How to create and sell online courses in WordPress

Decide what the student should receive: a one-off course, a subscription, a bundle or a free course. Outline the modules, lessons, quizzes, downloadable files and any completion requirements before you build them.

Choose whether students should get access immediately after payment, start on a fixed date or lose access after a set period. LMS systems commonly expose these as course access or enrolment settings, but the labels differ between products.

For a very small course, you can create lessons as WordPress pages, sell access with WooCommerce and protect those pages with a membership or content-restriction plugin. This works for simple downloads or a few protected pages, but WordPress alone will not track lesson progress, organise quizzes, manage enrolments or issue course completion records.

For a proper learning site, use an LMS. It gives you a course structure, lessons, topics, quizzes, student accounts and progress tracking in one system. Selling still normally requires either the LMS's own commerce features or an integration such as WooCommerce.

Install your chosen LMS from Plugins or upload its ZIP file, then complete its setup screen. Check the pages it uses for the course catalogue, student dashboard, login, registration, checkout and account details.

Do not install several payment or commerce engines and enable them all at once. Some LMS products support several options but allow only one active e-commerce engine, so choose one route and confirm that its checkout and account pages are assigned correctly.

Create the course, then add modules, lessons, topics and quizzes in the LMS builder. Put videos in a suitable video host or your media system, add written instructions below each video, and attach worksheets or other files where students need them.

Set the lesson order, prerequisites, quiz pass marks, attempt limits and completion rules. Check the visibility of every lesson before publishing: some builders publish newly created lessons automatically, which can expose unfinished material to visitors.

Enable the LMS's chosen monetisation method, then set the course as paid and connect its product, price or subscription plan. With a WooCommerce-based setup, create the product, configure at least one payment gateway, and link that product to the course. After a successful order, the LMS should enrol the purchaser and grant access.

Keep the course product virtual and downloadable only when appropriate, and review tax, email, refund and account-creation settings. A common Friday problem is that payment succeeds but the buyer is not enrolled because the product was not linked to the course or two commerce systems are competing.

Use a separate email address to test the complete path: view the sales page, register, pay, receive the order email, log in, open the course, complete a lesson, submit a quiz and confirm that progress is saved.

Also test a failed payment, a refund, a restricted lesson URL and a mobile screen. Confirm that a logged-out visitor cannot read paid lessons directly, because hiding a course link is not the same as protecting its content. Fix account, checkout and enrolment issues before sending customers to the site.

If you want the site design and course functions in one package, EduMall is a practical shortcut. It combines an LMS-focused WordPress theme with course building, quizzes, enrolment, student and instructor accounts, multimedia content and payment support, so you can start from its setup flow rather than assembling a theme, LMS and commerce connection separately.

Install the theme through Appearance → Themes → Add New → Upload Theme, activate it, follow its setup instructions, create the course and connect the payment method. You should still run the full student-journey test before launch, especially the purchase-to-enrolment hand-off.