Without a doubt, when we think about online learning platforms, LearnDash development is one of the best options available for WordPress. In addition to a wide range of add-ons provided by the company itself, there are other key plugins that can take your online course platform to a much more professional level than you might imagine.
In this article, I will share some of these plugins with you and explain how they can be the key to developing a high-end platform with WordPress.
FluentCRM
Website: https://fluentcrm.com/
CRM tools have become expensive, and you always need to pay more as your business grows. Prices usually increase either per user or based on the number of contacts, which is the most common pricing model among marketing CRMs.
FluentCRM is a plugin by WPManageNinja that combines email marketing and CRM into a single plugin running directly inside your WordPress website. With a subscription costing, on average, between US$90 and US$129 per year, you can have as many users and contacts as you want, as well as send countless email marketing campaigns at a very low cost by using services such as Amazon SES (https://aws.amazon.com/ses/), where you pay, on average, US$100 for one million emails.
With FluentCRM, you can import all your course students, segment them, and create automated campaigns.
Uncanny Automator
Website: https://automatorplugin.com/
Speaking of automation, having an automation plugin within an online course platform has become almost unavoidable.
The plugin from Uncanny Owl, a company focused on LearnDash, integrates completely with your course, generating multiple triggers to create automation workflows, all within your WordPress website, without needing Zapier or similar services. It is a tool specifically designed to create automations between WordPress plugins.
For example, if a student completes a course, you can create an automation that adds them to a FluentCRM list and offers them a new course via email. Or, if a student has not logged in for five days, automatically send them a reminder email.
The automation possibilities are virtually unlimited. The sky is the limit.
BuddyBoss
Website: https://www.buddyboss.com/
It is becoming increasingly common to combine online courses and training with a community, and BuddyBoss is one of the most complete tools available for this when it comes to LearnDash integration.
You can practically create a social network within your WordPress website, give course students access to it, and even turn the community into a mobile app.
This has become a common strategy among many course creators, who build training programmes alongside a private community and charge a monthly subscription to provide access to both.
BuddyBoss is a plugin you need to know.
MemberPress
Website: https://memberpress.com/
Now, to connect everything together, a membership plugin is essential, and MemberPress is an excellent choice for managing your course members’ accounts.
Although MemberPress includes options for online communities and courses, its primary focus is membership account management.
For example, let’s say you want to create a subscription where the student pays monthly and only has access to two courses. Or create a more expensive subscription that gives access to all courses for one year. All of this is possible.
Best of all, it is a plugin that integrates easily with the other plugins mentioned above, eliminating the need for any custom development and turning your LearnDash course into a sales machine.
Fluent Forms
Website: https://fluentforms.com/
One of the best plugins currently available for dynamic forms.
It is easy to build attractive forms using drag and drop, it is responsive, and it includes many possibilities, such as connecting directly with FluentCRM. This means that when a user submits a form, they can automatically be added to a CRM list.
It also includes conditional logic, allowing you to configure dynamic fields that reveal specific options as the user completes the form.
An interesting feature is the ability to convert a completed form into a PDF. Let’s say you want to provide your students with a specific questionnaire when they complete a course and automatically generate a PDF document containing their answers.
In addition, it includes many other features, such as a calculator, conversational forms, quizzes, product forms, and AI-powered form creation.
It is also an excellent plugin for creating the student onboarding process.
Conclusion
To build a custom LearnDash course platform, it is important to know which plugins work with the platform in a smooth and cost-effective way, allowing for a much higher level of automation.
I do not recommend trying to solve everything in WordPress through custom development by modifying plugin code or creating new plugins when ready-made solutions already exist. After all, these plugins are developed by specialised companies, receive continuous updates, and provide support to fix bugs and keep your website running properly.
I hope this article helps you see the incredible possibilities currently available for integrating with LearnDash.
