demand.
Starter plan features
For the cheapest paid LearnWorlds plan, Starter, you get all the Basic features listed above as well as:
- $5 fee per course sale
- 4 payment gateways (PayPal, Stripe, Shopify, 2Checkout)
- Page builder (Home, Course Catalogue, post login)
- Basic integrations (eg, Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel)
- 24/5 support (email)
As the name suggests, the Starter plan has all the features that you need for starting your online course journey.
Unfortunately, you cannot offer free courses with their Starter plan, which I was surprised to see.
Pro Trainer plan features
Coming in at $79 per month (annual billing), their Pro Trainer plan comes with everything that the Starter plan has as well as:
- Zero transaction fees
- Free courses
- Unlimited landing pages
- Website builder with blog
- Custom course completion certificates
- More payment types (subscriptions, memberships and installments)
- Affiliate system
- Live classes and webinars
- Question banks
- Onboarding call
- 24/7 support (email)
The best thing about the Pro Trainer plan is that there are no transaction fees and you can offer free courses to students.
There is also additional support, with a bespoke onboarding call and email contact possible anytime of the week instead of just weekdays on the Starter plan.
Learning Center plan features
Learning Center is LearnWorld’s most popular plan. It comes with all of the above features and more, including:
- Full white-label options
- Interactive videos
- Single sign-on
- 2 hours premium onboarding
- 24/7 premium support
As you will read later on in this LearnWorlds review, their interactive videos feature is next level stuff.
High Volume and Corporate plan features
The High Volume and Corporate plan is not for the everyday entrepreneur. This bespoke plan will vary according to your requirements. In terms of features, you get all of the above and:
- Additional admins
- Branded corporate academy
- Flexible invoicing
- Dedicated account manager
- Premium cloud servers
And more!
Transaction fees
An important aspect you, as course creators, should want to know about when looking at an online course platform are the transaction fees involved. The transaction fee is the amount of money platforms take per online course sale.
The good news is that the transaction fees in LearnWorlds are either really low, or do not apply!
The Starter plan has a flat $5 transaction fee applied to course sales. This is slightly unusual since most online course platforms apply a percentage transaction fee. It’s good news for course creators since higher priced courses will only have a $5 transaction fee, so you get to keep more profits on high-ticket sales.
The other LearnWorlds plans (Starter, Pro Trainer, Learning Center and High Volume and Corporate) have zero transaction fees.
Course builder
Creating courses in LearnWorlds is pretty straight forward since you will be taken through each step with their course creation wizard.
After giving your course a name and adjusting the URL for search engine optimization (SEO), you will be asked to select the type of access the course should have.
There are 5 course access options:
- Paid – A typical paid course
- Draft – The course is being developed and not publically accessible
- Coming soon – The course will be published, but will not be open for enrollment
- Free – A free course
- Private – A published course that is not publically viewable
I like the Coming Soon option since this will be handy to generate interest in upcoming courses.
Course curriculum editor
Like most online course platforms, the course builder lets you add an activity (different pieces of content) that is further separated into sections.
Each activity is placed on a separate page of the course, meaning you cannot mix different content and have this displayed on the same page, which I would like to see.
There are quite a lot of different media you can add as an activity. Obviously, the availability will depend on the LearnWorlds plan you have.
Each activity has a rich set of settings. In fact, there is so much choice that it was quite overwhelming to start off with.
As you design your course, you can easily rearrange sections and activities to fine tune your delivery.
Just as courses have different access options, so do sections.
There are 4 access options for sections:
- Draft – Not publically viewable
- Soon – Only the activity names can be seen
- Free – Anyone can access the section
- Paid – Only students who have paid for the course can access the section
Course player
The LearnWorlds course player follows the design from most online course platforms. To the left, you will find the course curriculum (known as a Path) with a progress bar at the top to inform you how far into the course you have come. The activity is shown on the main section to the right, with the navigation buttons to go back or forward.
As well as being able to see the course Path, you can also see fellow students enrolled on the course in the Learners tab and the comments on the activity in the Discuss tab.
The comments section in the Discuss tab lets you post comments, including the ability to add images, and even a quiz. Personally, I would have liked to see an option where you can place the comments section under the activity in the main window, as I thought it looked rather squashed in the side menu.
Keeping with the true LearnWorlds style, you have the power to change the layout of the course player; there are 5 to select from.
Additional settings can be tweaked, such as adding in estimated reading times for ebook activities so students know how long it will take.
Video player
When it comes to the LearnWorlds video player, there are 6 different skin styles to choose from. The colors for the video player are automatically inherited from your school’s color scheme, which ensures the colors match your branding.
When viewing the video player as a student, there are up to 5 controls:
- Full screen – Display the video in full screen
- Volume – A sliding volume control bar
- Play back rate – Adjust the speed of the video (0.5x, 1x, 1.25x, 1.5x, 2x)
- Video quality – Select the desired video quality
- Transcript – Where applicable, toggle the transcript on or off
Interactive videos
Say goodbye to boring static videos, and hello to the latest interactive video enhancements.
With LearnWorlds Learning Center plan, you can easily edit your videos to include interactive content such as:
- Buttons
- Offers
- Questions
- Embedded content
- Table of contents
Another option you have is to generate an interactive transcript of your video. After a couple of minutes, LearnWorlds will automatically create a text transcript of any voice over in your video. As expected, this was far from perfect, but it’s a good starting point for you to go back over and correct the odd spelling and word errors.
On top of the interative features, you can also add text and images to your videos. This is a bit like using an integrated editing software, which is really handy!
Coupons
LearnWorlds has a dedicated marketing section. In it, you will find options to create coupons, which are an excellent way to increase sale conversions of online courses.
Coupons can either be a set amount (eg $10) or a percentage (eg 25%) and can be applied to a single course or all courses.
You can either manually create a coupon code and define the quantity and expiry date. Or, you can let LearnWorlds create bulk codes for you.
Questionnaires
When it comes to adding questionnaires into your LearnWorlds course, there are 3 styles you can pick from:
- Quiz – No scoring added to answers
- Exam – Similar to a quiz, but the answers are marked
- Assignment – Open-ended questions that are manually marked
There are 5 different types of quizzes to select from multiple-choice, true or false, poll, short answer or text with feedback. Exams can be either multiple choice or true/false.
Creating a questionnaire in LearnWorlds is really easy. Their questionnaire builder is quite powerful and allows for a high degree of customization.
What I love about the questions in LearnWorlds is that there is ample opportunity to add in feedback. So, for example, if a student selected the wrong answer, you can give them feedback on their selection.
New questions can be added manually, or you can import questions from your Question Bank. These are collections of questions that can be easily reused.
Site builder
If you like having the ability to fine-tune the look and feel of your online school, then you will be more than satisfied with LearnWorld’s site builder.
If you see something on the page, such as a button or piece of text, simply click on it to edit it. If you have used a website builder, such as Wix or SquareSpace, this page builder has a similar feel.
Some examples of elements that you can add to your pages include:
- Buttons
- Pricing tables
- Email grabbers
- Contact forms
- Quotes/testimonials
Not only are the front-end design capabilities catered for, but the site builder has a range of SEO settings that you can tweak. Not many online course platforms give you this level of control.
Another useful aspect of the site builder is that you can preview the page on different devices so you can admire their true responsive designs.
Social profile and feed
One of the main features LearnWorlds emphasizes is that their platform provides a social learning experience. This means your online school will have student profile pages that others can see.
Each profile beautifully displays statistics about the student, including the number of courses they are enrolled on, the total hours spent on the school, the number of posts/comments made and their number of activites.
Students have the option to add their own display picture and social media profiles.
Under the header, there are tabs for an about page and an activity feed.
As well as student social profiles, there is also a social feed page for the school. This is where students can interact with each other and post questions.
The social page was a welcomed sight as an online course creator since it cuts out the need to set up a separate community platform. I use Slack with my online course, but I can see the potential to remove this and use the integrated version within LearnWorlds.
Payment gateways
So, how can you accept payments on your online course?
There are 5 payment gateways available:
- Stripe
- 2checkout
- PayPal
- Shopify
- PagSeguro (Brazil)
Another nice feature I like is their Sandbox mode. Activating this will let you enter a dummy credit card to simulate the payment process so you can see exactly what customers see during the checkout process.
Support
So, if you’re going to start investing in a LearnWorlds account for $24+ per month, what level of support can you expect to receive?
Support comes in different forms, including:
- Help Center
- LearnWorlds Academy
- Phone contact
- Onboarding
Also, the level of support you receive depends on the LearnWorlds plan you have. I have included a comparison table below to describe the differences between the plans.
| Starter | Pro Trainer | Learning Center | Coporate High Volume | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Help Center | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| LearnWorlds Academy | ✔️* | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| 24/5 | 24/7 | 24/7 | 24/7 | |
| Phone | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ | ✔️ |
| Onboarding | ✖ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Help Center
LearnWorld’s Help Center contains over 400 written and video guides on how to use and get the most out of the platform.
Ever step of course creation is covered, including setting up your online school, adjusting the appearance and marketing your course.
Their video tutorials seem a little old (most were over 2 years old), but are still very useful.
Overall, the guides are brilliant. If you don’t find the answer you need in the Help Center, you can also submit a support ticket for individual inquieries.
LearnWorlds Academy
The LearnWorlds Academy ironically contains a series of online courses to teach you how to create an online course with LearnWorlds. I know, sounds like something out of Inception.
Some of their course are completely free, such as Create an Online Course with LearnWorlds, while others are at a premium, such as The Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing.
Creators on the Pro Trainer plan or above get 100% off the LearnWorlds Academy.
As expected, there is email support with LearnWorlds.
Starter plan members have 24/5 email support access, while those on a larger plan have the advantage of full 24/7 support.
Phone contact
If you’re on the Corporate High Volume plan, then you have the benefit of phone contact support.
Onboarding
Onboarding is a type of consulting you can have with a member of the LearnWorlds team.
There is no onboarding for their Starter plan, but Pro Trainer members have access to an initial onboading call. Those on the Learning Center plan get a dedicated 2 hours of premium onboarding, while Corporate High Volume members have a tailored onboarding approach.
3 things I like about LearnWorlds
This is the part of my LearnWorlds review where I open up and share my honest thoughts on the platform. Let me start with the things I like about it.
Excellent page editor
The LearnWorlds page builder is by far the most advanced builder I have seen for an online course platform – and I have tested a lot!
I don’t think reading a review simply does it justice for seeing how cool it is. You have to try it out yourself.
And when you have, let me know in the comments below what you thought.
Flexible quiz system
I’m a massive fan of quizzes in online courses. You need to be sure that students are understanding the content you are teaching them. Otherwise, you are essentially failing as a course creator.
LearnWorlds have one of the best quiz creation tools I have ever used in an online course platform. There is so much variety and customization options available.
Not only that, but you can add feedback so students can see where they went wrong.
Interactive videos
Albeit interactive videos are only available on the more premium Learning Center plan, the interactive videos feature is truly awesome! In fact, I haven’t seen anything like it in other online course platforms.
If you want to blow your students away with high-quality teaching, then really consider investing in the interactive videos. During my time trialing LearnWorlds, I was able to create some amazing content.
3 things I don’t like about LearnWorlds
So that was the good, let’s now go over the ugly. Well, not really ugly, more like minor niggles I don’t like about the platform.
Free courses are not a core feature
Something I was saddened to see was that you cannot create Free Courses unless you have their Pro Trainer plan or above.
Offering free courses is a great way to grow your online community. This lets potential students see your teaching style and creates interest in your premium courses.
But, with LearnWorlds, this means you will have to pay a mimimum of $79 per month (annual billing) to have this capability.
Course previews are section specific
Generally, in my online courses, I offer a few lessons at the start as a free preview so potential students get view this content to gather some interest. If they want to proceed, then they will have to purchase the full course. If you’re interested, Teachable is the platform I use to do this.
With LeanWorlds, you can offer activities as free previews, however, this can only be done in a section by section basis. This means that all of your freely viewable content will have to be bundled into a section.
This is not a big deal, but I personally would prefer to select individual activities as a free preview, rather than a whole section.
You cannot mix activities
Something I use a lot in my online courses is mixing the content on each lesson page. This means I can have a quix at the top of the page and a video underneath it.
With LearnWorlds, like a lot of online course platforms, you cannot mix different activities to be on the same page.
Again, this is why I prefer Teachable, which does let you do this.
LearnWorlds alternatives
If, after reading this LearnWorlds review and taking up their free trial, you think that the platform is not for you, then be sure to check out some of the other best online course platforms.
I personally recommend:
- Teachable (also check out my Teachable review)
- Thinkific (they have an awesome free plan)
- Podia (I’ve also got a Podia review)
Wrapping up
So, that wraps up my LearnWorlds review.
In my opinion, LearnWorlds is one of the most advanced online course platforms I have ever used. The level of customization and features is really head and shoulders above the rest. This is why I refer to it being the next-generation online course platform.
If you’re willing to put the time in, you can not only build an awesome online course with LearnWorlds, but also develop an online community.
But, this is just my humble opinion. Be sure to take their 30-day completely free trial to see what you make of LearnWorlds. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.
Let me know in the comments below what you think about LearnWorlds.
Further reading on SideHustleTeach.com
Since your interested in creating and selling online courses, check out my awesome list of the best online course platforms (yes, it features LearnWorlds!). Also, have a look at my step-by-step guide on creating an online course.
