LifterLMS Course Launch Checklist: What to Test Before You Open Enrollment

Most launch-day problems on a LifterLMS site are not bugs. They are settings nobody looked at as a student: a draft lesson, a gateway still in test mode, a receipt sent from the wrong address, a cached dashboard showing someone else's progress.

This checklist is organized by area so you can hand sections to different people, and each item names the screen or setting to check. Work through it a few days before you open enrollment.

It assumes the course is already built. If it is not, start with how to create a course in LifterLMS.

Set up your test accounts first

Administrators, LMS Managers, instructors, and instructor's assistants bypass enrollment, drip, and prerequisite restrictions by default. That list is the Unrestricted Preview Access setting under LifterLMS > Settings > General. Testing while logged in as one of those roles tells you very little.

Tester	How to create it	What it proves
Logged-out visitor	A private browser window	What the public sees and cannot reach
New student	Register through checkout with an email address you can read	Registration, payment, enrollment, and emails
Returning student	The same account, logged out and back in the next day	Login, saved progress, drip, and the dashboard
Quick preview	The View as menu in the admin bar, set to Visitor or Student	A fast look only. The preview documentation itself recommends a real test user

Content

• Every lesson is published. In the Course Builder, open each lesson's settings and check the Published toggle.
• Every quiz is published too. A quiz has its own Published toggle, separate from its lesson.
• No section or lesson still carries a placeholder title or filler text.
• Sections and lessons are in the intended order in the syllabus on the course page.
• Every video plays and every download opens for the test student, not only for you. Check the privacy settings at the video host as well.
• Only the lessons you chose are marked Free Lesson. The Free lesson indicator on each row of the builder makes this a quick scan.
• Each quiz has correct answers marked and a Passing Percentage set. Take each quiz twice as the test student: fail it once, then pass it.
• Lessons that must be passed have Require Passing Grade on Quiz switched on.
• Prerequisites and drip dates are deliberate. Confirm the site timezone under WordPress Settings > General before trusting any date-based release.
• No detached lessons are left over. Look under Courses > Lessons for lessons that belong to no course, and trash or unpublish any that should not be reachable.
• The course page still contains its pricing table and syllabus, and has a featured image, a length, and a difficulty level.

Access and payments

• Every access plan shows the right title, price, billing frequency, and Access Expiration. Read them on the front end, not only in the editor.
• Trial lengths and sale dates are what you intend.
• Temporary plans are gone. Remove any Free plan you added for testing, and check that Hidden Access plans are not linked from public pages.
• Plan Availability is correct on plans meant for members only.
• After checkout the student lands where you expect, either the default destination or the plan's Checkout Redirect.
• Currency and country are right under LifterLMS > Settings > Checkout.
• The payment gateway is in live mode with live keys. For Stripe, confirm the webhook status shown in its settings.
• One small real purchase goes through. The order appears under Orders with the correct status, the student is enrolled, and you can then refund it.
• If you sell subscriptions, LifterLMS > Settings > General shows Automatic Recurring Payments as Enabled. LifterLMS turns this off when it detects a copied site, so check it after any move from staging to live.
• Retry Failed Payments is on under the Checkout settings, unless you have decided otherwise.
• If the Manual gateway is enabled, the payment instructions a buyer sees are complete and current.
• Every coupon you plan to announce has been applied at checkout once. Our guide to coupons and vouchers covers the options.
• Enrollment period, course time period, and capacity under Course Options > Restrictions match your launch plan, and the messages shown before opening and after closing read well.
• Catalog visibility is what you want: shown in the catalog and search, or hidden for a private launch.

The free core plugin includes only the Manual gateway. Card payments need a paid add-on such as Stripe or PayPal, so allow time to install and test it. The payment setup itself is covered in how to sell courses with LifterLMS.

Emails

• LifterLMS > Settings > Engagements has the Sender Name and Sender Email you want students to see. The defaults are the site title and the admin email address, which is often the wrong choice.
• The email header image and footer text on the same screen are filled in.
• Under LifterLMS > Settings > Notifications, each notification you want is enabled and the ones you do not want are off. Read the purchase receipt, enrollment, and welcome messages as a student would.
• The test purchase produced a receipt in the test student's inbox, not the spam folder.
• Engagement emails fire on the right trigger with the right delay. See engagements and automated emails for how they are built.
• Completing the course awards the certificate, with the student's name spelled as they entered it.
• The lost password email arrives and its link works.
• Mail is sent through a proper delivery service with your domain authenticated, and test messages reach at least two different mailbox providers.

Student experience

• A stranger can go from the Course Catalog to a completed first lesson without help. Do this run in one sitting, in a private window, and note every point of hesitation.
• The Student Dashboard is linked in the menu for logged-in users, and a login link is visible for everyone else.
• The dashboard shows the course under My Courses with the right progress after a lesson is completed.
• Mark Complete works, and the next lesson link goes to the right lesson.
• A logged-out visitor who opens a lesson address directly is turned away. Edit the Content Restricted Message under Course Options > Restrictions so it tells them what to do next.
• Locked lessons explain why they are locked, whether by prerequisite or by drip date.
• The course, checkout, lesson, and quiz pages are usable on a phone, including Focus Mode if you use it.
• The Course Completion Page, if set, congratulates the student and points to a next step.
• Dashboard tabs you do not use are switched off. Leaving an endpoint blank under Settings > Accounts removes that tab. Our Student Dashboard guide goes through each one.
• You have decided on Open Registration and Prevent concurrent logins, both under Settings > Accounts, instead of leaving them to chance.

Performance and reliability

• Page caching skips the Checkout page and the Student Dashboard at every layer: plugin, host, and CDN. LifterLMS marks these pages and quiz pages as not cacheable, but an aggressive cache can ignore that. The official caching FAQ has notes for common tools.
• Logged-in users bypass the page cache.
• With caching switched on, two different test students each see their own name, progress, and orders.
• The course page and catalog load at an acceptable speed on a phone connection, with compressed images and no unnecessary video players.
• Scheduled tasks are running. LifterLMS > Status > Scheduled Actions should show actions completing, not a queue of overdue ones. Subscription renewals and access expirations depend on it.
• LifterLMS > Status > System Report shows no outdated template overrides in your theme.
• Backups run daily, include the database, and you have restored one at least once.
• WordPress, the theme, LifterLMS, and its add-ons are up to date, and you will not update anything on launch day.

If the site struggles under your own testing, fix that first. Start with how to speed up a LifterLMS site.

Legal pages and site basics

This part is not legal advice. The requirements depend on where you and your students are, so have a qualified adviser review your wording.

• A Terms and Conditions page exists, is selected under LifterLMS > Settings > Accounts, and the agreement checkbox is enabled.
• A Privacy Policy page is selected on the same screen, and the notice shown at registration and checkout reads correctly.
• Your refund policy is stated where a buyer will see it before paying.
• You know how sales tax or VAT will be handled for the places you sell to.
• Any consent tool you use covers embedded video players and analytics.
• A captcha is chosen under LifterLMS > Settings > Security for checkout and registration.
• A contact or support route is visible to students, and someone is assigned to watch it in launch week.
• The data retention options for account erasure requests under Settings > Accounts reflect your policy.

Launch day, in order

1. Take a fresh backup.
2. Switch the gateway to live mode and remove test plans, test coupons, and test students.
3. Publish the course and set its catalog visibility.
4. Clear every cache, then load the course page logged out.
5. Make one real purchase and follow it through to the first lesson and the receipt email.
6. Announce.
7. Watch Orders, your inbox, and LifterLMS > Reporting closely for the first day.

What to do next

Keep this list and reuse it. The second course launches faster because the site-wide items are already done, and only the content and access sections need a full pass. After launch, the question changes from "does it work" to "do people finish", which is the subject of our article on improving course completion.

A second pair of eyes is worth paying for when the stakes are higher than a single course: a launch with a fixed date and paid advertising behind it, subscriptions moving from another platform, a checkout connected to a CRM, or a site that has already shown caching or email trouble. A technical review of an existing site is part of our LifterLMS consulting service, and LifterLMS optimization covers load and caching problems. If you have a launch date in mind, tell us when it is and what worries you most.