Both MemberPress and LifterLMS are WordPress plugins for selling online courses – but they're aimed at fundamentally different people.
LifterLMS is built for schools and formal educational institutions that need serious academic infrastructure.
MemberPress is built for content creators: bloggers, coaches, course sellers, and online entrepreneurs who want to sell courses and memberships without the complexity of a full academic LMS.
Pick the wrong one and you'll either be drowning in features you don't need, or hitting walls you didn't expect.
The Short Answer: If you're a content creator selling courses and memberships on WordPress, MemberPress is the better fit. It's built for entrepreneurs, not academic institutions, and includes everything you need (courses, quizzes, assignments, certificates community, coaching) without the bulk of a dedicated LMS.
If you're running a school or academy that requires formal credentialing, cohort management, and continuing education credits as core infrastructure, LifterLMS is the more specialized tool.
Most online course creators – including those running corporate training, compliance programs, or coaching businesses – will be better served by MemberPress.
MemberPress vs. LifterLMS: At a Glance
| MemberPress | LifterLMS | |
|---|---|---|
| Who owns your data | You (WordPress) | You (WordPress) |
| Transaction fees | 4.9% on Launch; 0% on Growth & Scale | None |
| Trustpilot rating | ⭐ 4.8/5 | ⭐ 4.4/5 |
| Community features | ClubSuite™ on Growth+ (profiles, directories, circles); live chat on Scale | Social Learning add-on (Infinity only) |
| LMS depth | Courses with quizzes, assignments, learning paths, drip, and certificates – built in | Deeper: graded assignments, cohorts, continuing ed credits, advanced quiz logic |
| Membership access control | Best-in-class content protection and drip | Functional but secondary to the LMS |
| Coaching features | CoachKit™ on Growth+ | Not native (requires third-party tools) |
| Mobile app | AppKit add-on ($1,199/yr, requires Growth+) | No native app |
| Integrations | WooCommerce, Easy Affiliate, PrettyLinks, Zapier | Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.net, Mailchimp, ConvertKit, WooCommerce |
| Entry-level pricing | $199.50/yr (Launch, 1 site) | Free core plugin; $398/yr for Earth bundle (1 site) |
| Setup experience | ReadyLaunch™ for quick start | $1 trial + 30-day sandbox |
What Is LifterLMS?
LifterLMS is a WordPress LMS plugin that started as a pure course-building tool and has grown into a platform that also supports memberships, subscriptions, and some community features. Though learning management is still what it does best.
The free core plugin is genuinely useful: unlimited courses, unlimited memberships, unlimited students and teachers, all at no cost.
The catch is that you need paid add-ons for payment processing (Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.net), email marketing integrations, advanced quizzes, assignments, and cohort management. Those add-ons are bundled into three annual plans.
LifterLMS is built for schools and formal educational institutions where the LMS itself is the product, not a feature of a business model.
If you're running an academy, a university extension program, or any environment where cohort management, formal credentialing, and continuing education credits are table stakes, LifterLMS has the academic infrastructure to support it.
The course builder is well-designed, the support team is well-regarded, and if you think in terms of enrollment management and student progression rather than audience growth and subscription revenue, this is the more natural home.
What Is MemberPress?
MemberPress is a WordPress all in one membership plugin that handles content access control, subscription billing, and online course delivery.
It has been the go-to membership plugin for WordPress since 2012 and has a Trustpilot rating of 4.8/5.
The Courses add-on is more capable than most people expect. Every plan includes an AI Course Generator (with annual AI credits) that can scaffold a course structure from a prompt – a feature LifterLMS doesn't offer.
On the Growth plan and above, you also get quizzes, assignments, content dripping, completion certificates, and a drag-and-drop curriculum builder.
Students get a dedicated learning interface; you get instructor controls and course analytics. For most course-based membership businesses, this is everything you need in one place.
On the Growth plan, MemberPress also adds CoachKit™ for coaching and accountability programs, plus the full ClubSuite™ community suite: member profiles, directories, and circles.
Live chat across directories and circles is available on Scale. MemberPress AppKit ($1,199/year) gives you a white-labeled native iOS and Android app.
The through-line is ownership: your membership data, your courses, your community, all on your WordPress install, not locked in a third-party platform.
MemberPress vs. LifterLMS: Pricing
MemberPress has three annual plans (first year pricing):
- Launch: $199.50/yr + 4.9% transaction fee – basic memberships, basic courses (no quizzes, assignments, certificates, or drip), AI Course Generator, Stripe only
- Growth: $349.50/yr + 0% transaction fees – adds full LMS (quizzes, assignments, certificates, drip), CoachKit™ coaching tools, full ClubSuite™ (profiles, directories, and circles), more payment options
- Scale: $499.50/yr + 0% transaction fees – adds gradebook, live chat for directories and circles, file locking, Zapier, REST API, corporate accounts
LifterLMS offers a free core plugin plus three paid bundles (renewals at full price; 50% off introductory discount in year one):
- Core Plugin: Free – unlimited courses, memberships, students; no payment processing
- Earth Bundle: $199/yr (1 site) – adds Stripe, PayPal, WooCommerce, cart abandonment recovery
- Universe Bundle: $299/yr (5 sites) – adds email marketing, forms integrations, Sky Pilot theme
- Infinity Bundle: $799/yr (unlimited sites) – adds 15 advanced add-ons including quizzes, assignments, groups, cohorts, continuing education, and social learning
Note: Both products offer introductory 50% off first-year pricing. Renewals are at full price (double the intro rate).
The entry-level comparison is close: MemberPress Launch and LifterLMS Earth are both at around $199/yr, though Launch adds a 4.9% transaction fee.
At this tier, both tools give you basic courses without quizzes or certifications – you're really just paying for membership access control (MemberPress) or payment gateway access (LifterLMS).
The story gets more interesting one tier up. MemberPress Growth ($349.50/yr) includes the full course feature set (quizzes, assignments, certificates, content dripping) plus a complete community suite (profiles, directories, and circles) and CoachKit™ coaching tools, all with zero transaction fees.
LifterLMS Universe ($299/yr) adds email marketing integrations and a theme, but does not include advanced quizzes, assignments, or cohorts. To get comparable LMS depth from LifterLMS, you'd need the Infinity Bundle at $799/yr – more than double the price of MemberPress Growth.
Bottom line: It's a tie, and which one is best for you depends on how you picture the trajectory of your business.
While LifterLMS's starter plan looks more compelling, you need to think about the potential to scale into more features.
MemberPress Growth at $349.50/yr delivers more course-building capability than LifterLMS Universe at $299/yr. You'd need LifterLMS Infinity at $799/yr to match it on LMS features alone, without the community or coaching tools MemberPress includes.
MemberPress vs. LifterLMS: Course and LMS Features
This is where LifterLMS has a genuine structural advantage. Courses, modules, lessons, quizzes, assignments, certificates, prerequisites, learning paths, cohorts, and continuing education credits are all native to the platform.
You don't need to bolt on a separate LMS. The Infinity Bundle adds advanced quizzes, graded assignments, course cohorts, and custom fields – all purpose-built for structured learning environments.
MemberPress Courses is a genuine LMS, not a basic video upload tool. You get a full course builder with modules, lessons, quizzes, prerequisites, learning paths, drip scheduling, progress tracking, and completion certificates.
Students get a dedicated learning interface; instructors get course analytics and content controls.
For the vast majority of course creators, whether you're running a self-paced program, a structured curriculum, or a gated content library, this covers everything.
Where LifterLMS pulls ahead is in scenarios that require formal cohort management, continuing education credits, or highly complex quiz scoring logic.
If your content is “three modules of video with a quiz at the end,” MemberPress handles that well. If your content is “12-week cohort with graded assignments, prerequisite gating, and CE credits,” LifterLMS has more specialized infrastructure for it.
Bottom line: For schools and academic institutions where formal credentialing, cohort management, and graded assignments are the core product – LifterLMS wins.
For content creators, course sellers, coaches, and businesses (including those running compliance or corporate training programs) who want courses as part of a membership – MemberPress is more than capable and considerably simpler to run.
MemberPress vs. LifterLMS: Membership and Access Control
MemberPress has been doing one thing for over a decade: protecting WordPress content and selling access to it.
The access control system is best-in-class. You can restrict pages, posts, categories, tags, custom post types, and file downloads based on membership level.
Drip content, content expiration, member-only URLs, partial content previews – all of this is built in and reliable.
LifterLMS has functional membership features. You can create membership tiers, auto-enroll students in courses, restrict sitewide access to a membership level, and set up recurring subscriptions. But it was designed as a layer on top of the LMS, not as the primary architecture.
For straightforward “buy a membership, get access” scenarios it works fine. For complex pricing logic, multiple tiers, bundle pricing, upgrade/downgrade proration, partial access rules – MemberPress is a more sophisticated tool.
Bottom line: MemberPress wins on membership access control. If your business model is “sell access to content,” this is what MemberPress was built for.
MemberPress vs. LifterLMS: Community Features
Neither tool started as a community platform, and both have added community capabilities, though at different points and with different depth.
MemberPress's ClubSuite™ (included with Growth and Scale plans) adds ClubCircles™ for group spaces within your membership site, and ClubDirectory™ for a member-facing profile directory.
The Scale plan adds ClubConnect™, which is real-time messaging between members. It lives inside your WordPress site, not as a third-party integration.
LifterLMS has a Social Learning add-on and a Private Areas add-on (both Infinity Bundle only), which allow activity feeds and private student spaces.
For a more forum-based community, there's a third-party add-on approach. It works, but community is clearly not the primary focus of the platform.
Bottom line: MemberPress has a more developed community feature set, especially on the Growth and Scale plans. LifterLMS's community tools are lighter and require the highest-tier bundle.
MemberPress vs. LifterLMS: Coaching Features
MemberPress wins this category outright with CoachKit™ (Growth plan+).
CoachKit™ is a dedicated coaching and accountability system, you can manage clients, assign programs, track progress, and run structured coaching relationships inside WordPress. It's designed for coaches, not adapted from general course tools.
LifterLMS doesn't have a native coaching feature set. You can replicate some of it through Groups, Notes, and Private Areas on the Infinity Bundle, but it's an assembly job rather than a built-in workflow.
Bottom line: If coaching is part of your business model, MemberPress Growth with CoachKit™ is the more complete solution.
MemberPress vs. LifterLMS: Customer Satisfaction
MemberPress has a 4.8/5 Trustpilot score – one of the highest in the WordPress plugin space. Users consistently cite the quality of support and the reliability of the access control system.
LifterLMS has a strong 4.4 rating on trustpilot, and similarly positive reviews on G2 and Capterra.
Users there specifically call out the quality of LifterLMS's support team and the depth of the course-building tools.
The main recurring criticism: a solid understanding of WordPress helps, and advanced features require the Infinity Bundle, which is priced accordingly.
Bottom line: MemberPress has a more verifiable public review record. Both tools appear to have strong user satisfaction, but MemberPress's 4.8/5 Trustpilot score is a concrete, citable figure.
MemberPress vs. LifterLMS: Integrations
Both tools are WordPress-native, which means they play well with the wider WordPress ecosystem.
MemberPress integrates directly with WooCommerce (the most widely used e-commerce layer for WordPress), Easy Affiliate, PrettyLinks, Zapier, and a wide range of payment processors, email platforms, CRMs, page builders, form builders, and many more.
If you're already building on the WordPress + WooCommerce stack, MemberPress fits in naturally.
LifterLMS has strong payment gateway support (Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.net), plus integrations with Mailchimp, ConvertKit, Gravity Forms, Ninja Forms, and Zapier. The Infinity Bundle expands this considerably.
Bottom line: MemberPress has a deeper integration ecosystem, particularly for businesses building on the full monetization stack (MemberPress + Easy Affiliate + PrettyLinks + WooCommerce).
MemberPress vs. LifterLMS: Ease of Use
Both tools have invested in reducing setup friction. MemberPress offers ReadyLaunch™ for templated quick-start setup.
LifterLMS offers a $1 first-month sandbox and a 30-day demo site where you can explore the full Infinity Bundle before committing.
LifterLMS's course builder is legitimately good – drag-and-drop, visually clear, with inline editing.
MemberPress's course builder is simpler, which is either an advantage or a limitation depending on how complex your course structure needs to be. It's AI Course Generator also assists in a speedy set up, and it's available on all plans.
Where MemberPress pulls ahead is in membership setup. Creating pricing rules, access levels, and content protection flows is where MemberPress has spent ten-plus years refining the UX. LifterLMS's membership setup is functional but less polished.
Bottom line: LifterLMS has the better course-building UX; MemberPress has the better membership setup UX. Neither is particularly hard to learn. It's a tie.
Who MemberPress Is Best For
Course creators who already have a WordPress site and want to add a paid membership model. If you have content (video, text, a community) and you want to gate it behind a subscription, MemberPress is the cleaner starting point.
Coaches who need accountability tools alongside paid content access. CoachKit™ on the Growth plan is purpose-built for this, not bolted on.
Membership sites that want community features without a third-party platform. ClubSuite™ on Growth keeps community inside your WordPress site, not spread across tools.
Businesses already using WooCommerce, PrettyLinks, or Easy Affiliate. MemberPress sits naturally in that stack.
Anyone processing meaningful transaction volume on a paid membership. The Growth plan's zero transaction fee pays for itself fast.
Who LifterLMS Is Best For
Schools and academies where formal learning infrastructure is the whole point. If you're running an educational institution (not just selling courses) and you need complex cohort management, prerequisite gating, and structured student progression as the foundation, LifterLMS is built for that environment.
Programs that require formal credentialing and continuing education credits. The Continuing Education and Certificates add-ons in the Infinity Bundle are designed for academic and professional certification contexts. If your learners need to earn verifiable credentials or accredited CE hours, this is where LifterLMS earns its place.
Developers building bespoke eLearning platforms who want to start with a free core and add modularly. The free core plugin is genuinely capable, and the add-on structure gives agencies flexibility in scoping what they build.
Switching from LifterLMS to MemberPress
Users moving from LifterLMS to MemberPress typically keep their LifterLMS courses intact (the plugins can coexist on the same WordPress install) while adding MemberPress to handle membership tiers, access control, and subscription billing.
This “best of both worlds” approach is actually common – MemberPress handles the gates, LifterLMS handles the courses.
For teams looking to consolidate to a single plugin, the main work is rebuilding course content in MemberPress Courses.
Member data, subscription records, and billing history will need to be migrated manually or via export/import. MemberPress's top rated support team can advise on the migration process.
Frequently Asked Questions
MemberPress is better for membership sites – content protection, subscription billing, community, and coaching. Its LMS features include quizzes, assignments, a gradebook, certificates, and with CoachKit™, cohorts, so it covers most needs for online course creators.
LifterLMS is better for learning-first platforms that need serious academic infrastructure: cohort management, continuing education credits, and credentialing.
LifterLMS is an LMS plugin that added membership features.
That orientation shapes the UX, the feature prioritization, and what each tool does best.
If access control, monetization, and subscription management are your primary need, MemberPress. If structured learning delivery is your primary need, LifterLMS.
Where it doesn't fully replace LifterLMS is in advanced LMS scenarios such as continuing education credits, and prerequisite gating at scale.
The more meaningful comparison is one tier up: MemberPress Growth ($349.50/yr) versus LifterLMS Universe ($299/yr).
Growth is $50 more but includes quizzes, assignments, certificates, drip, coaching, and a full community suite.
Universe adds email integrations and a theme but none of those LMS features. To match Growth's LMS depth in LifterLMS, you'd need Infinity at $799/yr.
Both products renew at higher rates after year one, so check current pricing before committing.
The Verdict
If you are building a monetized site that includes courses (and these days, who isn't?) MemberPress is the stronger starting point.
The access control is more sophisticated, the community features are way more developed, and CoachKit™ fills a gap that LifterLMS simply doesn't address.
The Growth plan at $399.50/year also removes the transaction fee that comes with Launch, which matters more as your subscription revenue grows.
If you're building something that is fundamentally a learning platform, where structured progression is the core product, LifterLMS's LMS depth is hard to beat.
Its free core plugin is also a genuinely useful way to start building before committing to a paid plan.
For a lot of businesses, the answer is both: MemberPress for the membership layer, LifterLMS for the LMS layer. They play well together.
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