In today’s LearningCart review, I’m diving behind the scenes of a comprehensive ecommerce solution, designed specifically for online educators. LearningCart isn’t just a course building platform, or an ecommerce solution that allows you to sell training products.
It’s an all-in-one solution that combines learning management and content management software, with identity verification tools, payment processing, and even user authentication.
The platform has evolved significantly since I first reviewed it last year, and now boats more than 1 million users (with absolutely no instances of fraud or security issues).
Read on for my full review, and behind-the-scenes insights.
Quick Verdict
I consider LearningCart to be an excellent solution for selling educational resources online. What’s interesting about LearningCart is that the company is seemingly better than any learning management program that also doubles as a moneymaking tool.
Some competing programs are only for schools and organizational learning, while others are smaller plugins with simple functionality for getting courses published quickly on a website.
After taking a look at LearningCart, it’s clear that a significant amount of work and planning went into the system, seeing as how layers upon layers of features seemed to pop up, right when I thought there could be no more.
How Much Does LearningCart Cost?
Compared to other ecommerce solutions that support online course selling, LearningCart might seem a little expensive. However, I actually think the plans offer excellent value for money. After all, you’re not just getting an ecommerce storefront.
Every plan also includes access to content management tools, SCORM compliant LMS capabilities, and support for unlimited products.
Currently, there are four plans to choose from:
- Silver: $399 per month (for up to 100 active users): 5 products/courses, ecommerce storefront, SCORM compliant LMS, content management (CMS), customizable templates, email support, and custom URLs.
- Gold: $829 per month (for up to 500 active users): All the features of Silver, plus phone support, student identity verification, APIs, and webinar/video integration.
- Platinum: $1199 per month (for up to 1,000 active users): The features of the Gold plan, plus SSO (Single sign-on), custom reports, sub portals for students, Salesforce integrations, and full system customization options.
- Enterprise: Custom pricing (for unlimited users): All the features of the Platinum plan, plus custom APIs, custom support hours, a dedicated server, country-specific hosting, Avalara Tax integration, and enterprise SLA.
Notably, LearningCart does offer discounts to non-profit organizations using the “Gold” plans and above, so it’s worth contacting the team for insights into custom pricing. Plus, you can access a free trial or “demo” of the platform for 30 days, which includes a free “onboarding” session.
LearningCart Features
LearningCart is a comprehensive online platform, designed to help educators create, manage, and sell courses and training products online. The company was initially founded in 2011, with a mission to build the most comprehensive platform for marketing, and selling training products.
According to the LearningCart team, the solution is the result of more of a decade of research and development in the LMS and ecommerce landscape.
Over the years, it’s helped educators over half a billion in revenue, and its earned the trust of countless industry experts, including the Ecommerce Platforms team. Let’s take a closer look at the key features of the platform.
The LearningCart Ecommerce System
Part of what makes LearningCart so special is that it doesn’t just give you the tools you need to manage your courses and training products. You also get the features you need to sell anything, from custom training sessions, to webinars, and even physical inventory.
The key ecommerce features include:
- Options for selling any kind of product: With LearningCart, you can sell web-based training online, as well as in-person, virtual and live event access, and physical products. You’ll even be able to access real-time UPS and FedEx shipping rate calculations.
- Product access controls: You can sell access to resources in a way that fits with your platform. I particularly like the fact that you can sell “bundles” of seats or licenses, and track student progress in the backend.
- Catalog management: LearningCart makes it easy to list and showcase your products in a way that supports your brand. You can create groups of categories and subcategories, and allow users to filter through options by content type, dates, and locations.
- Payment Gateways: The platform integrates with a huge range of popular gateways, such as Authorize.net, Stripe, PayPal, and WorldPay. Plus, custom payment gateway integrations are also available.
- Coupons and Discounts: With LearningCart, you can find ways to boost your sales by offering access to coupon codes, member discounts, automatic bulk discounts, and one-time use vouchers. You can even restrict discounts by product, category, or minimum order amount.
- Reporting: I’m a huge fan of the ecommerce reporting features available in LearningCart. You can instantly track sales and course completion rates, and even audit user and admin activity. LearningCart tracks thousands of data points automatically, and all reports are filterable, and ready to export in Excel format.
The LearningCart LMS and CMS
If there’s one thing that sets LearningCart apart from other ecommerce solutions for educators, it’s how comprehensive the LMS solution is. The fully integrated LMS makes it easy to build and sell SCORM-compliant courses, in-person and virtual events, webinars, quizzes, and more.
You can easily create comprehensive learning experiences, combining LearningCart’s quiz builder, for knowledge assessments, with certificates of completion that match your brand. There’s video streaming support, via integrations with YouTube and Vimeo, options for creating feedback forms, and even booking options for one-on-one coaching and webinars.
Plus, you’ll also gain access to features like:
- Badges and gamification tools (like points) to boost student engagement.
- CEU tracking for accredited courses.
- End-to-end tracking and reporting with student training profiles.
LearningCart combines this fully-featured LMS solution with a complete content management platform, where you can access customizable templates for your websites, and adjust them with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
The CMS also includes an easy-to-use page editor, with WYSIWYG capabilities, and an integrated blog engine for content marketing. I particularly like the fact that the CMS and platform are search engine friendly, with features like the ability to automatically generate site maps and integrations with Google Analytics and tracking pixels.
Event and Student Management Tools
Event and student management are other areas where LearningCart really shines. Whereas most LMS solutions focus almost exclusively on online learning, LearningCart ensures you can interact with and engage your students anywhere. For in-person events, you’ll have tools for location tracking, seat assignment, and host designation.
You can also access solutions for automated roster generation, group pricing, discount codes, and certificate generation. Plus, LearningCart also integrates with a range of webinar platforms, such as Zoom, Webex, and Microsoft Teams.
For student and audience management, I really love LearningCart’s “subportals”. These give you the freedom to create multiple miniature sites with unique designs, administrators, and courses, and manage them from a single location. It’s a great way to create custom catalogues for specific customers, and even design “localized” experiences for international audiences.
Built-in Security Features
Like many leading LMS and ecommerce solutions, LearningCart takes security seriously. First of all, unlike open-source systems and plugins, LearningCart is developed from the ground up with a security-first architecture. Ecommerce transactions are PCI compliant, and all of LearningCart’s tools have been audited and approved by third-party experts.
You can even expect compliance with guidelines like GDPR, and international standards like SOC 1, SOC 2, SOC 3, and ISO 27001, 27017, and 27018.
On all plans, LearningCart also uses native authentication features, to ensure you can protect your students and employees from fraudulent attacks. There’s even the option to leverage single sign on (SSO) through integrations with tools like Active Directory and Azure.
Plus, educators can implement two-factor authentication with one-time passwords sent to users through SMS.
Custom LMS Solutions and Integrations
Finally, one of the things I love about LearningCart is how flexible it truly is. Although the platform is designed to meet the needs of most educators as standard, it does give you the freedom to inject custom logic and capabilities into the system.
You’ll also be able to connect your ecosystem with a huge selection of valuable plugins and integrations, such as connections with Zoom, Authorize.Net, YouTube, Vimeo, Salesforce, and Campaign Monitor. In my opinion, this scalability makes it much easier to transform your course solution with bespoke experiences that delight your students.
Using LearningCart's Customer Support
When I was experimenting with the LearningCart platform for this review, I was surprised to learn how intuitive the solution really was. Although the huge range of features means there is a slight learning curve for beginners, it doesn’t take a lot of time to master everything.
The platform is straightforward and clean, with well-labelled sections, and tips to help guide you through the setup process. You can also access most functionality “out of the box”, without having to experiment with code, if you don’t have a lot of developer knowledge.
LearningCart’s approach to customer support is excellent too. Although you only get online and email support on the entry-level package, you’ll still get a free onboarding session, and access to various professionals who can quickly rectify any issues you have.
There are also plenty of knowledge base articles and guides to assist you with initial setup. On higher-tier plans, you also get phone support, for even faster responses to any questions you might have.
Verdict: Who Should Use LearningCart?
LearningCart is one of the most advanced solutions I’ve reviewed for companies selling online courses and educational resources. If you’re looking for a comprehensive platform that goes beyond the basics of standard plugins for ecommerce platforms, this is the solution for you.
I probably wouldn’t recommend this platform to absolute beginners who only want to sell one or two basic courses. However, if you want to grow a business as an educator, you’ll struggle to find anything as flexible, scalable, and agile as LearningCart elsewhere.
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