How to create and sell online courses on WordPress

Write the course outline before opening WordPress. Split the material into courses, modules, lessons and quizzes, then decide whether learners can move freely or must complete each step in order.

Prepare the lesson text, video files, downloads, quiz questions and completion requirements. Keep paid course content separate from your public sales page so visitors can see what they are buying without receiving the lessons for free.

For a real course, use an LMS system. It provides course structures, learner enrolment, progress tracking, quizzes and access rules that WordPress pages do not provide on their own.

The manual route is possible for a small private library: create protected WordPress pages, sell access through a payment or membership product, and enrol users yourself. It becomes difficult to maintain when you add several courses, refunds, recurring access, quizzes or progress reports, so an LMS plugin is the safer route for a public course business.

Install your chosen LMS and create the course first. Add the lessons, topics or modules, then attach videos, downloads and quizzes. Set the course page title, description, featured image and completion rules.

Review the access settings carefully. Common choices include open, free, paid, recurring and closed access. If WooCommerce will handle payment, use the LMS integration's external-product or closed-access method rather than enabling a second built-in checkout for the same course.

Install WooCommerce, configure the required store pages and payment gateway, then create a virtual product for each course or bundle. Add the price, tax settings, refund policy and customer emails.

Link the WooCommerce product to the matching course in the LMS integration. The connection should grant access only after the appropriate order status is reached. Buyers normally need a WordPress account so the order can be matched to their enrolment.

Create a public sales page with the learning outcomes, syllabus, target audience, prerequisites, course length, support details and a clear purchase button. Link that button to the product or checkout page, not directly to protected lesson content.

If you sell a subscription, configure what happens when a subscription expires or is cancelled. If you pre-sell a course, set a future start date and explain when access begins; paid learners can be enrolled before the lessons become available.

Place a test order with a separate customer account. Confirm that checkout creates or uses the right account, the order reaches the intended status, the learner receives the correct email and the course appears in their dashboard.

Open the site as the test learner and check that unpaid users cannot read protected lessons, completed lessons update progress, quizzes record results and refunds or cancelled subscriptions remove access when intended. A common failure is a product linked to the wrong course or an order status that does not trigger enrolment; correct that before launch.