Hey there!
In this blog post, I’m going to review LearnWorlds and let you know if it’s worth your attention.
So, what is LearnWorlds?
It’s an online course creation platform that was created in 2014 and is based in the UK.
Recently, it has gained a lot of popularity due to its unique features like interactive videos, a robust website builder, and other fancy features.
| Type | Description |
| Trial | 30-day free trial. No credit card required. |
| Free plan | Not available |
| Pricing | Starts at $29/mo |
| Competitors | Podia, Kajabi and Teachable |
| Explore 👉 | Explore LearnWorlds |
And get this – during the pandemic, they raised $32M in growth funding from Insight Partners!
As an instructional designer and fellow course creator, I tried out LearnWorlds and compared it against other platforms like Teachable, Podia, and Kajabi
Overall, I’d say LearnWorlds is definitely worth checking out if you’re a feature-junkie.
But it’s not for all.
Quick decision
👍 What’s good about LearnWorlds?
- Interactive videos: The interactive video feature allows students to engage with the video content by clicking on various elements that pop up over the video. But the question is how many people actually use this feature?
- Robust website building: LearnWorlds comes with a website builder supports a lot of blocks, templates, and supports global elements for better efficiency. It also allows direct tweaking of the underlying source code of the website! You don’t need WordPress or Squarespace. Also, they have Funnels feature on top of it
- Comprehensive reporting tools: The platform includes comprehensive reporting tools for tracking student progress, supporting HTML5 and SCORM, and offering insights into learning outcomes. You get to also see video-level retention graphs!
- Integrated affiliate program: LearnWorlds has an internal affiliate program, enabling you to sign up users to promote your products for a commission. But it doesn’t support automated payouts.
- Branded mobile app: For an extra fee, LearnWorlds provides branded mobile apps for iOS and Android. Only available on their $249 per month “Learning Center” plan.
👎 What’s bad about LearnWorlds?
- Cluttered interface: As LearnWorlds comes with a lot of features, some non-technical people find it confusing. Clearly, there is a need for more improvement of the UX and UI (even basic things like margin and padding!).
- No built-in email marketing (BIG DOWNSIDE): LearnWorlds markets itself as an all-in-one platform, but it does not come with an integrated email marketing capability. You need to integrate with other email marketing software to enable marketing automation.
- Limited integrations: LearnWorlds has limited built-in integrations with email marketing software, only integrating with a couple of options. This means that if you use any other tools, you may need to rely on Zapier frequently, which can increase your costs.
- Exclusive features only available in the highest plan: Some of the exclusive features of LearnWorlds, like interactive videos, branded mobile apps, and white labeling functionalities, are only available in their highest plan, the Learning Center plan, which costs $249 per month.
Upfront bottomline
TheLearnWorlds’ developmental path could have been more intentional.
In mid-2021, during the e-learning industry boom, LearnWorlds raised a ton of money and went on a feature-building spree, adding almost everything users asked for.
But here’s the problem.
Instead of polishing what they already had, fixing bugs, and making their interface more user-friendly, they just kept throwing money at developers to build fancy new features that most people don’t even use.
Take their e-book creator and popup builder, for example. Sure, they sound cool. But what they really needed was basic stuff like built-in email marketing or atleast better integrations with popular email apps!
And, the worst part?
Their interface is a mess with so many features crammed in.
Competitors like Kajabi (review) and Podia (review) which are both all in one, are smarter about this. They only add features that fit nicely with what’s already there. They keep things simple and focused.
Interface
The interface of LearnWorlds looks quite dated, it as a bnig turn off when I first created my account.
You have to access most of the features through the sidebar.
The sidebar items don’t have enough padding and margin, making it feel cluttered and difficult to access all the features.
As LearnWorlds comes with a lot of features, there is a bit of a learning curve. Additionally, due to their tool’s UI and UX, related features are not always grouped together.
At times, you may need to deal with confusing terminology and layouts to get simple things done.
🧠 Personally, I am someone who can’t withstand poor UI/UX because the dopamine hit from using apps fuels my productivity and lets my creative thoughts flow.
Course creation
A LearnWorlds curriculum will have Section (modules) and Activities (lessons).
There will be different types of activities: you can assign a multimedia type to the activity, a live session, a questionnaire, embedding, and so on.
When you create a learning activity, such as a video, you can add more downloadable files to the activity if you wish.
Here, you can allow people to download a PDF checklist or a worksheet that complements the rest of the lesson material.
Now, when it comes to course videos:
LearnWorlds has a unique feature called interactive videos that are only available in their highest learning center plan.
Interactive videos allow you to add interactive elements or overlays on top of your videos.
For example, you can include buttons, “match the following” quizzes, interactive transcripts, and call-to-action buttons.
💡 For instance, if you’re a linguistics instructor and want your students to match words to the correct definition, then this feature would be helpful.
But for me, considering my audience, I didn’t find much value in this feature.
Quizzes, assessments and certification
In LearnWorlds, you can create 4 types of assessments:
- Quizzes
- Exams (graded assessment)
- Assignments
- File assignments (that require file upload)
Exams can be considered a learning activity that consists of different types of quizzes and assignments.
As you can see, when you are adding questions to a graded exam, there are also options for you to include assignments.
These assignments may require students to submit a detailed answer (Text Assignment) or upload a project file (File Assignment) for you to review.
Once the students go through the exams and assessments, you can view their performance in the review center under reports.
You can review their performance and even give them feedback so that they can improve.
As soon as you leave your feedback, they can view it right inside the course player.
I really liked this functionality 🙂
And based on the student performance, you can award them certificates as well.
LearnWorlds lets course creators award two types of certificates:
- Certificate of Completion: Awarded to learners who complete and pass all tests and activities.
- Certificate of Knowledge: Awarded upon course completion with a final exam separate from other assessments.
Let me discuss about the the Certificate of Knowledge first.
You can add a “Certification of Knowledge” activity anywhere in your curriculum with questions. Students earn this certification upon passing.
However, the “Certification of Completion” generally carries more value.
Let me explain the “Certification of Completion.”
These completion certificates allow you to set certain conditions, such as requiring students to answer all the questions or complete all the learning units before receiving the certificate.
👍 Additionally, with the highest pro trainer package, LearnWorlds offers the ability to create your own certification template that includes various fields or variables to further personalize the certificate.
Course engagement analytics
To get a better understanding of your students’ performance, LearnWorlds offers advanced reporting capabilities.
You have student-level progress reports here! (excellent for academic usecases).
The analytics section lets you filter students to view metrics like average platform time and course completion rates. This data helps you improve your courses based on student progress.
For instance, you can quickly identify and reach out to students with low platform engagement time.
Also, they provide you with video retention groups similar to that of YouTube.
With this, you get to know where students are actually dropping off in the course video and make the necessary video edits! 🔥
Frontend student course experience
When people open their course portal, they can access the learning path or activities they need to complete, connect with fellow learners, and discuss course content on the course portal.
However, there are two downsides to their course interface:
- The learners tab only shows the first 150 users alphabetically, with no filtering options for finding specific students.
- The discussion section is hidden in the sidebar instead of appearing below videos, requiring extra clicks and reducing engagement compared to YouTube’s more intuitive comment placement.
There are no major downsides with the course player interface, but some polishing would be desirable.
And also, when it comes to the course player, there are 5 different skins that you can choose from.
Personally, I like their classic skin that adds some modern UI elements to the player.
Maybe it’s due to my love for dark mode!
Apart from these skins, you also have the ability to add your custom CSS using their custom code editor. 👨💻
Community
LearnWorlds has a feature-rich community feature. To enable access to the community for your students, when you create a school, you have a section called “Community Access” where you have various settings to enable access to the community for your students.
Once the community and access settings are set up, in order to head directly to your community, you need to go to the “Learning Apps” section.
It took me a while to figure out where the community feature was located, and I found it nested under “Learning Apps”. This is what I meant when I told their user interface is not intuitive.
Now about the community itself.
At first glance, their community feature needs a lot of refinement, their UX needs serious improvement.
Students can access the activity feed, search for their friends, access polls and mentions, and create groups for interaction (depending upon your settings)
Website design and customization
LearnWorlds offers powerful website design functionalities for creating websites, landing pages, and blog posts.
They have recently revamped their entire website building functionality, including robust features.
Site themes
There are 15+ professionally made templates available, called site flavors, that allow you to create websites of your own taste.
There are different site flavors across various categories like art and design, coaching, customer education, and fitness, among others.
Page builder
When you create your website, you can add various sections, and for each section, there are multiple pre-made templates available.
You can easily change the template of a section by making use of their magic templates functionality that allows you to switch between section templates without losing the underlying content.
LearnWorlds comes with advanced functionalities such as control over padding, margins, dividers, box models, animations, etc.
Also it comes with the ability to add custom code and edit the underlying source code of your landing pages.
It also allows you to apply custom code throughout your entire site, to a particular page, or even a selected element.
Additionally, you can add code snippets that include variables and tags based on the liquid templating language to help personalize the site’s design depending on the student who is browsing the website.
Since it is a liquid templating system, it also comes with the ability to set conditions, allowing you to apply code based on different conditions.
For example, you can greet the user by their name or display a certain message for a user with a certain tag.
Popup builder
Here is something you don’t see on online learning platforms.
LearnWorlds recently introduced its Popup Builder to help you create and customize how a popup looks, feels, and works.
Go to Site Builder → Edit School Site → Popup → New Popup to create them.
What we like most, though, is what you can use them for:
- Collect emails for your marketing funnel
- Display special offers
- Show coupons
- Pop up a video
- Display welcome messages
- Notify your community about a new update, course content release, and more.
You can then tweak who, when, how, where, and what they can display in Popup settings.
Sales and marketing
Funnels
Recently, they introduced the Page Funnels functionality, which offers various pre-made funnel templates, like templates for ebooks, lead magnets, email opt-ins, and webinar registration, among others.
When you are using any of these templates, with just a click of a button, you will be setting up all the steps inside it.
At every step of the funnel, you can modify the properties, view analytics, and more.
When it comes to analytics, you can see funnel data such as:
- Total funnel views
- Completion rate
- Visitors per step funnel
- Number of visits of any page of the funnel
- Number of visitors that reached the final step of the funnel
When designing your landing page or any opt-in form, under “Actions”, you can enable any user to enter in any stage of the funnel.
The page builder and funnel management functionality of LearnWorlds work hand-in-hand to give you full control over your customer’s journey on your website.
It’s great how these two features complement each other seamlessly.
Upsells, order bumps and OTOs
In LearnWorlds, you can create upsells, but it doesn’t come with ordered bumps.
There isn’t a dedicated feature on LearnWorlds to create upsells; instead, it is done through customizing the thank you page that the buyer will be redirected to after making the checkout.
Creating upsells through the thank you page is pretty straightforward.
LearnWorlds gives you the option to assign the thank you page to any product that you have published in your school, whether it be a course, bundle, or subscription.
You can even customize it to include special offers or discounts as part of your one-time offer.
Payments and checkout
LearnWorlds has four payment gateways (Stripe, PayPal, Shopify, PagSeguro) to handle transactions.
To create subscription products on LearnWorlds, you need to integrate it with Stripe.
Then, you can head over to the payment section and create various subscription plans for the different products that you have in your school.
To customize the checkout process for your products on LearnWorlds, you can go to their Pages Manager and customize the Payment Page.
In their page builder, there are various templates available for their Payment Section/Block.
You can add any of these payment sections to your page, and there are various customization options for you to tweak.
Additionally, you can tie a particular coupon or tag to people who buy through a particular payment section automatically.
As I told you earlier, you don’t have to create “Order bumps” to maximize your revenue here.
Affiliate marketing
LearnWorlds packs a powerful affiliate marketing system that can dramatically boost your course sales.
Why is this a big deal?
Because it transforms your marketing reach without upfront costs.
The standout advantage here is flexibility. Unlike competitors who lock you into rigid 30-day cookie windows, LearnWorlds lets you extend tracking periods (though higher-tier plans may be required).
This means your affiliates get credit for longer sales cycles – crucial for expensive courses where buyers might take weeks to decide.
With support for both percentage and fixed commissions across multiple payment methods, this system gives you the tools to build a sustainable, passive promotion channel without the headaches of managing it yourself.
Integrations
LearnWorlds used to have poor integrations with external tools, but they have recently added a lot of new integrations with various tools, including email marketing software, analytics, customer service, CRM, and various other growth tools.
LearnWorlds doesn’t have built-in email marketing, but it connects with popular services like:
- MailChimp
- ActiveCampaign
- MailerLite
- ConvertKit
- GetResponse
- Moosend
- Aweber
- Constant Contact
The integration options are limited though.
Using an unsupported email tool? You’ll need Zapier or Make.com, which adds to your costs.
For payments, LearnWorlds works with Stripe, PayPal, and Shopify – letting you build a store and sell courses through it.
They also integrate with Quaderno for automatic tax calculations, receipts, and EU VAT compliance.
The platform supports webhooks for different events, giving developers flexibility to create custom integrations without Zapier!
Pricing and support
Most of the exclusive features of LearnWorlds are only available in their Pro Trainer and Learning Center pricing plans.
Looking at the pricing structure reveals a major weakness in LearnWorlds’ approach. Their premium features are strategically placed behind expensive paywalls.
If you want genuinely useful capabilities like interactive videos, white-labeling, mobile apps, or detailed analytics, you’re forced into their $249/month Learning Center plan.
👎 The Starter plan is completely impractical for serious course creators. With just a 3-page website limit, no subscription options, and a $5 fee per course sale, it’s designed to push you into higher tiers rather than provide actual value.
Wrapping up
I do think that LearnWorlds is a platform with tons of features, but it can feel overwhelming because there’s just so much packed into it.
For non-technical people, it’s easy to get lost in all the different terms and the clunky interface.
I personally find many features completely unnecessary – like the ebook builder, pop-ups, and those fancy parallax effects that feel straight out of 2015!
It seems they’re just cramming in features without thinking about what course creators actually need.
They really need to focus on making the platform easier to use instead of adding more and more features nobody asked for.
Unless you absolutely need those unique features like interactive videos (which you’ll only get with their expensive $249 per month plan), SCORM and HTML5 support, I don’t see why you’d pick LearnWorlds over platforms like Podia or Kajabi.
And for something that claims to be an “all-in-one platform,” it’s missing key features like marketing automation and built-in email marketing that Kajabi offers for much less money.
