Drip Content and Prerequisites in LifterLMS: Control the Pace of a Course

By default, a student who enrolls in a LifterLMS course can open every lesson straight away. Drip content and prerequisites are the two tools that change that.

They solve different problems. Drip controls when a lesson opens. A prerequisite controls what must be finished first. You can use either alone or both together, and most pacing problems come from confusing the two.

This guide covers every option, where each setting lives, and how the rules stack up when course dates and memberships are involved. Option names are quoted as they appear in the plugin at the time of writing.

The four lesson drip methods

Drip is set per lesson. Open the course builder, open a lesson's settings, and find Drip Method. The same options appear in the WordPress lesson editor under the Drip Settings tab.

Drip Method option	The lesson opens	Fits
On a specific date	On the date and time you enter, for everyone	A cohort that starts together, or content tied to a live event
# of days after course enrollment	A set number of days after each student enrolled in the course	Evergreen courses where every student gets the same schedule from their own start
# of days after course start date	A set number of days after the course's start date	Scheduled runs where you want to move the whole timetable by changing one date
# of days after prerequisite lesson completion	A set number of days after the student completed the prerequisite lesson	Spacing practice: finish lesson three, wait two days, then lesson four opens

Two of these options only appear when they can work:

• # of days after course start date is offered only if the course has a start date, which you set under Course Options > Restrictions.
• # of days after prerequisite lesson completion is offered only once the lesson has a prerequisite enabled.

For the specific date method you can add a time. Leave the time empty and the lesson opens at 12:00 AM on that date.

There is no drip setting on a section. To release a whole section at once, give every lesson in it the same drip setting. The drip content documentation walks through the lesson screens.

A locked lesson still appears in the syllabus, but not as a link. Students who reach it see a message naming the lesson and the date it becomes available.

Course-level drip: one interval for the whole course

Setting a delay on forty lessons by hand is tedious. The course-level option does it in one place.

1. Edit the course and open Course Options > Restrictions.
2. Check Enable Lesson Drip.
3. Set Drip Method to "After course start or enrollment".
4. Enter the Number of lessons to make immediately available on course start.
5. Enter the Delay (in days) between the lessons that follow.

Lessons are counted in syllabus order across the whole course, ignoring section boundaries. With two lessons available immediately and a delay of seven days, lesson three opens on day seven, lesson four on day fourteen, and so on.

The clock starts at the course start date if the course has one. If it does not, it starts at each student's own enrollment.

While the course-level drip is on, it replaces lesson-level drip. The builder hides the per-lesson drip fields and shows a note pointing you back to the course. Switch the course setting off to use individual lesson settings again.

Lesson and course prerequisites

Lesson prerequisites

In a lesson's settings, enable Prerequisite and choose the lesson that must be completed first. You can pick any lesson that comes earlier in the same course. The first lesson of a course cannot have one. The same setting is in the lesson editor, and the prerequisite documentation shows both screens.

What "completed" means depends on the prerequisite lesson. If it has a quiz and Require Passing Grade on Quiz is on, the student has to pass that quiz. Without that requirement, any finished attempt completes the lesson. Our tutorial on creating quizzes in LifterLMS covers that setting.

Prerequisites are not automatic. A course with no prerequisites lets students open lessons in any order. For a strict sequence, each lesson needs the one before it as its prerequisite.

Course prerequisites

Under Course Options > Restrictions, check Enable Prerequisite. You can then choose a prerequisite course, a prerequisite course track, or both.

A course prerequisite does not stop anyone from buying or enrolling. It stops them from opening the lessons until the required course or track is complete. The course page shows a notice naming the prerequisite, but a notice is easy to miss. Say it plainly in the sales copy as well, or you will hear from students who paid and found everything locked.

How the rules stack when a student opens a lesson

When an enrolled student opens a lesson, LifterLMS checks restrictions in a fixed order and stops at the first one that applies:

1. Enrollment. Is the student enrolled in the course?
2. Course time period. Is today between the Course Start Date and Course End Date, if those are enabled?
3. Drip. Has the lesson's release date arrived?
4. Prerequisites. Are the course, track, and lesson prerequisites complete?

The message the student sees belongs to the first check that fails. That explains a common support question: a student is told a lesson opens on a certain date, waits, and is then told to finish an earlier lesson. Both rules were always there. Only one message shows at a time.

A lesson the student has already completed stays open to them, even if its drip date has not arrived, for example because you changed the schedule later.

A quiz follows its lesson. If the lesson is locked by drip or a prerequisite, the quiz is locked too.

Start dates, end dates and enrollment periods

Course Options > Restrictions holds two pairs of dates that are easy to mix up.

• Enrollment Period controls when people can join. Outside the Enrollment Start Date and Enrollment End Date, visitors see the opens or closed message you wrote. It does nothing to students who are already in.
• Course Time Period controls when content can be viewed and completed. Before the Course Start Date and after the Course End Date, lessons are closed to enrolled students as well.

How this meets drip:

• A course end date overrides a drip date. A lesson scheduled to open after the course has closed never becomes reachable. Count the days before you set both.
• The course start date is also the anchor for the "after course start date" methods, so one field does two jobs.
• In the plugin's access check, a lesson that drips by days after enrollment is not held back by the course time period. If you combine those two settings, test the exact case with a test student instead of assuming the end date applies.

How drip behaves with memberships

The enrollment-based methods count from the student's enrollment in the course, not from the day they joined a membership.

• Auto-enrolled at signup. The two dates are the same, so the schedule starts when the membership does.
• A course added to the membership later. Existing members get a course enrollment dated the day they were enrolled in it. A member of two years starts that course's drip at day zero like everyone else.
• Members-only access plans. If members enroll themselves through a members-only plan, the clock starts when they click, which may be months after joining.

Prerequisites keep working inside a membership. A member enrolled in five courses at once can still be made to take them in order with course prerequisites.

Billing is the other interaction. A twelve-week drip sold on a monthly subscription means a student who cancels early never reaches the later lessons. Our guide to memberships and access plans goes through those pricing combinations.

Common mistakes

• Testing as an administrator. By default, administrators, LMS Managers, and instructors bypass enrollment, drip, and prerequisite restrictions. Everything looks open to you. Test with a real student account.
• Dripping a free lesson. A lesson marked Free Lesson is open to everyone, and the access check stops there. Drip dates and prerequisites are not applied to it.
• Specific dates on an evergreen course. Once the dates pass, every new student gets everything at once. Use days after enrollment for a course that is always on sale.
• Expecting a prerequisite to pace students. A prerequisite sets order, not speed. A determined student can finish a chained course in an afternoon. Add drip if time between lessons matters.
• Forgetting the first lessons. A drip that leaves nothing open on day one is a poor welcome for someone who just paid. Keep at least the first lesson available immediately.
• Changing the schedule mid-run. Dates are worked out when the lesson is requested, so editing a delay moves the release for current students too.
• Not telling students. The lock message gives a date and nothing else. Put the release schedule on the course page and in the welcome email.

What to do next

Write the schedule down before you touch a setting: which lessons open when, counted from what, and what must be finished first. Then build it and walk through it with a test student whose enrollment date you can reason about.

If pacing is meant to keep students moving, pair each release with an email. Our article on engagements and automated emails covers that side.

The built-in rules cover most courses. They do not cover everything: a release tied to a fixed weekday, a drip counted from membership signup, different schedules for different groups, or sending students to different lessons depending on a quiz score. Those need custom code, which is what our LifterLMS customization service is for. If you want a second opinion on a pacing plan first, LifterLMS consulting is the lighter option, or simply tell us what you are trying to schedule.