How to sell online courses in WooCommerce

Decide whether customers will buy one course, a bundle of courses, or a recurring subscription. Create the course and its lessons in LearnDash first, and decide whether access starts immediately or follows a start date.

If you only need to sell individual courses, LearnDash’s built-in paid access options may be enough. Choose WooCommerce when you need a shop, cart, coupons, multiple gateways, variable products or other WooCommerce extensions. LearnDash supports paid access settings including start dates, end dates and student limits.

Open the course’s access settings and set the course to use the WooCommerce purchase route rather than open or free access. Check the course title, description, lessons, completion rules and visibility before connecting it to a product.

Do not leave the course open while testing the shop. An open course can make it look as though the purchase worked because logged-in users can access content without being enrolled through the order.

Install and activate WooCommerce, LearnDash and the LearnDash WooCommerce integration. In the WordPress dashboard, open the LearnDash WooCommerce settings and review the available order and subscription statuses.

The integration connects WooCommerce products with LearnDash courses or groups. If you use recurring payments, add the supported WooCommerce subscription extension and decide which subscription statuses grant or remove access. Customers must create an account during checkout so the order can be matched to a LearnDash enrolment.

Go to WooCommerce > Products > Add product. Add the course name, sales copy, image and price, then mark the product as Virtual so WooCommerce does not request shipping details. You normally do not need to mark a course product as Downloadable unless you are also delivering files.

Choose the appropriate simple or variable product type. Variable products are useful for different course levels or bundles, but each variation needs its own price and virtual settings.

Edit the WooCommerce product and use the LearnDash integration field to associate it with the relevant course or group. Save the product, then confirm that the course’s purchase button or landing page sends customers to the correct product or cart URL.

Do not link only the product page in your marketing copy and assume enrolment will happen. The course association is what tells the integration which course to grant after the order reaches an allowed status. A mismatched product, course or user account is a common reason buyers pay but see no access.

In the LearnDash WooCommerce enrollment settings, review which WooCommerce order statuses grant access and which statuses remove it. For a normal one-off course, access is usually granted after a successful payment status. For subscriptions, test renewal, failed-payment and cancellation behaviour as well.

Place a real test order using a test gateway or a low-risk internal product. Confirm that an account is created, the order reaches the expected status, the student appears in the course and the course is visible under their account. If access is missing, check the product-course association, the customer’s WordPress email and the order status. LearnDash also provides a retroactive access tool under WooCommerce > Status > Tools for correcting enrolments after the configuration is fixed.

Fast way: use the LearnDash LMS WooCommerce Integration Addon, create a virtual WooCommerce product for each course, associate the product with the course, and use the integration’s enrolment-status settings. It avoids manually matching orders to students while retaining WooCommerce checkout and payment gateways.