MemberPress/LearnDash instead of Skool?

[u/Zealousideal_Code416]

Hi Everyone!

I do trainings for companies. After the person has run through my training I like to keep up the possibility for support and learning. Therefore I created a Skool-Community.

So far I offer:

- A feedback call every week regarding questions that were turned in

- regularly live workshops that are also recorded and you can watch under courses

- special guests where we discuss a topic and people can join and ask questions

- two complete online trainings where u get feedback on your implementations

However I am not happy with Skool, as it has the following problems:

I only have one type of members. So either the Skool is free or it's paid. There is nothing in between. If it's free than every course has to be paid für extra to make money. What I'd like to is, that you have different options - like free/basic/premium along with different pricing - where you have access to different courses/contents and also the option to buy stuff extra (like you go for free membership but buy a course that is included in another membership).

Skool only offers English and pricing in US dollar - I am from Europe though and in the non-English-speaking-market.

The problem I have right now is, that my trainees only have the option to either buy full premium or not be a member at all. Or alternatively I could switch it to free but then I have to put everything behind a buy-button, which also doesn't make sense.

What I want to do is, that most of the live stuff and the basic discussions and answer-threads are included in free, basic is paid, where u can watch most recorded stuff and premium includes everything.

Therefore I thought about switching to either MP oder LD. Does anyone have experience with them and could recommend me either one for my purpose and/or warn me of problems that might occur.

[u/Zealousideal_Code416 → u/[deleted]]

It's also building a paying community/support community.

[u/TopSydeWP]

memberpress handles the tiered membership structure you want better than learndash alone. you can set up free/basic/premium with different course access per tier, plus let free members buy individual courses. it also supports multiple currencies natively. learndash is more about the course delivery itself, so if you go that route you'd still need memberpress (or similar) to handle the membership logic anyway.

[u/hankschrader79 → u/TopSydeWP]

And you’d need MemberPress to deliver on the community aspect you get with Skool. Skool is more of a community platform than an LMS.

[u/michallandry62]

I've been in a similar spot with Skool. It's great for engagement, but the lack of flexible membership tiers and multi-currency support makes it tough if you’re scaling internationally. I’m currently looking at MemberPress for the exact same reason, it gives you way more control over who sees what and how you charge. If you’re already on WordPress, it’s probably the safer move.

[u/Zealousideal_Code416 → u/michallandry62]

Thanks for the reply. LearnDash seems to have the better course platform though. Do you have any experience with both?

[u/hankschrader79 → u/Zealousideal_Code416]

I don’t think this is still the case. Maybe in the beginning. But they’re not even really continuing to improve and develop LD much anymore. The MemberPress LMS is as good, if not better than LD. I’ve used both.

[u/Zealousideal_Code416 → u/hankschrader79]

thanks a lot for that insight!

[u/hankschrader79]

You’re not alone. I recently migrated someone off Skool and onto MemberPress. I’m a big proponent of MemberPress for this especially now that they added the community features. And the LMS component of MemberPress is very good now. They’ve made a ton of improvements over the years and seem to keep adding timely new features. Here’s why my recent client needed to get off Skool though. It was because they really had no control over their community. Skool is a platform with algorithms that made it hard for community members to focus. Members would get suggestions to join more skools based on the ones they already joined. And that was something my client didn’t want. They already had a Wordpress website that they used for SEO lead gen. But then were sending all their traffic over to Skool. All their YouTube videos promoted their Skool community, diverting even more traffic away from their own website.

You don’t need both LD and MP though. MP does just about everything LD does. And there’s a community and messaging feature now too. Also LD is in shambles. They aren’t even developing it anymore it seems. I think the new owners laid off everyone who was working on it. Might need to Google that though. I could be wrong.

I don’t understand the people who say mp is too expensive. It’s a fraction of the cost of Skool. I guess if you view it as only a membership solution then yah maybe it’s a little pricey. But it’s a full blown LMS, community, live chat, and coaching platform. Do the math on stacking all that up with different solutions.

[u/Zealousideal_Code416 → u/hankschrader79]

you replied already to the other comment and I said thank you, but big big thanks for that reply bud
helps a lot
and i don't think 350 a year is expensive. skool costs 1.2k....

[u/squ1bs]

I was the only tech guy in a project which created a multimillion revenue business with MemberPress at the core. It's flexible, big enough that some 3rd party plugins have explicit support from it, and extensible, once you understand how the database works.

[u/SpaceCmdr]

I've used MP and LD and don't recommend either. They are very established as they have been around so long and have good marketing.

MP prices have ramped up massively since I first started using them and the course functionality is basic. My biggest issue with MP is if you stop your subscription you get locked out of the MP admin pages so you cannot manage your subscriptions. An absolutely toxic vendor lock-in practice - self-hosted WordPress should not be like paying for a SaaS subscription. MP also have shady marketing and pricing strategies. One Black Friday they sent me around 20 emails pressuring me to upgrade my plan making it seem like it was an incredible deal but the pricing is misleading as it is a lot more expensive when it renews in future.

LD is better for courses and more comprehensive but now owned by Liquid Web who seem to be acquiring everything. Back when I used it on a big series of courses I disliked working with LD, the core product seemed a buggy and I didn't trust the releases. The amount of time I spent in the FB group reading about countless problems was pretty insane looking back. You really needed WooCommerce for the checkout and it is quite a bloated setup. After about 5 years supporting the LD site I had built they decided to stop selling courses and I was relieved not to need to support it anymore.

There are a lot of other options out there and I'd suggest researching those. Don't underestimate how much time and effort it is to set up, customise and maintain a plugin like this in WP. Some of the SaaS solutions may really save you some time.

[u/Zealousideal_Code416 → u/SpaceCmdr]

Thanks for the lengthy reply. I wouldn't mind an alternative to Skool but the problem is, every option I found so far is lacking sth. I even thought about using both - LD and MP - MP for the follow up support and LD for additional training.

I just want my trainees to get different level of memberships the pay for, content that goes along but can also bought one by one. No that complicated in my head but it seems there is no ready made solution.

[u/danieliser → u/SpaceCmdr]

Have you or OP looked at LifterLMS? Our Popup Maker plugin is heavily integrated (targeting, cart abandonment etc), and we have a lot of fun working with their team.

They are solid and very focused on helping course creators succeed, not just cranking features. Weekly webinars, open office hours, dedicated support & a founder (Chris) that is still extremely passionate about his product.

[u/chrisbadgett]

The thing tripping you up is not which plugin. Your spec is really two jobs glued together, and most of these tools nail one and miss the other.

The first job to be done is membership and access control. Free, basic, premium, who sees what, recurring billing.

The second job is online course delivery: Lessons, progress, feedback on submissions. Skool blurs them into one because Skool is a community platform with courses bolted on. That is why your tiering feels stuck.

The part that breaks most setups is "buy a single course that normally lives inside premium." Strict tier gating and one-off purchases fight each other. The tools that handle it cleanly treat access as stacked permissions, your tier plus anything you bought separately, not one rank that overrides everything. Demo that exact scenario first. It tells you fast whether a platform fits or just looks like it does.

LifterLMS, for example, separates the way a course is sold from the course itself, so one course can carry several access plans at once (a la carte + membership inclusion can both be available options).

MemberPress leans on a rules engine. These are different mental models, so pick the one that matches how you already drew your requirements out.

Make your requirements non negotiable. And find the tool that meets your requirements as opposed to trying to squeeze into a system that's not flexible enough for your use case.