LearnWorlds Review 2026: A Serious Course Platform From $24 a Month, With New Learner Caps and a $5 Fee on Starter
LearnWorlds is an online course platform and learning management system (LMS) for course creators, coaches and companies that sell or run training. As of Oct 27, 2026, its pricing page lists four plans: Starter at $24 a month billed yearly ($29 billed monthly), Pro Trainer at $79 ($99), Learning Center at $249 ($299) and a custom Corporate plan. The prices have not moved since at least January 2024. What has changed: since September 2026 every plan shows a cap on monthly active learners (1,000 on Starter, 2,000 on Pro Trainer and Learning Center), every plan has a monthly AI credit allowance, Starter still charges $5 per paid enrollment, and in October 2026 LearnWorlds rebuilt its pitch around AI, with course generation, learner coaching agents and an MCP connection for AI assistants.
Every LearnWorlds link in this review goes straight to learnworlds.com, its help center or its legal pages.
| Made by | LearnWorlds (CY) Ltd, a company registered in Cyprus; founded in 2014, per its press page |
| What it is | Course builder, LMS, website builder, checkout, community and AI tools in one hosted platform |
| Plans | Starter $24, Pro Trainer $79, Learning Center $249 a month billed yearly; $29, $99 and $299 billed monthly; Corporate custom |
| Trial | 30 days, no credit card; no free plan |
| Best for | Course sellers and training companies who need assessments, certificates, SCORM and a branded academy, and will use Pro Trainer or higher |
LearnWorlds is one of the most complete course platforms a small training business can rent. Its cheapest plan is mainly a way to try it.
$24 a month buys a course site, an AI course builder and one admin, and then LearnWorlds takes $5 from every paid enrollment.
That Starter line is honest about who LearnWorlds is built for. The company pitches itself as an LMS for “learning businesses”: people who sell training to companies, run certification programs or build a branded academy with assessments, certificates and SCORM course files. On those jobs it is unusually deep for its price. The comparison table on its pricing page shows interactive video, AI-generated assessments, certificates with expiry and retraining, live sessions, tiered subscriptions, installments and bundles, and from Learning Center up, full white-label, LTI 1.3 and single sign-on.
The catch is how much of that is missing from the entry plan. Starter cannot sell free courses, learning paths, bundles, subscriptions or installments, has no certificates, SCORM, landing pages, mass email, Zapier or reporting, and adds $5 to every paid enrollment. By our arithmetic, Pro Trainer becomes the cheaper plan once you sell more than 11 courses a month on yearly billing, or 14 on monthly billing. Above that sits a new limit: since September 2026, the pricing page caps both Pro Trainer and Learning Center at 2,000 monthly active learners, and neither the pricing page nor the help center explains how an active learner is counted or what happens past the cap.
The 2026 story is AI. On Oct 13, 2026 LearnWorlds relaunched itself as a “Living Learning System”: courses generated from your own documents, AI video and audio, a learner coach that can remember each learner (on the Corporate tier only, per the help center), and an MCP connection that lets an AI assistant read your academy data and set up tags and automations. All of it runs on a monthly AI credit allowance, and AI video needs your own Synthesia or HeyGen account. These features are days old, so treat them as promising rather than proven.
A hosted school: courses in the middle, a website and checkout around them, AI on top.
Every LearnWorlds customer gets a “school”, a hosted site on its own domain that holds courses, learning programs, assessments and a community. Learners buy through a checkout connected to your own Stripe or PayPal account, so the money goes to you, not to LearnWorlds. Around that core sit the paid layers: a branded mobile app, extra AI credits, extra email credits, and for larger schools, white-label branding, client groups, single sign-on and an API.
Swipe sideways to see the whole diagram.
The closest public view of the product is the October 2026 release page. The screenshot below shows LearnWorlds’ own demo of its AI course builder: you describe the learners and the outcome, edit what the AI understood, then move through voice, outline and planning steps before anything is generated.
Same prices since January 2024. New learner caps, AI credits and a rebuilt platform underneath.
Every Internet Archive copy of learnworlds.com/pricing we checked, from Jan 4, 2024 to Oct 1, 2026, shows the same three prices: Starter $24 yearly or $29 monthly, Pro Trainer $79 or $99, Learning Center $249 or $299. What changed is the packaging around them. In January 2024 the page sold a fourth card, Learning Center plus Mobile App, and ran a 15% discount on monthly plans for the first 12 months.
The bigger change came between Aug 3 and Sep 3, 2026. The August copy still lists features plan by plan with no learner or AI limits. The September copy shows the current layout, with “1,000 active learners / month” on Starter and 2,000 on Pro Trainer and Learning Center, plus 300, 500 and 1,000 AI credits a month.
| Date | Change | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Jan 4, 2024 | Starter $24/$29, Pro Trainer $79/$99, Learning Center $249/$299; 15% off monthly plans | Internet Archive copy |
| Jun 2, 2025 | New platform version for new schools (cart, learning programs, offers, licenses); existing schools migrated in phases | Help center rollout article |
| Mar 25, 2026 | Terms of Service page last modified | Terms page date stamp |
| Sep 3, 2026 | Pricing page redesigned with monthly active learner caps and AI credit allowances (not yet on the Aug 3 copy) | Internet Archive copies |
| Oct 1, 2026 | 15% off monthly Pro Trainer and Learning Center, for 6 months | Internet Archive copy |
| Oct 13, 2026 | Living Learning System launch: AI course creation, AI video and audio, learner agents, MCP | Release page, FAQ article |
| Oct 15, 2026 | Incidents for EU schools (Oct 14) and US East schools (Oct 15) | status.learnworlds.com |
Underneath, the platform itself was replaced. A help center article updated Mar 30, 2026 says “The new version of LearnWorlds was released on June 2, 2025, for new schools”, with existing schools migrated in phases; as of that update, migration of large schools and edge cases was still marked “In progress”. If you are evaluating LearnWorlds from an older school, ask which version you are on.
An established, Europe-based LMS for small training businesses. Nearly every number about its size is LearnWorlds’ own, and they do not agree.
LearnWorlds is run by LearnWorlds (CY) Ltd, registered in Cyprus, and its press page says it was founded in 2014 “by PhDs in elearning” and has 190+ people across Europe. It competes with Teachable, Thinkific and Kajabi for creators, and with corporate LMS products for customer and partner training. The numbers below are useful, but they measure different things and come from LearnWorlds’ own pages.
| Signal | Value (as stated) | What it measures, and what it does not |
|---|---|---|
| Customers | 13,000+ businesses (home, pricing, press text); 14k+ “Customers served” (press tile); 12,000+ businesses (reviews page) | Vendor counts on the same day; not independently checked, and “served” may include former customers |
| Learners | 35m learners; 2m active monthly learners | Total and monthly learner activity across all schools; not paying customers |
| Content and revenue | 900k courses created; $1b+ customer revenue | What schools built and earned on the platform; not LearnWorlds’ revenue |
| Team | 190+ people across Europe; founded 2014 | Company size; not support capacity |
| Review score | G2 4.7/5 from over 388 reviews (home page) | A rating LearnWorlds quotes; not confirmed on G2 itself |
| Reliability | 10 incidents listed Jan 27 to Oct 15, 2026; 3 marked major | LearnWorlds’ own status page; a record of disclosed incidents, not an uptime measurement |
Sources: learnworlds.com home, pricing, press and reviews pages and status.learnworlds.com, Oct 27, 2026.
Independent evidence is thin. The few public comments praise the depth and warn about lock-in.
Ratings that can be attributed to a neutral source are scarce. Ratings from the big software review sites appear in this review only as LearnWorlds quotes them. The app stores do not help either: LearnWorlds’ own apps are a reader app for learners and a masterclass app, and neither has a US rating yet.
| Source | Listing | Rating | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple App Store, US | Learnworlds Mobile App Builder | No ratings | Version 4.9.0, Sep 22, 2026; seller LearnWorlds CY LTD |
| Apple App Store, US | Course Masters | No ratings | LearnWorlds’ masterclass app |
| Google Play, US | Learnworlds Mobile App Builder | None shown | 5K+ downloads; updated Sep 21, 2026 |
| G2 | LearnWorlds | 4.7/5, over 388 reviews | As quoted on learnworlds.com only |
Hacker News, where developers and founders discuss tools, has only 13 comments that mention LearnWorlds in its search index, going back to 2016. These are the ones with an opinion, with their dates. They are anecdotes, not a sample.
“Move to Shopify and LearnWorlds. Integrate the two. Stop self hosting.”
Advice to a nonprofit whose self-hosted WordPress site had a two-week outage.
“They get you running in no time, and in no time you're locked into their ecosystem”
The reply to the advice above, about hosted platforms in general, including LearnWorlds and Shopify.
“Check out LearnWorlds, they are not open-source but they are pretty good with customization and branding”
Posted in a thread asking why there is no good open-source LMS.
A 2021 comment called LearnWorlds “a solid choice” for self-published programming courses (comment 28003738). LearnWorlds also prints reactions from its own launch event on the release page, such as “Very hard to replicate what we saw today with vibe coding tools.” Those are chosen by LearnWorlds and unattributed, so read them as marketing.
Three priced plans from $24 to $249 a month billed yearly, or $29 to $299 billed monthly.
LearnWorlds shows both billing options on its pricing page. Yearly billing saves 20% on the monthly figure, which the page puts at $240 a year on Pro Trainer and $600 on Learning Center. Prices are in US dollars and exclude VAT; the help center says visitors from Europe see euros by default, visitors from the US and Canada see dollars, and others can choose either.
a month billed yearly ($288 a year), or $29 monthly
- $5 per paid enrollment
- 1,000 active learners a month
- 1 admin, 300 AI credits a month
- Paid courses only: no free courses, bundles or subscriptions
- 24/5 email support
a month billed yearly ($948 a year), or $99 monthly
- No enrollment fees
- 2,000 active learners a month
- 5 admins, 500 AI credits a month
- Certificates, up to 20 SCORM uploads, subscriptions, installments
- Zapier; mobile app as an add-on
a month billed yearly ($2,988 a year), or $299 monthly
- 2,000 active learners a month
- 25 admins, 1,000 AI credits a month
- Full white-label, up to 10 client groups
- Automations, LTI 1.3, unlimited SCORM
- 2 hours of setup help
quote from sales
- Custom learners, admins and AI credits
- 99.95% uptime on premium servers
- Optional SLA and data processing agreement
- 24/7 phone support, success manager
Source: learnworlds.com/pricing and its comparison table, Oct 27, 2026 (US dollars, before VAT). Yearly totals are the monthly figure times 12.
The comparison table under the cards is where the plans really separate. The first block shows what every plan shares and the new limits; the next blocks show how much of the product is missing from Starter.
What costs extra
The pricing page lists four add-ons without prices: a branded mobile app, extra emails, extra AI credits and done-for-you migration. The prices are scattered. The mobile app page says “Add our elearning Mobile App Builder to your subscription for just $149 a month.” A help center article on AI credits, updated Jun 18, 2026, shows the billing page’s add-on list: Mobile Combo (iOS and Android) $299 a month, Mobile iOS $169, Mobile Android $169, Schools Content Syncing $149, Extra AI Credits $100 and Extra Emails $100. Migration is offered “For a fee”, without a public price. And the help center describes a Scale add-on for Learning Center schools at $149 a month billed yearly, with extra seats, collaborators and SSO slots.
Starter stops being the cheap plan at about a dozen sales a month. Payment fees come on top of everything.
Three things decide what you actually pay: the plan, the $5 enrollment fee on Starter, and your payment provider’s cut of each sale.
1. When Pro Trainer beats Starter
Pro Trainer costs $55 a month more than Starter on yearly billing ($79 against $24) and $70 more on monthly billing ($99 against $29). At $5 per paid enrollment, Starter’s fees reach that gap at 11 paid enrollments a month on yearly billing and 14 on monthly billing. Above that, Starter is the more expensive plan, and it still lacks certificates, subscriptions, bundles and Zapier.
2. Three worked examples
| Who | Plan | Platform cost | What to watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coach selling 8 courses a month at $49, testing the idea | Starter, monthly | $29 + $40 fees = $69 a month | No certificates, bundles or free lead-in course |
| Creator selling 20 courses a month at $49 | Pro Trainer, yearly | $948 a year ($79 a month) | Starter would cost $124 a month here; 2,000 active learners a month |
| Training company with a branded academy, iOS and Android app | Learning Center, yearly, plus Mobile Combo | $2,988 a year + $299 a month for the app | Apple charges $99 a year, Google $25 once; app publishing fee not public |
Calculated from the Oct 27, 2026 pricing page, the help center’s add-on list (Jun 18, 2026) and Apple’s and Google’s developer program pages; before VAT and payment fees.
3. Your payment provider takes its own cut
LearnWorlds does not process card payments itself; you connect Stripe, PayPal or another gateway. Its pricing FAQ says “There are no hidden or extra fees. The pricing you see is what you pay”, and warns that gateways charge their own fees, citing “Stripe and Paypal currently charge 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction”. Stripe’s own US pricing page, on Oct 27, 2026, matches that for domestic cards: “2.9% + 30¢”. PayPal’s US fee page (last updated Oct 1, 2026) does not: PayPal Checkout costs “3.49% + fixed fee”, and the fixed fee for US dollars is $0.49. On a $49 course that is about $1.72 through Stripe and $2.20 through PayPal Checkout, before LearnWorlds’ $5 on Starter.
The trial, cancellation, refunds, downgrades and your data: the exact rules.
This is where course platforms differ most, and where LearnWorlds’ Terms of Service are stricter than its marketing. We quote each rule from the page that sets it.
The 30-day trial is for building, not selling
The trial lasts 30 days and needs no card. The pricing FAQ says you get “access to all the core features and functionality of LearnWorlds”, but the help center article on trial schools, updated Mar 30, 2026, lists 15 things that are switched off, including custom domains, white-labeling, mass emails, payment gateways, SSO, automations, API access and Zapier. Trials are limited to “Up to 60 learner accounts” and 5 admin or instructor accounts. In short, you can build and preview a school, but you cannot take a real payment until you buy a plan.
When the trial ends without a purchase, the school is scheduled for deletion and, per the help center, “will be permanently deleted within the next few weeks”. Export anything you want to keep.
Cancelling stops the renewal, not the current term
Section 17.3 of the Terms of Service says auto-renewing subscriptions can be cancelled at any time, but “no refunds can be provided”; you keep access until the end of the term you paid for. If you pay yearly, that is the whole year.
There is one useful exception. In section 17.1 LearnWorlds offers, in place of the EU’s 14-day cooling-off period, a cancellation right for both consumers and businesses “if you have purchased a Subscription by mistake or have allowed an annual Subscription to auto-renew when you did not want it to be renewed.” The window is short: “Please contact Us within 30 days of the start date of any Subscription or 15 days of the start date of the auto-renewal”. Put the renewal date of a yearly plan in your calendar.
Two more things happen on cancellation. Per the help center, cancelling your LearnWorlds plan “does not automatically cancel active learner subscriptions within your school”: learners keep being charged in Stripe until you unenroll them or cancel their subscriptions yourself. And add-ons such as extra AI credits end immediately, with any remaining credits.
Downgrades delete what does not fit
Downgrades take effect at the end of the billing cycle, and you must first remove anything the smaller plan does not allow, such as extra popups or site flavors. The help center warns that once those extras are deleted, “they cannot be restored”, even if you upgrade again later. Upgrades are prorated: the help center’s own example moves from Starter at $29 to Pro Trainer at $99 halfway through a month and pays $35.
Prices can change at renewal; your school can outlive your account for nine months
Section 6.4 promises “We will inform you of any change in price at least 30 days before the change is due to take effect.” Section 18.6 lets LearnWorlds keep a copy of a closed school and its learners’ content for nine months, which matters if you handle personal data under GDPR. Section 11.5 adds that an account with no activity for over 12 months may be terminated and its content deleted, with a possible email warning first.
| Rule | Where it is written | Risk |
|---|---|---|
| No refunds on auto-renewing plans, except mistakes within 30 days of purchase or 15 days of renewal | Terms 17.1 and 17.3 | High on yearly plans |
| Learner subscriptions keep billing after you cancel | Help center, cancellation (Jun 4, 2026) | High if you sell memberships |
| Removed features cannot be restored after a downgrade | Help center, downgrade (Sep 3, 2025) | Medium |
| Trial school deleted weeks after the trial ends | Help center, trial (Mar 30, 2026) | Medium |
| Archive copy kept nine months after closure | Terms 18.6 | Low to medium for privacy |
| Price changes with 30 days’ notice, at renewal | Terms 6.4 | Low |
Six places where two LearnWorlds pages give different answers.
None of these is a deal-breaker on its own. Together they mean you should get the rule that matters most to you confirmed in writing before you pay for a year.
Swipe sideways to see both sides.
| Topic | One page says | Another page says | What we would assume | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mobile app price | Mobile app page: “for just $149 a month” | Help center add-on list (Jun 18, 2026): iOS $169, Android $169, both $299 a month | $149 is a starting price or an older figure; check Billing before you plan on it | Medium |
| What the trial includes | Pricing FAQ: “all the core features” | Help center: 15 features unavailable, including payment gateways | You cannot sell during the trial | Medium |
| Extra fees | Pricing FAQ: “There are no hidden or extra fees”; compare page: “0% transaction fees on Stripe & PayPal” | Pricing cards: Starter “$5 per paid enrollment” | The $5 is a flat fee, not a percentage; it applies on Starter | Medium |
| PayPal’s fee | Pricing FAQ: “2.9% + $0.30 per transaction” | PayPal US fee page (Oct 1, 2026): PayPal Checkout 3.49% + $0.49 | Use the provider’s own page | Low |
| Learner AI Agents | Launch FAQ (Oct 26, 2026): AI Agents “are available now” | Help center article on AI Agents: available on High Volume & Corporate only | Budget for Corporate if the learner coach is the reason you buy | Medium |
| Customer count | Home and pricing pages: 13,000+ | Press tile 14k+; reviews page 12,000+ and 11,000+ | Treat all as marketing copy | Low |
Sources: learnworlds.com pricing, mobile app, compare (vs Thinkific), press and reviews pages; help center articles on AI credits (Jun 18, 2026), trial schools (Mar 30, 2026) and AI Agents; the Living Learning System FAQ (Oct 26, 2026); paypal.com/us business fees (last updated Oct 1, 2026); all read Oct 27, 2026.
Answer five questions.
The course and assessment tools are the reason to buy. The new AI layer is ambitious, metered and only weeks old.
LearnWorlds’ core is a course builder with an ebook-style page builder, interactive video, assessments with many question types, certificates and SCORM support, wrapped in learning programs that chain courses into paths. The October 2026 release adds certification lifecycles: due dates, certificates that expire, and retraining cycles that can be free or paid. For compliance-style training, that is a feature most creator platforms do not list.
The “Living Learning System” launched on Oct 13, 2026 puts AI across that core. LearnWorlds’ FAQ about the launch, published Oct 26, 2026, marks these as available now:
- AI course creation from an idea, uploaded material or an existing course, with a reviewable brief, outline and activity plan before content is generated.
- An AI Source library with Strict, Balanced and Open modes that control how closely the AI follows your material.
- AI video and audio: scripts, avatars, custom voices, narration and podcasts. “AI video creation requires a connected Synthesia or HeyGen account.”
- AI Agents for learners inside the course player, with optional memory, a Strict knowledge mode and a human hand-off. The help center article on AI Agents marks them as available on High Volume & Corporate only, not on Starter, Pro Trainer or Learning Center.
- AI Question, AI Activity and AI Canvas for interactive exercises and simulations, and AI Insights for reporting, limited to owners and system admins.
The official walkthrough below shows the course creation flow end to end.
AI credits: what the allowance means
Each plan includes a monthly AI credit allowance: 300 on Starter, 500 on Pro Trainer and 1,000 on Learning Center. Per the help center, as read on Oct 27, 2026, consumption is “usage-based”, more advanced flows use more credits, and when you hit the limit, AI features “will pause until new credits are available”. The launch FAQ adds “Unused credits do not roll over.” Neither page publishes a cost per action, so you cannot yet predict how far 500 credits go.
The extra credits add-on is the strange part. The help center says “Each add-on provides 20,000 additional AI credits per month”, at $100 a month in its billing example, which is 20 to 67 times the monthly allowance of a whole plan. Either the add-on is very generous or the two pages count credits differently; ask support before you budget for AI-heavy use. The same article marks the add-on as unavailable on Starter.
A safeguard worth knowing about
If you use AI grading, LearnWorlds lets you ask learners for consent first. Its help center article on learner consent and GDPR (updated Apr 27, 2026) spells out the consequence: if a learner declines, “their response is automatically blocked and scored as zero”, which can affect final grades, completion and certification. Tell learners that before an exam, not during it.
From trial to a first paid enrollment, in five steps.
This is the path LearnWorlds’ help center describes for a new school. Step 4 matters: LearnWorlds’ own FAQ says authors remain responsible for reviewing the accuracy of AI-generated material.
Flexible pricing per course, bank transfers for companies, and a branded app for a monthly fee.
From Pro Trainer up you can sell subscriptions, installments and bundles. The October 2026 release adds multiple prices for one course (a one-off price, a payment plan and a subscription side by side, with scheduled and audience-only prices) and off-platform payments, which let a company pay by bank transfer and get access once you mark the order paid; the help center lists off-platform payments for Learning Center and Corporate only. The launch FAQ notes that off-platform payments work for eligible one-off purchases and “do not support subscriptions or installment payments”.
The branded mobile app is an add-on from Pro Trainer. Beyond the monthly fee, the help center lists Apple’s developer program at $99 a year and Google Play’s developer account at $25 one-time, which Apple’s and Google’s own pages confirm (“The Apple Developer Program is 99 USD per membership year”; “There is a US$25 one-time registration fee”). The mobile apps FAQ adds that publishing and onboarding “is a one-time fee”, without a public price, and publishing needs an organizational D-U-N-S number, which the help center says can take up to 30 days to obtain.
An MCP connection lets your AI assistant read your academy and set up tags and automations, with your confirmation.
LearnWorlds lists 50+ native integrations, including HubSpot, Mailchimp, Stripe and Shopify, plus Zapier from Pro Trainer. The pricing page points to Learning Center for “full white-label, more admins, or tools like single sign-on and API”. Single sign-on supports SAML 2.0 and OpenID Connect providers such as Okta, Microsoft Entra and Google, a WordPress plugin and custom SSO; the help center says more than three SSO solutions need a request to support or the Scale add-on.
The October release adds LearnWorlds MCP. The official video’s description says it shows “how to connect compatible AI tools to LearnWorlds with the LearnWorlds MCP.” Per the release page, you can ask your assistant how a cohort is doing and get a dashboard built from your analytics, users and grading queue, then ask it to act; for changes, LearnWorlds says “Nothing changes until you confirm.” As of Oct 27, 2026 the help center has no article on MCP setup, plan availability or permissions, so check those in the trial. For how connectors behave on the Claude side, see our Claude MCP connectors guide.
Swipe sideways to see the whole diagram.
For AI features inside LearnWorlds, you can also connect your own OpenAI account, but the help center is clear about its limits: “Connecting your own OpenAI or ChatGPT account only affects billing and which account is used for generating AI reports.” Course content generation always uses LearnWorlds’ built-in models.
Isolated databases, Google Cloud data centers in four regions, no card data on LearnWorlds’ servers, and a 99.90% uptime figure.
LearnWorlds’ data security page (last modified Jun 16, 2026) says “Each LearnWorlds School has its own, isolated Database.” and “We keep daily database backups.” It forces HTTPS with a minimum of TLS 1.3, and says the company does not store card data: payments go through Stripe or PayPal, and its help center places LearnWorlds in the PCI DSS SAQ-A category. Servers run on Google Cloud in the eastern US, Frankfurt, São Paulo and Singapore. The page cites Google Cloud’s SOC 2/3 and ISO 27001 certifications; it does not claim certifications for LearnWorlds itself.
The pricing table promises 99.90% uptime on Starter, Pro Trainer and Learning Center and 99.95% on Corporate, but only Corporate mentions an optional service-level agreement. LearnWorlds’ status page lists 10 incidents between Jan 27 and Oct 15, 2026, three marked major; the longest, for EU schools on Oct 14, took 3 hours 25 minutes to resolve.
Swipe sideways to see every plan.
| Control | Starter | Pro Trainer | Learning Center | Corporate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Admin seats | 1 | 5 | 25 | Custom |
| White-label | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| SSO and API | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Uptime figure | 99.90% | 99.90% | 99.90% | 99.95% |
| SLA and DPA option | No | No | No | Optional |
Sources: pricing page cards and comparison table, Oct 27, 2026. A data processing agreement is referenced in the Terms of Service for when it applies; the pricing page lists it as optional on Corporate.
Work pattern, fit and likely plan.
| If you are | Fit | Likely plan |
|---|---|---|
| A first-time creator testing one paid course | Fair; the $5 fee and missing features push you up quickly | Starter, monthly |
| A coach or creator selling courses, memberships and certificates | Strong | Pro Trainer |
| A training company selling programs to client companies | Strong: client groups, white-label, bank transfers, licenses | Learning Center |
| A business training customers, partners or staff with SSO and LTI | Strong | Learning Center or Corporate |
| A creator with a large free audience and low prices | Weak; 2,000 active learners a month may not be enough | Ask for Corporate pricing, or compare alternatives |
| Someone who needs a newsletter more than a course | Weak | A newsletter tool |
Eight real drawbacks.
- Deep assessments, certificates, SCORM and retraining cycles
- Both monthly and yearly prices shown, unchanged since at least January 2024
- Sell with your own Stripe or PayPal; flexible pricing per course
- White-label academy with client groups from Learning Center
- A broad AI layer, including an MCP connection
- 30-day trial without a card
- Starter is stripped down and charges $5 per sale
- New active-learner caps with no published definition
- No refunds on renewals after a short window
- Add-on prices scattered across pages
- Very little independent user evidence
- AI features days old; credit costs unpublished
- Starter is a trial in disguise. No free courses, bundles, subscriptions, certificates, SCORM, landing pages, mass email, reporting or Zapier, plus $5 per paid enrollment.
- The 2,000-learner ceiling. Pro Trainer and Learning Center share the same 2,000 monthly active learner cap, and the public pages do not define an active learner or say what happens above it.
- Renewals are not refundable. Outside the 30-day and 15-day windows in section 17.1, cancellation only stops the next renewal.
- Learner billing outlives your account. Cancelling LearnWorlds does not cancel learner subscriptions in Stripe.
- The mobile app costs more than the headline. $149 a month on the feature page, $169 to $299 in the help center’s list, plus Apple, Google and a publishing fee.
- AI is metered, and the best part is gated. No published cost per AI action; AI video needs a separate Synthesia or HeyGen account; the learner AI Agents are listed for the Corporate tier only.
- Downgrades are destructive. Features you remove to fit a smaller plan cannot be restored.
- Thin outside evidence. No US app store ratings, few public comments, and ratings on the big review sites that we can only report as LearnWorlds quotes them.
Teachable, Thinkific and Kajabi, priced as close to the same day as we could.
Each platform meters something different (transaction fees, products, contacts or learners), so the prices below are not like-for-like. Teachable’s prices are from its pricing page on Oct 27, 2026; Thinkific’s and Kajabi’s come from the most recent Internet Archive copies of their pricing pages, dated in the table.
Swipe sideways to see every column.
| Need | Product | Entry plan (monthly billing / yearly billing per month) | Per-sale fee on entry plan | JAVIS review |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Assessments, certificates and B2B training | LearnWorlds | Starter $29 / $24 | $5 per paid enrollment | This review |
| Simple creator storefront with apps | Teachable (Oct 27, 2026) | Starter $39 / $29; Builder $89 / $69 | 7.5% on Starter, 0% on Builder | Not yet |
| Courses plus community, cohorts | Thinkific (archive copy Oct 5, 2026) | Basic $54 / $40; Start $109 / $82 | Not shown on the copy | Not yet |
| All-in-one creator business with email | Kajabi (archive copy Oct 19, 2026) | Basic $179 / $143, 2,500 contacts | “No hidden fees. No revenue sharing.” | Not yet |
| Newsletter first, courses later | beehiiv | See our review | See our review | beehiiv review |
| Your own site with a course plugin | WordPress on Hostinger | See our review | Depends on plugin | Hostinger review |
Sources: teachable.com/pricing (Oct 27, 2026); Internet Archive copies of thinkific.com/pricing (Oct 5, 2026) and kajabi.com/pricing (Oct 19, 2026); learnworlds.com/pricing (Oct 27, 2026).
If you would rather own your site and add a course plugin, our Hostinger review covers the hosting side; if you need a polished marketing site in front of your school, see our Webflow review. Podia also sells courses and digital downloads; we have not priced it here.
This review has no affiliate links.
Every LearnWorlds link here goes straight to learnworlds.com, its pricing page or its Terms of Service, without tracking parameters. The score, the drawbacks and the alternatives would be the same either way.
How this review was put together: LearnWorlds’ pricing page with both billing options, its full comparison table and FAQ; help center articles on trials, cancellation, upgrades, downgrades, AI credits, extra emails, the mobile app, SSO, API keys, the AI provider, GDPR and AI consent, migration and the platform rollout; the Terms of Service, privacy policy and data security page; product, release, press and reviews pages; the status page; two official LearnWorlds videos; Internet Archive copies of the pricing page from Jan 4, 2024 to Oct 1, 2026; US App Store and Google Play listings; Hacker News; and the pricing pages of Teachable, Stripe, PayPal, Apple and Google, plus Internet Archive copies of Thinkific’s and Kajabi’s, as of Oct 27, 2026. This review is not hands-on tested: no LearnWorlds account, no trial, no course built, no sale and no support contact, so nothing here describes LearnWorlds’ performance or support from our own use. Screenshots show public pages only.
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Questions people ask before choosing LearnWorlds
Does LearnWorlds have a free plan?
No. As of Oct 27, 2026 it offers a 30-day free trial with no credit card. The trial allows up to 60 learner accounts and cannot connect a payment gateway, so you cannot sell during it. Trial schools are deleted a few weeks after the trial ends if you do not buy a plan.
How much does LearnWorlds cost?
Starter $24, Pro Trainer $79 and Learning Center $249 a month billed yearly, or $29, $99 and $299 billed monthly; Corporate is quoted by sales. Prices are in US dollars before VAT. Starter adds $5 per paid enrollment, and the mobile app, extra AI credits and extra emails cost extra.
Does LearnWorlds take a cut of my sales?
Only on Starter, which charges $5 per paid enrollment. Other plans have no enrollment fees. Your payment provider charges its own fees on every plan; on Oct 27, 2026, Stripe’s US rate for domestic cards was 2.9% + 30 cents and PayPal Checkout’s was 3.49% + $0.49.
What are monthly active learners?
A limit added to the pricing page between Aug 3 and Sep 3, 2026: 1,000 on Starter and 2,000 on Pro Trainer and Learning Center. LearnWorlds’ pricing page and help center do not define an active learner or say what happens above the cap, so ask sales before you rely on it.
Can I get a refund?
Under section 17.1 of the Terms you can cancel and claim a refund if you bought a plan by mistake (within 30 days of the start) or a yearly plan renewed when you did not want it (within 15 days of the renewal). Otherwise, cancelling an auto-renewing plan only stops the next renewal, and no refund is given for the current term.
Does LearnWorlds work with ChatGPT or Claude?
LearnWorlds launched an MCP connection on Oct 13, 2026 that lets compatible AI assistants read academy data and, after you confirm, create tags, segments and automations. Setup details and plan availability were not in the help center as of Oct 27, 2026. Separately, you can connect your own OpenAI account for billing and AI reports.
Which plan should I choose?
Starter only to test a first paid course with fewer than about a dozen sales a month; Pro Trainer for most course sellers who need certificates, subscriptions or bundles; Learning Center for branded academies, client training, SSO, LTI or the API; Corporate above 2,000 monthly active learners.
Where this came from, and when.
Every price, limit, rule and rating in this review comes from the pages below, as of Oct 27, 2026 unless another date is given. Expand for the full list, the scoring method and what the review does not cover.
Show sources, scoring method and scope
Pricing: learnworlds.com/pricing with monthly and yearly billing, the full comparison table, add-ons and FAQ (US dollars); learnworlds.com/plans; Internet Archive copies of learnworlds.com/pricing from Jan 4, 2024; Jan 13 and Sep 7, 2025; Jan 28, Jun 8, Jul 11, Aug 3, Sep 3 and Oct 1, 2026.
Help center (support.learnworlds.com): How to create a trial school (Mar 30, 2026); How to cancel your LearnWorlds trial account (Jul 8, 2024); How to cancel your LearnWorlds subscription (Jun 4, 2026); How to downgrade (Sep 3, 2025); How to activate or upgrade (Mar 14, 2025); How to manage and add extra AI credits (Jun 18, 2026); How to add extra email credits (Jan 21, 2026); Scale add-on (Aug 7, 2025); extra transcription time (May 27, 2026); Before purchasing a mobile app (Apr 24, 2026); Mobile apps FAQs; mobile app add-on activation (Oct 11, 2024); AI provider setup guide (May 25, 2026); API keys (May 5, 2025); SSO overview (May 8, 2026); GDPR compliance; AI evaluation, learner consent and GDPR (Apr 27, 2026); AI Agents; migration services (May 5, 2026); PCI compliance (Oct 8, 2024); the new version rollout (Mar 30, 2026); off-platform payments. All read on Oct 27, 2026.
Legal and security: Terms of Service (page last modified Mar 25, 2026), sections 6.4, 11.1, 11.5, 17.1, 17.3, 17.6 and 18.6; Privacy Policy (Apr 15, 2026); Data Security (Jun 16, 2026); status.learnworlds.com history and incident list.
Product and company: learnworlds.com home, AI, mobile app, reviews, press and compare (vs Thinkific, Teachable, Kajabi) pages; the October 2026 release page; the Living Learning System FAQ (Oct 26, 2026).
Video: two official videos from the LearnWorlds YouTube channel that learnworlds.com links in its footer: 83NPu-kWSC4 (How to create full courses with AI, Oct 13, 2026) and drscI2j42I0 (How to connect AI tools to LearnWorlds with MCP, Oct 13, 2026).
Independent evidence: Apple App Store US listings of Learnworlds Mobile App Builder and Course Masters (no ratings); Google Play US listing of Learnworlds Mobile App Builder (5K+ downloads, no rating shown); Hacker News comments 46172684, 46172936, 29276058 and 28003738. G2 figures appear only as LearnWorlds states them.
Competitors and fees: teachable.com/pricing (Oct 27, 2026); Internet Archive copies of thinkific.com/pricing (Oct 5, 2026) and kajabi.com/pricing (Sep 27 and Oct 19, 2026); stripe.com/pricing (Oct 27, 2026); PayPal US business fees (last updated Oct 1, 2026); Apple Developer Program membership details; Google Play Console registration help.
Fit score, 62 out of 100: five criteria worth 20 points each. Price clarity 12 (both billing options shown and stable, but learner caps undefined and add-on prices scattered); capability 17 (assessments, certificates, SCORM, white-label, AI and MCP, with a thin Starter); independent evidence 8 (no app ratings, a handful of HN comments); terms, data and security 12 (strict no-refund rule with a short mistake window, nine-month archive, isolated databases, status page with dated incidents); cost and fit 13 (good value from Pro Trainer for course businesses, weak for large low-price audiences). Editorial judgment from published facts, not a hands-on test.
Not covered: course player speed, video quality, support response times, the quality of AI output, the MCP connection in use, deliverability of school emails and the mobile app experience, none of which can be judged without an account. Podia was not priced, and Thinkific’s transaction fees were not confirmed on a Thinkific page.
