Reviewed by the SEOPointz team · Last reviewed June 2026. Pricing for LearnDash, Teachable, Thinkific and LearnWorlds was checked against each vendor’s current plans at the time of review. SEOPointz may earn a commission from some links; it never changes what we recommend.
Building a course platform forces an early decision that’s easy to get wrong: do you bolt a learning system onto your own hosted website, or do you build the whole thing on an all-in-one platform that hosts everything for you? The answer shapes your costs, who owns your student data, and how much video your server has to push. Get the hosting model right and the platform mostly takes care of itself. Get it wrong and you discover the problem the first time fifty students press play at once.
Two models: self-hosted LMS vs all-in-one platform
A self-hosted LMS — most commonly LearnDash running on your own WordPress site — gives you ownership of the data and total control over design, plugins and payments. You’re the landlord, which means you also handle hosting, backups, security and updates. An all-in-one platform like Teachable, Thinkific or LearnWorlds hosts the courses, the video and the checkout for you, in exchange for a monthly fee and less control. Neither is “better”; they suit different temperaments. If you already run a WordPress site and want it to stay yours, self-hosting fits. If you want to launch this month and never touch a server, the hosted route wins.
What the platforms actually cost
LearnDash sells two things, which confuses people. The plugin for your own hosting starts at $199/year for a single site, $399/year for up to 10 sites, and $799/year for unlimited — but you still pay separately for hosting, and most real-world setups add $200–$500/year in add-ons. LearnDash Cloud, their managed option, runs roughly $29–$99/month with hosting included. Among the all-in-one platforms, Teachable starts around $29/month, Thinkific around $49/month, and LearnWorlds offers Starter at $29, Pro Trainer at $99 and Learning Center at $299/month. Watch the transaction fees: Teachable’s entry Starter plan takes a cut of each sale (around 7.5%), while Thinkific, Kajabi and LearnWorlds’ higher tiers charge none — a difference that dwarfs the subscription price once you’re selling steadily.
Don’t host the video on your web server
This is the single most common hosting mistake course builders make. Video is heavy: adaptive 1080p streaming burns roughly 1.5GB per hour watched, so a couple of hundred students each watching ten hours a month can mean several terabytes of bandwidth. Shared web hosting is not built for that — it will throttle, buffer or fall over. Offload video to a dedicated host such as Vimeo, Bunny Stream or even (unlisted) YouTube and embed it into your lessons. The all-in-one platforms sidestep this entirely because they bundle video hosting (Teachable, Thinkific and Kajabi use Wistia-powered hosting under the hood). If you self-host, budget for a video host as a separate line item from day one.
Sizing the hosting itself
If you go the self-hosted LearnDash route, the LMS database and concurrent logins are what stress the server, not raw traffic. Cheap entry-level shared plans tend to struggle once you have dozens of students hitting quizzes and progress tracking at the same time. Look for managed WordPress hosting with adequate PHP memory, server-side caching that’s smart enough not to cache logged-in course pages incorrectly, and headroom to upgrade. Reliable daily backups matter more here than on a brochure site — you’re storing students’ progress and, often, their payment relationships.
Choosing based on where you are now
If you have no website yet and want the fastest path to selling, start on an all-in-one platform and accept the monthly fee as the price of skipping infrastructure. If you already have an established WordPress site and audience, LearnDash keeps everything under one roof and one brand. And if you expect to scale into a real business with many courses, run the numbers on transaction fees versus flat subscriptions — at volume, a no-fee plan that costs more per month is often cheaper overall.
| Option | Starting price | Hosting & video | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| LearnDash (plugin) | $199/year + your hosting | You provide both | Existing WordPress sites wanting full control |
| LearnDash Cloud | ~$29–$99/month | Hosting included; video offload recommended | LearnDash features without managing a server |
| Teachable | ~$29/month (Starter has ~7.5% fee) | Both included (Wistia-powered) | Fast launch, simple setup |
| Thinkific | ~$49/month, no transaction fees | Both included (Wistia-powered) | Growing course businesses |
| LearnWorlds | $29 / $99 / $299 per month | Both included | Interactive, branded learning sites |
Frequently asked questions
Can I just run my course on cheap shared hosting to save money?
For a tiny course with offloaded video, possibly. But an LMS is database-heavy and shared plans buckle under concurrent logins and quizzes. Managed WordPress hosting is the more honest baseline if you self-host, and you should never stream the video itself from a shared plan.
Is LearnDash really cheaper than an all-in-one platform?
Only on paper. The $199/year plugin looks cheaper than $49–$99/month platforms, but add hosting, a video host and the add-ons most setups need, and the gap narrows. The genuine advantage of self-hosting is ownership and no per-sale transaction fees — not always a lower sticker price.
Where should I host my course videos?
Not on your website’s own server. Use a dedicated video host such as Vimeo or Bunny Stream and embed the player into lessons. If you choose an all-in-one platform, video hosting is already built in, which removes the decision entirely.
To dig further into the hosting side, see our overview of web hosting applications that power an online presence and our guide to choosing the web hosting solution that’s right for you.
