Drip Content and Prerequisites in LifterLMS: Control the Pace of a Course
The four lesson drip methods, the course-level drip, lesson and course prerequisites, and how they behave next to start and end dates and…
Read articleLifterLMS is sold in a way that confuses people at first. The core plugin is free and has no caps on courses or students, yet the feature most course sellers want first, charging a card, is not in it.
This article draws the line exactly: what the free plugin does by itself, what each family of paid add-ons contributes, how the three bundles are organized, and which purchase matches which need. We leave prices out because they change. The LifterLMS pricing page is the place for those.
If you want the wider picture of what the plugin is and who it suits, read what LifterLMS is first. This piece is about where the money goes.
What the free core plugin includes
The free plugin from WordPress.org is the full LMS engine, not a trial. Its publisher states there are no limits on courses, memberships or enrollments, and nothing in it is timed or locked after a period.
| Area | In the free core |
|---|---|
| Course building | Course Builder with sections and lessons, video and audio embeds, drip schedules, prerequisites, free preview lessons, focus mode |
| Quizzes | Multiple choice, picture choice and true or false questions, graded automatically, with a passing percentage, attempt limits and a time limit |
| Selling structure | Access plans (free, one-time, recurring, trials, sale prices, members-only), the Checkout page, orders, coupons and vouchers |
| Payments | One gateway, Manual, for offline payments that an admin records by hand |
| Memberships | Membership levels that auto-enroll members in courses and restrict pages and posts, plus a site-wide restriction setting |
| Engagement | Achievements, certificates and emails triggered by enrollment, lesson, quiz and course events |
| Student area | The Student Dashboard with courses, grades, memberships, certificates, order history and voucher redemption |
| Reporting | Reports for students, courses, memberships, quizzes, sales and enrollments, with CSV export |
| Administration | LMS Manager, Instructor, Instructor's Assistant and Student roles, bulk enrollment from the Users screen, editable checkout and registration forms, captcha options |
| Developer tools | REST API with API keys, webhooks, blocks, WP-CLI commands, hooks and template overrides |
| Community | Integrations for the free bbPress and BuddyPress plugins |
One row needs a closer look. You can create a recurring access plan on the free plugin, but the Manual gateway cannot collect a renewal. Someone has to record each payment on the order. Automatic billing starts when you add a card gateway.
Support is the other difference that does not show up in a feature list. Free users rely on the documentation and community. The ticket system is for paying customers.
What you can run with zero paid add-ons
More than most people expect. These setups need nothing beyond the free plugin:
- Free courses for lead generation, customer onboarding or community education.
- Internal training where nobody pays: staff are enrolled by an admin, take quizzes and receive certificates.
- Invoice and bank transfer sales. The buyer checks out with the Manual gateway, sees your payment instructions, and is enrolled when you mark the order as paid.
- Prepaid seats for a client. You invoice the company outside the site and hand over voucher codes. Each learner redeems a code and is enrolled without touching checkout. Our guide to coupons and vouchers covers the mechanics.
- A members-only library where you add members by hand or by voucher.
What you cannot do for free is take a card payment on your own Checkout page and have enrollment happen with no human in the loop.
What each kind of paid add-on adds
LifterLMS sells its add-ons one by one and in bundles. Grouped by the job they do:
| Kind | Add-ons | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| Payment gateways | Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.Net | Online payment at checkout, automatic enrollment, refunds from the order screen, automatic renewals where the gateway supports them |
| WooCommerce | WooCommerce integration | Hands checkout to WooCommerce so you can use its gateways, tax settings and product catalog |
| Checkout extras | Advanced Coupons, Name Your Price, Cart Abandonment Recovery, Gifts | More coupon rules, pay-what-you-want pricing, follow-up on abandoned checkouts, buying access for someone else |
| Assessment | Advanced Quizzes, Assignments | Eight more question types including manually graded ones, and tasks, file uploads and essay submissions |
| Organizations | Groups, Course Cohorts, Private Site | Seats managed by a group leader, cohorts that move through a course together, access to the whole site restricted |
| Coaching and community | Private Areas, Social Learning, Notes | A private space per student, a timeline and profiles, student note-taking |
| Documents and credits | PDFs, Continuing Education | PDF exports of certificates, grades and orders, and credits or hours attached to courses |
| Delivery | Advanced Videos, Events | Video completion rules and resume, and live or in-person sessions inside courses |
| Data | Custom Fields | Extra fields on your LifterLMS forms without code |
| Email and messaging | Mailchimp, Kit (formerly ConvertKit), Twilio | Students added to lists, tags and sequences, and text notifications |
| Forms | Gravity Forms, WPForms, Ninja Forms, Formidable Forms | Form entries tied to lessons and to LMS reporting |
| Design | Sky Pilot theme, Aircraft page builder | A theme and builder made by the same company |
Two of these deserve a caution. The WooCommerce add-on replaces the native checkout instead of sitting beside it, which is a bigger decision than buying a gateway. We explain it in LifterLMS with WooCommerce. And Advanced Quizzes changes how much grading work your team takes on, because written answers need a person to mark them. See how to create quizzes in LifterLMS before you promise essay questions.
How the bundles are organized
There are three bundles, each containing the one before it:
- Earth Bundle. Built around getting paid: Stripe, PayPal and the WooCommerce integration, plus Cart Abandonment Recovery and Name Your Price.
- Universe Bundle. Adds the Sky Pilot theme, the email marketing add-ons and the form plugin add-ons.
- Infinity Bundle. Adds the advanced add-ons: Advanced Quizzes, Advanced Coupons, Advanced Videos, Assignments, Groups, Private Areas, PDFs, Custom Fields, Continuing Education, Course Cohorts, Social Learning and the rest of the catalog.
Stripe and PayPal are in every bundle. Authorize.Net is sold separately and comes with the Infinity Bundle. The bundles also differ in how many sites a license covers and in the level of support, so read those lines as carefully as the feature lists. Bundle contents are revised from time to time. Treat the list above as a map and the pricing page as the contract.
If you need X, you need Y
| If you need to... | You need |
|---|---|
| Offer free courses or run unpaid internal training | Nothing paid |
| Sell by invoice or bank transfer | Nothing paid (Manual gateway) |
| Give a client prepaid seats | Nothing paid (vouchers) |
| Take card payments and bill subscriptions automatically | A gateway add-on, usually Stripe |
| Calculate tax at checkout, sell physical goods, or use a gateway LifterLMS does not offer | The WooCommerce add-on, and WooCommerce Subscriptions for recurring plans |
| Ask essay, short answer or file upload questions | Advanced Quizzes |
| Set graded tasks outside a quiz | Assignments |
| Let a company buy seats and manage its own learners | Groups |
| Coach each student in a private space | Private Areas |
| Export certificates and grades as PDF files | PDFs |
| Add students to Mailchimp or Kit lists, tags and sequences | The matching email add-on |
| Use your form plugin inside lessons | The add-on for that form plugin |
| Collect extra profile or checkout fields without code | Custom Fields |
| Award credits or hours that expire | Continuing Education |
Count the rows that apply to you. One or two rows usually means individual add-ons. Rows spread across several kinds usually means a bundle is the simpler purchase. If the only row you match is card payments, a single gateway is enough to launch.
Where third-party plugins fit
An official add-on is not the only route. Other vendors maintain LifterLMS connections for CRMs, automation tools, community platforms and SCORM or xAPI content, and some jobs are better served by them. A CRM other than Mailchimp or Kit is one example. The trade-off is who supports the connection when an update breaks it. Our roundup of LifterLMS integrations sorts the options by job.
Sometimes neither exists. A rule such as "enroll every new hire from the HR system in three courses" is not something you can buy off the shelf. It is built on the hooks and REST API that ship in the free core.
Buying mistakes to avoid
- Budgeting zero for payments. If the plan involves cards, a gateway add-on is part of the base cost, not an upgrade.
- Buying the biggest bundle for one feature. Check whether the single add-on covers the need first.
- Buying add-ons before building a course. Build and test the whole learner journey on the free plugin. Gaps show up quickly, and they are rarely the ones you guessed.
- Treating WooCommerce as a default. It solves tax and mixed catalogs. It also adds a second system to maintain.
- Ignoring the site count. Each bundle covers a set number of sites. Agencies and multi-brand businesses should read the license terms before choosing.
- Forgetting the costs outside LifterLMS. Hosting, video hosting, email delivery and processor fees apply on every tier.
What to do next
Write down what must work on launch day and what can wait three months. Match the launch list against the table above, install the free plugin on a staging site, and build one real course end to end. Buy the gateway when you are ready to test checkout, following how to sell courses with LifterLMS.
Paid advice earns its fee when the choice has consequences that are expensive to reverse: native checkout or WooCommerce, memberships or groups for business customers, an add-on or a custom build. Our LifterLMS consulting service is for that stage. If you already know the gap and no add-on fills it, tell us what you need and we will say plainly whether it is a setting, an add-on or a development job.
