LearnDash is a WordPress LMS plugin — which means you can connect it to your WordPress website to give your page online course functionality.

This can be a good option if you are already familiar with WordPress and don’t mind managing your own plugins, hosting, and themes — but if you’re looking for an all-in-one solution, Podia does everything you need out of the box.

Keep reading to find out which option is right for your business.

Podia and LearnDash pricing plans

With LearnDash, you’ll pick your plan and pay annually. Because this is a plugin, you’ll also need to factor in the price of your website hosting, domain, theme, and any other WordPress plugins or addons you’re using.

LearnDash paid plans:

• 1 site: $199/year: Includes a drag-and-drop course builder, course subscriptions, memberships, bundles, and integrations with Stripe and PayPal

• 10 sites: $399/year: All the features above for ten websites

• Unlimited $799/year: All the features above for unlimited websites

Podia has a 30-day free trial with all features so you can test everything out before you pay. After the trial, you can choose from two pricing plans:

• Mover: $39/month and 5% transaction fee ($33/month when paid annually): This plan includes your website, blog, and sales pages as well as unlimited digital products, online course creation, and third-party code. You also get Podia’s friendly customer support.

• Shaker: $89/month and 0% transaction fee ($75/month when paid annually): Shaker includes all the Mover features plus your own affiliate program.

All Podia plans include all email marketing features (like automations, newsletters, email templates, segmentation, tagging, and campaigns) for up to 100 subscribers. If you like, you can upgrade your Podia Email plan to add more subscribers as your list grows.

If you sign up for a monthly or annual Mover or Shaker plan, Podia includes a free migration service. This means our team will move your products and customers over from another platform (like Teachable, Thinkific, Kajabi, etc.) for free so you can get started fast.

One nice thing about Podia’s pricing plans is that you know what you’re paying from day one. With LearnDash, you also have to factor in the price of other features and plugins for your WordPress site, which can balloon quickly as your business grows. But with Podia, everything you need is already connected and ready to go.

What can I sell with Podia and LearnDash

LearnDash is essentially an online course platform that connects to your WordPress site. You can sell course subscriptions, memberships, bundles, and one-time purchases, and you can add quizzes and assessments to your offers.

As I mentioned above, Podia is a standalone platform that doesn’t require WordPress.

With Podia, you can sell the following digital products:

• Digital downloads

• Online course content

• Coaching sessions

• Webinars

• Bundles

Your products can be free or paid, and you can add upsells, payment plans, coupons, seat limits, and access duration limits to give your students more learning options.

You can also use Podia to offer free lead magnets to grow your email list, which brings me to…

Marketing tools with Podia and LearnDash

Since LearnDash is just for selling courses, you’ll need other tools for marketing your products and growing your email list. If you’d like to set up an affiliate program, you’ll need a separate platform for that too.

Podia has your email, sales funnels, affiliate marketing, and customer messaging all built in. You also have blogging capabilities so you can grow your reach with search. Because all these features are connected, you can easily send newsletters to your affiliates, share blog posts in your email campaigns, collect signups on your landing pages, and anything else you like.

If you’re looking for a tool that lets you build so much more than courses (without the headaches of WordPress), start your free trial of Podia today.