Sikshya LMS — Build & Sell Online Courses

Description

Sikshya LMS is a WordPress LMS (learning management system) for creators who want students to enroll, learn, and pay—without leaving your site. The free version is built so you can launch a real course catalog, take payments when you are ready, and grow into Sikshya Pro only when you need automation and advanced add-ons.

In plain English: you create courses in the WordPress admin; learners open your course pages on the front of your site, track progress in their account, and complete quizzes or assignments you publish.

Use Sikshya for coaching, professional training, customer education, internal onboarding, or the start of a course marketplace—with full control of content, branding, and revenue.

Get started

👉 Try Sikshya LMS Free

👉 Sikshya LMS — product & pricing

👉 Sikshya Pro

👉 Documentation

👉 Contact support

👉 Sikshya LMS Facebook Community

Join the community for release notes, setup tips, and peer discussion with other course creators on WordPress.

New to WordPress LMS plugins?

• No code required to publish lessons and quizzes—you work inside Sikshya’s admin screens like other WordPress plugins.
• Your theme controls fonts and many layout basics; Sikshya adds course templates and learner views so selling and learning stay consistent.
• Start small: create one course, one short lesson, and one quiz; invite a test student account before you invite paying customers.
• Payments are optional: offer free courses first, then connect Stripe or PayPal when you sell.

Why choose Sikshya?

• Creator-first workflow — A fast admin experience (React-powered shell) so you spend time teaching, not hunting through scattered WordPress screens.
• Commerce that belongs in the free core — Paid courses, coupons, orders, and mainstream gateways are part of the baseline story—not an afterthought locked behind “contact sales.”
• Sensible defaults — Fewer knobs on day one; advanced automation, marketplace, and reporting unlock with Sikshya Pro when you are ready to scale.
• WordPress-native — Courses, lessons, quizzes, and questions follow familiar custom post types and capabilities, with REST-oriented services where documented—so agencies and developers can extend predictably.

Who is Sikshya for?

• Coaches, consultants, and creators shipping paid programs without hiring a platform team.
• Training companies & academies replacing spreadsheets with enrollments, progress, and assessments.
• Teams doing internal training who need completion tracking and light certification.
• Agencies standardizing one dependable LMS layer across client sites (including multisite when configured carefully).

Extended use cases

• Blended learning — Self-paced lessons plus scheduled touchpoints (extended live tooling ships in Pro where applicable).
• Customer education — Product training and onboarding academies tied to your brand site.
• Community & cohort programs — Clear curriculum and progress signals; pair with your favorite community plugins as needed.

Top features (free core)

Courses & curriculum

• Unlimited courses, lessons, and quizzes (within your hosting limits).
• Structured curriculum with sections/chapters and drag-and-drop style ordering.
• Lesson types: text, video via URL/embed-style delivery, downloadable materials.
• Course landing content: descriptions, FAQs, announcements, preview lessons.
• Course archive with search and filters aligned to your theme.

Quizzes & assignments

• Quiz builder: multiple choice, true/false, short answer.
• Passing marks, attempts, and timer-oriented assessment controls.
• Sequential progression and chapter-style gating where configured.
• Assignments with submission and manual grading for real-world evaluation.

Learners

• Student dashboard: enrollments, progress, resume learning.
• Wishlist for saved courses.
• Role-aware flows for administrators and instructors.

Checkout & monetization (free baseline)

• Free courses, paid courses, and manual enrollment by staff.
• Stripe and PayPal as first-class payment paths in settings.
• Coupons: percentage or fixed discounts, redemption limits, optional date windows.
• Order management: visibility, notes, and administrative refund-style workflows as implemented per release.

Reliability & operations

• Capability checks, nonces, and disciplined REST patterns aligned with WordPress security expectations.
• Transactional email hooks for enrollment, purchase, and completion journeys (templates evolve by release).
• Translation-ready (sikshya text domain); RTL-friendly layouts are a continuous improvement target—report theme-specific gaps via support.

Native commerce & checkout

Sell access without duct-taping five plugins together for a basic launch: configure gateways, test in sandbox or test mode when available, publish your course page, and route buyers through a checkout experience designed for digital education—not generic cart prose bolted onto an LMS.

Platform notes

• Themes — Built to cooperate with well-coded WordPress themes; use a default theme briefly if you need to isolate CSS conflicts.
• Multisite — Network-enabled; validate roles, capabilities, and data boundaries per site before production.
• Developers — Hooks and filters around enrollments, lesson completion, and quiz outcomes; REST coverage is documented alongside the product page.

Shortcodes

Sikshya registers the shortcodes below. Paste them into any page, post, or widget that runs WordPress shortcodes (Shortcode block, Classic editor, or a theme template that calls do_shortcode). Attribute names are lowercase unless noted.

Quick reference

• [sikshya_courses] — Grid or list of published courses (same card UI as the catalog).
• [sikshya_login] — Sign-in form (Sikshya auth handler; errors stay on the same page).
• [sikshya_registration] — Create a Sikshya student account; optional instructor intent submits a pending teaching application.

[sikshya_courses]

What it does: Queries published courses and renders them with the same course card partial used on archives and the catalog.

Attributes (all optional except where a default is listed):

• per_page — Number of courses per page. Default 9. Minimum 1, maximum 50.
• columns — Layout hint. 3 forces a three-column grid; other positive values (up to 6) adjust the auto grid; 0 or omitted uses the default auto layout.
• view — grid or list. Default grid.
• category — Filter by course category taxonomy slug (not the numeric ID).
• tag — Filter by course tag taxonomy slug.
• search — Free-text search string (same idea as the catalog search).
• orderby — date, title, or price. Default date.
• order — asc or desc. Default desc.
• pagination — 1 (show paging) or 0 (single page). Default 1. When enabled, page links use the query argument sikshya_courses_page so paging does not clash with the main query.

Examples

[sikshya_courses]

[sikshya_courses per_page="12" view="grid" category="web-design" orderby="price" order="asc" pagination="1"]

[sikshya_courses view="list" search="wordpress" pagination="0"]

[sikshya_login]

What it does: Renders an email-or-username + password form that authenticates through Sikshya’s admin-post handler (wp_signon). Failed logins show a notice on the same URL (no redirect to wp-login.php). Used on the virtual login page and inside checkout.

Attributes:

• redirect_to — Absolute or relative URL after successful login. Validated with wp_validate_redirect. If empty, the handler falls back to the HTTP referer, then the site home URL.

Examples

[sikshya_login]

[sikshya_login redirect_to="/my-account/"]

[sikshya_login redirect_to="https://example.com/checkout/"]

[sikshya_registration]

What it does: Renders a registration form (display name optional, email, password). Creates a WordPress user with the Sikshya student role, then triggers the same new-user email notifications WordPress sends after core registration (wp_send_new_user_notifications, admin + user). Intended for checkout (“Create account”) and custom landing pages.

Attributes:

• type — student or instructor. Default student. instructor does not assign the instructor role: the account is a student and a pending instructor application is recorded (same meta as the account “Apply to teach” flow). An administrator approves applications in the dashboard; only then is the sikshya_instructor role added.
• redirect_to — Same behavior as [sikshya_login] after successful registration.

Developers: Filter sikshya_send_new_user_notifications (bool, user ID) to disable core emails if you replace them with your own.

Examples

[sikshya_registration]

[sikshya_registration type="student"]

[sikshya_registration type="instructor" redirect_to="/courses/"]

Upgrade to Sikshya Pro

Unlock advanced drip and prerequisites, multi-instructor collaboration, subscriptions, deeper analytics and gradebook workflows, bundles, white-label options, and broader integrations. Free stays generous; Pro unlocks scale.

👉 Explore Sikshya Pro

👉 Sikshya pricing & plans

Sikshya Pro add-on catalog

Below is the full commercial add-on line-up from the Sikshya feature registry. Each title links to pricing so you can compare plans. Availability varies by plan tier (Starter, Growth / Pro band, Scale); see the pricing page for the current matrix.

Starter-band add-ons

• Content drip & scheduled unlock — Release lessons over time (“day 3 after signup”, dates, cohort pace) instead of opening the full catalog on day one. Best for paced programs and term-style delivery; disable for purely self‑paced libraries.

• Course reviews & ratings — Collect star ratings and written reviews on course pages with moderation before they go live. Builds social proof in the catalog; turn off when public reviews don’t fit your model.

• Prerequisites (lessons & courses) — Require completion of chosen lessons or whole courses before the next step unlocks—ideal for sequencing, compliance, or leveled paths. Leave off when every course stands alone.

• Instructor dashboard — Gives each teacher a concise snapshot (e.g. enrollments on their courses) without sharing the whole admin site. Useful when instructors should see their numbers only.

• Drip & automation emails — Optional transactional emails when drip rules unlock lessons or schedules (templates in Email templates). Pair with Content drip when you want “lesson unlocked” style notices.

• Calendar — Shows learners a dated schedule—enrollments, upcoming drip unlocks, assignment due dates—on My account plus REST data for custom UIs. Handy when deadlines and releases should appear in one place.

Growth / Pro-band add-ons

• Professional email delivery & branded templates — Route Sikshya emails through a proper ESP (SendGrid-style setup) and wrap messages with your branding. Improve deliverability versus generic PHP mail.

• Course discussions & Q&A — In-course discussions and Q&A with instructor moderation for cohort-led learning. Skip when comments are handled entirely outside Sikshya.

• Multi-instructor & co-authors — Assign multiple instructors per course with optional revenue splits for shared authoring and payouts. Keeps ledger-style splits disciplined at checkout.

• Advanced analytics & exports — Download enrollment-style and progress-ready data for Excel/Sheets and offline planning. Bridges dashboard charts and spreadsheets when stakeholders need files.

• Gradebook — Consolidates quizzes and graded assignments into a per‑learner, per‑course scores view plus export workflows. Targets real grading—not “completion only.”

• Student activity log — Timeline of milestones (enrollment, completions, quizzes, submissions, checkout) when you must answer what happened, when. Helpful support and dispute trail.

• Advanced certificates (builder, QR, verification) — Verification links/pages, richer layouts, and optional QR tying to proofs beyond the basic PDF. Use when authenticity checks matter externally.

• Subscriptions & memberships — Sell ongoing access via recurring billing models instead of strictly one-shot course sales. Fits memberships and renewals layered on gateways you configure.

• Course bundles — Sell several courses together for one bundled price—“bootcamp packs” or value SKUs—with enrollment logic tied to the pack.

• Advanced coupons & upsells — Coupon rules beyond a flat discount—minimum order, applicability to chosen courses—and checkout guardrails accordingly.

• Dynamic checkout fields — Add configurable checkout questions (text, select, checkbox) with simple visibility rules. Store answers on orders or profiles when you need VAT, referrals, consent, etc.

• Advanced assignments — Rubric-style grading guidance and uploads restricted by file types for stricter coursework hand-ins.

• Advanced quiz types — Groups / pools of reusable questions when you assemble many quizzes without duplicating stems—think organized question banking.

• Live classes (Zoom / Meet / Classroom) — Persist meeting links and platform labels directly on lessons so learners always hit the correct live URL from the syllabus.

• Social login — Let learners sign in with Google-style providers when policy allows fewer passwords-only accounts.

• SCORM / H5P — Embed packaged SCORM or H5P experiences inside Sikshya lessons—bridge vendor-built interactives inside your Sikshya path.

Scale-band add-ons

• Multi-vendor marketplace — Track vendor ownership per course plus platform-vs-seller splits for many independent sellers sharing one storefront.

• White label & branding — Tune Sikshya-facing labels and learner/admin chrome toward your agency or customer brand—including login accents where supported.

• Webhooks — Deliver signed JSON to your HTTPS endpoints whenever major LMS lifecycle events occur for custom automation backends.

• Zapier — First-class Zapier workflow entry points so Sikshya events can fan into thousands of Zap actions without bespoke code projects.

• Email marketing (Mailchimp / MailerLite) — Keep marketing lists synced from enrollments/completions so campaigns react to Sikshya learning milestones.

• Public API & API keys — Issue revocable secrets for bespoke apps/partners integrating over REST without sharing WordPress passwords.

• Multisite & network license tools — Guidance surfaces for multisite admins mapping licenses across subsites on true WordPress networks.

• Enterprise reporting — Automated weekly KPI-style email rollups aimed at inbox-friendly executive snapshots—pair with analytics exports when you need detail too.

• Multilingual (WPML / Weglot) — Bridges Sikshya’s front-end/interface strings into popular translation stacks so multi‑language sites localize consistently beside your theme/content.

Use of third-party services

Features you enable may connect to services you configure. Examples:

• Stripe — Terms of service · Privacy
• PayPal — User agreement · Privacy
• Embedded or linked video — YouTube, Vimeo, or other hosts may apply their own embed terms, cookies, or analytics; see each provider’s policies.

If optional diagnostic or telemetry features are introduced in a future release, they will be disclosed in the changelog, documented on the product site, and gated behind explicit consent where required.