Sell Teachable Courses with WordPress Plugin – 2 Methods

If you want to sell online courses directly through your WordPress website, you are in the right place.

This is why I am going to show you two systems to solve this problem.

First, you will learn How to create a Teachable-like Learning Management System completely on WordPress. This is best if you are looking for a WordPress LMS alternative to the SaaS course management.

Second, How can you host your courses on Teachable (or even Thinkific or Kajabi) and sell them through your WordPress website. This method works best if you want to use Teachable but need control over the sales funnel (so you can sell more products and maximize your revenue).

But before anything else, let’s talk about what Teachable offers as a learning management system.

Affiliate disclosure: Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you buy through them, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. I will appreciate if you use them.

What Teachable Offers

• Course Hosting
• A checkout system
• User management
• Affiliate management
• Website development suite.

Honestly, it can be done with WordPress. It’s just that you need one or more plugins to do this stuff with the latter.

For example, courses can be hosted with Thrive Apprentice or WP Courseware, the checkout system can be WooCommerce, affiliates can be managed with AffiliateWP, and so on. So yes! Using WordPress over Teachable has its own challenge. But there are also advantages.

The Problem with Teachable

It offers a powerful course hosting suite. In all plans, it comes with course hosting, a sales page builder, and a checkout system. But it gives you less control over profit maximization than your own website. Since June 2025, every Teachable plan includes order bumps and upsell funnels, but they run on Teachable’s pages, not on your site.

It also lacks customization features on checkout and sales pages. There is not enough room to do AB testing and generating leads on autopilot.

For example, you can’t offer custom lead magnets to attract more potential clients or see which headlines perform better for your niche.

Another problem is the transaction fee on the entry plan. Teachable Starter charges 7.5% on each sale on top of payment processing. Builder and higher plans charge 0% with Teachable Payments, while Podia charges 5% on Mover and 0% on Shaker. Course creators who also want an active community can look at Skool, which puts courses inside a community feed from $9 a month.

This is where third-party WordPress plugins offer great support.

Discovering the big problem with Teachable website builder leads us to an important question…

Can we create a WordPress based online school? Can we create a better sales system with teachable to earn more on each course purchase?

The answer is Yes!!

Method 1: WordPress Plugin for Creating an Online School Like Teachable

Advantage of WordPress over anything else

You are already familiar with WordPress. It is free, and you can create anything you like with 100% control over your data.

In fact, this is the reason I used WordPress sales funnels for my own business for years. You don’t need to rent your content anywhere by using a WordPress LMS.

Unfortunately, most WordPress LMS plugins lack “sales systems.” That means it is easy to host courses but hard to sell them, while ClickFunnels has checkout and upsells built in.

Below are a few high-grade online learning management system plugins for WordPress

• LearnDash
• Thrive Apprentice (Thrive Apprentice is a part of Thrive Suite)
• LearnPress LMS
• Wishlist Member - Membership Plugin
• MemberPress - Membership Plugin

These plugins can be used with third-party checkout systems and sales funnel software like SamCart or ClickFunnels. You can also use the WooCommerce plugin if you want a native WordPress experience.

I personally liked (and used) SendOwl as my checkout system. It was easy, beginner-friendly, and came with much-needed, world-class support.

Best Course Checkout system for WordPress

WordPress’s standard checkout system is WooCommerce. You can use WooCommerce with Digital products, physical products, and even affiliate products without any hassle. However, it again has a similar challenge. It doesn’t offer deep integration with course management programs.

For example, when a student cancels the membership subscription or asks for a refund, there is no inbuilt option to reverse the membership advantages.

This is why I liked the Thrive Apprentice and SendOwl combination. Thrive Apprentice now also has a built-in Stripe checkout for courses.

Thrive Apprentice comes with Thrive Suite, which costs $299 for the first year and $599 a year after that. That is still less than a year of Teachable Builder at $69 a month billed yearly.

And SendOwl is a no-coding checkout system for newbies. You can set up a product in under two minutes and start selling with SendOwl. Plans start at $39 a month, or $32.50 billed yearly.

Creating an Online School is Easy with WordPress

Here is what you need.

• A checkout system with Upsell and downsell ability. (SendOwl or ClickFunnels is best)
• An email marketing system. (Kit, formerly ConvertKit, has a free plan)
• A course hosting system. (Thrive Apprentice is best)
• A Sales Page (Thrive Architect is the perfect solution)

Here is how the sales process looks like

1. The buyer submits your lead form and you generate a lead.
2. Buyer lands on a sales page.
3. The buyer chooses to buy the product or rejects the offer.
4. You present with a new product he or she might be interested to purchase depending on the action on the last step.
5. The buyer sees a thank you page with confirmation of all purchased products.

Thrive Apprentice now offers drip schedules too, so you can release lessons over time just like on Teachable.

Method 2: Sell Course with your WordPress Website

If you want to use Teachable for hosting online courses and a WordPress website for selling them, you can easily do it without any hassle. In fact, this can be done very easily with the help of a WordPress checkout system like Upsell Plugin and Zapier.

Here are the simple 5 steps to make it happen:

1. Get Upsell Plugin, a checkout and upsell plugin for WordPress. OptimizePress is a strong alternative if you also want a full funnel builder, and one of the better WordPress sales funnel themes.
2. Create a sales page on your WordPress website (I used Thrive Architect)
3. Get a FREE Zapier account
4. Connect Upsell Plugin with Teachable through Zapier for running everything on God Mode
5. Start Selling.

Upsell Plugin doesn’t disrupt your website like WooCommerce. You can create an entire sales funnel on your WordPress website with it, and a single-site license costs less than $100 a year.

Zapier has a free plan and connects thousands of apps with each other. In this case, people will purchase products on our website, and as soon as they do, they will be subscribed to our Teachable course.

I know you can do it with WooCommerce and any other checkout system, but here is the challenge. WooCommerce can not optimize your profit and sell more products in the backend. Out of the box, it has no one-click upsell or downsell, the steps that make a WordPress sales funnel earn more per buyer.

Note: Teachable lists full Zapier access on its Growth plan ($139 a month billed yearly) and above. The setup also needs a moderate level of technical knowledge.

Teachable WordPress Plugin?

Now you know it’s possible to create a WordPress based school. Also, you can sell your courses directly through your WordPress website, you can pick any one of the above methods to start selling.

While there are thousands of available tools, the above are handpicked after careful testing.

If your courses stay on Teachable, its official WordPress plugin is a useful extra for either setup. It shows buy buttons, prices and course details on your pages, though checkout still happens on Teachable.

The content management system can be easily extended with add ons and you can get free lifetime updates with it. Payment Gateways like PayPal and Stripe are easily integrated with your site.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Teachable have a WordPress plugin?

Yes. Teachable’s official WordPress plugin is available on all Teachable plans. It adds buy buttons, prices and course details to your WordPress pages, but buyers still check out on Teachable.

Is Udemy a good place to sell online courses?

Udemy used to be a good place. Think of it like Amazon for online courses. It is a good place but then there are thousands of other competitors. You don’t own the pricing and hardly have control over the profits. As a creator, it is better to self-host your programs with WordPress or Teachable.

Is WordPress good for corporate training?

WordPress is a DIY solution. It is still perfect for corporate training, personal coaching, and even community training. With powerful features, addons, e-commerce plugins, and affiliate management systems, it is possible to extend WP to almost any limit.

Do I need any technical knowledge?

No! You don’t need to learn to code or become tech-savvy to create an online course. However, you get to learn how to create a drag and drop design and copywriting to become successful in an online business any day.

Is video hosting included with Teachable?

The answer is Yes! This is another good reason to use SaaS-based software. (and a reason to not use it). It comes with comfort but if you want to change from one place to another, you need to start everything from scratch.

Instead, if you are using WordPress, you can use YouTube or Vimeo for hosting videos and you will still have all the control over data.

Can creators write articles and sell courses on the website?

Yes! This is a very powerful way to start selling courses as a creator. Write blogs that your target audience might be interested to read. Then if they are interested in learning more about the topic, they can go ahead and buy your course.

Who is the best WordPress hosting provider?

You can either go for shared hosting or managed hosting for creating your LMS. While shared hosting saves money, managed hosting saves time and energy. Depending on your goal, you can go for your hosting provider.

I used and recommended WPX Hosting in my business for years. In my experience, it was faster and more reliable than the other providers I tried.

Final Verdict

E-learning is a large, growing industry, and we are still at the beginning of its possibilities. Whether you sell individual courses or you want to create an entire learning academy, WordPress is a perfect choice.

Online course creators will find Thrive Apprentice as a heavenly tool for selling courses. While online instructors working together might find Teachable and Upsell Plugin as mentioned in the second method as a go-to method.

Whatever your choice is, online education is transforming lives. Don’t wait for another second to join the wave before it’s too late.