- A hosted course platform is quicker to launch and someone else runs the servers; LearnDash on WordPress gives you full control but you own the upkeep.
- Compare fees at the revenue you expect next year, not today: transaction fees and payment processing differ by plan and by platform.
- LearnDash suits businesses that already run WordPress, need custom integrations or sell group seats to companies.
- Hosted platforms suit creators who want a ready checkout, student apps and support without managing plugins, hosting or security.
- Plan your exit before you launch: keep course videos on a separate video host and check what student and progress data you can export.
Should you use LearnDash or a hosted course platform?
Choose a hosted platform such as Teachable, Thinkific or Kajabi if you want to launch quickly, sell a handful of courses and never think about hosting, updates or security. Choose LearnDash if you already run your business on WordPress, want full control over design, data and integrations, or sell training to companies in groups. The deciding factors are who will look after the site, how much you expect to sell, and how much the course experience has to fit the rest of your business.
Our LMS and membership team builds on both routes. This guide sets out the trade-offs we walk course owners through before anything is built.
What is the real difference between the two?
LearnDash is a plugin for WordPress. You install it on your own WordPress site, on hosting you choose, alongside your theme and other plugins. You own the whole stack, which means you also maintain it.
A hosted platform is a service you sign up to. It runs the servers, the course player, the checkout and usually the student app. You customise within the options it offers, and you pay a monthly or yearly plan.
In practice that gives you a simple split:
- Hosted: faster start, fewer moving parts, support from one company, less freedom to change how things work.
- LearnDash: more setup, more responsibility, almost no limits on design, integrations or how you combine courses with the rest of your site.
How do the costs compare?
Compare costs at the revenue you expect over the next year or two, not just the cheapest plan today. The fees that change as you grow are transaction fees and payment processing, and they work differently on each platform. Prices change often, so check the pricing pages on the day you decide. At the time of writing:
- LearnDash is sold through Liquid Web as a yearly licence, and its pricing page lists one site at $350 a year, bundled with Give, The Events Calendar and the Kadence theme tools. Hosting, any paid add-ons and developer time are extra, and your payment provider charges its own processing fees.
- Teachable lists a Starter plan with a 7.5% transaction fee on its pricing page, and 0% transaction fees on the Builder plan and above.
- Thinkific says on its pricing page that its built-in Thinkific Payments are priced at 2.9%, and that using Stripe or PayPal instead adds a third-party gateway fee that varies by plan.
- Kajabi states on its pricing page that it takes no revenue share, while card processing fees differ by country and an extra fee applies on some plans if you use an outside payment processor.
A hosted plan bundles hosting, security and support into one bill. With LearnDash you pay for those separately, and a developer's time is the biggest variable. Neither is automatically cheaper. Work out the total for your expected number of sales and students on each option before you decide.
When is LearnDash the better choice?
LearnDash tends to win when the course is part of a bigger business rather than the whole business:
- You already run WordPress. Courses can sit inside your main site, on your domain, with the same design, blog, SEO setup and analytics. Our guide to choosing a website platform covers when WordPress is the right base in the first place.
- You sell training to companies. The LearnDash page describes groups for selling seats to organisations and letting clients manage their own teams, plus multiple instructors who can build courses from the front end.
- You need custom integrations. Enrolling students from a CRM, sending completions to an HR system or issuing certificates from your own data is ordinary WordPress development, not a request for a feature the platform may never build.
- You want to own the data. Student records, progress and purchases live in your own database, which matters for reporting and if you ever change direction.
The cost of that freedom is upkeep. WordPress, the theme, LearnDash and every add-on need updates, backups and testing, and a broken update on launch day is your problem, not a support desk's.
When is a hosted platform the better choice?
A hosted platform suits course owners who want to spend their time on teaching and marketing, not on software:
- You are testing an idea. You can launch, sell and learn what students want without a build project.
- You want a ready checkout and student app. Teachable's pricing page, for example, lists iOS and Android student apps on every plan shown.
- No one on the team will maintain a website. Security patches, server load during a launch and payment updates are handled for you.
- Your courses follow a standard format. Video lessons, quizzes, downloads and a community area are covered well by most platforms.
The limits show up later. You design within the platform's templates, integrations depend on what it supports, and moving away means rebuilding courses and migrating students.
What should you decide before choosing?
Answer these questions in writing before you compare features. They usually make the choice obvious:
| Question | Points towards |
|---|---|
| Who will look after updates, backups and security? | No one: hosted. A developer or care plan: either. |
| Do courses need to live on your main website and domain? | Yes, on WordPress: LearnDash. |
| Do you sell to individuals, companies or both? | Companies with seats and managers: check group features on both. |
| Which systems must talk to the course platform? | Several custom ones: LearnDash. |
| How many sales do you expect next year? | Run the fee maths on both before choosing. |
| How quickly must you launch? | Weeks: hosted is usually faster. |
How do you avoid getting locked in?
Whichever route you take, make leaving possible from day one. It costs little at the start and saves a painful migration later:
- Host videos separately on a dedicated video service, and embed them in lessons. Re-uploading hundreds of lessons is the slowest part of any move.
- Keep your own student list in your email platform or CRM, with what each person bought and when.
- Check exports before you sign up. Find out what you can download: students, purchases, progress, quiz results and certificates.
- Keep course content in documents you control, not only inside the platform editor.
- Use your own domain for the school, so links in emails and search results survive a move.
If you choose LearnDash, plan the WordPress side properly too: hosting that can handle launch traffic, a staging site for testing updates and a backup routine. Our WordPress team sets these up as part of an LMS build, and if a feature is missing we can weigh up a custom plugin or an existing add-on with you.
Frequently asked questions
Can we start on a hosted platform and move to LearnDash later?
Yes, many course businesses do. The work is in moving students, purchase history, progress and quiz results, and in setting up payments again. Keep a clean list of students and what each one bought, and keep videos on a separate video host, so the move is mostly content rebuilding rather than a data rescue.
Do we need a developer to run LearnDash?
Not for writing and publishing courses, which you can do from the WordPress dashboard. You need a developer for setup, theme design, payment and CRM integrations, custom features and updates that touch several plugins at once. Many businesses keep a small monthly care plan for testing updates and backups.
Which option is better for selling courses to companies?
LearnDash has a groups feature for selling seats to organisations and letting a company manage its own team, which suits training providers. Hosted platforms also offer business features on higher plans, so check whether seat-based sales, manager reports and invoicing are on the plan you would actually pay for.
Where should course videos be hosted?
On a dedicated video host rather than your website server or the course platform alone. A video host handles streaming quality and bandwidth, protects files from easy downloading, and means your videos stay put if you ever change platforms.
Can we sell memberships as well as single courses?
Both routes can. The LearnDash pricing page says memberships are built in, with tiers, subscriptions, drip content and members managing their own accounts. Hosted platforms include memberships or subscriptions on most plans. Decide your pricing model first, because it affects which plan you need.
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