A complete guide to subscription plans in LearnWorlds

Subscriptions provide a predictable income stream, enabling better financial planning and stability. They also build customer loyalty, encouraging ongoing engagement and higher lifetime value.

In this article, we will explore the use of subscription plans in LearnWorlds, including when to use them, requirements, how to create and edit plans, manual user enrollment, cancellation procedures, and managing multiple subscription plans.

Examples of When to Use Subscriptions

Here are a few common ways you can use subscription plans in your school:

1. When you offer courses that are regularly updated with new content.
2. When you want to give learners access to your content through lower monthly payments rather than a high one-off price.
3. When your business model depends on recurring revenue.
4. When you're building a membership-style learning experience.
5. When you want learners to pay for access over time without committing to a full course price upfront. 

Subscription Requirements

To use subscriptions in your LearnWorlds school, make sure you have:

• A Pro Trainer plan or higher.
• Integrated Stripe as your payment gateway.

Create Subscription Plans

To offer a subscription-based product in LearnWorlds, you first need to create a Learning Program. During the setup process, you’ll be asked to specify the program’s pricing model, whether it will be free, available for a one-time purchase, or offered as a recurring subscription.

Refer to this article for detailed steps on setting up a subscription plan.

If you're interested in the notification emails users receive as part of a subscription, check this guide.

Manage Subscription Plans

The Plans tab in your admin dashboard gives you a complete overview of all active subscriptions and installment plans across your school. In the plans page, you can monitor, review, and manage user payment plans directly from LearnWorlds; no need to log into Stripe.

Refer to this article for detailed steps on managing your subscription plans.

Users' Subscription Management

Users can manage their subscriptions via their Account page. They can view information about their active subscription plans and installment plans, including the next billing date. If they wish to stop their subscription, they can do so by clicking the Cancel button.

Subscriptions are not available on the Mobile Apps.

Important Notes  

• When an admin creates a subscription plan in LearnWorlds, it will be synced to Stripe. The other way around, creating a subscription plan in Stripe, will not sync it to LearnWorlds.
• Once you connect your Stripe account and create your subscriptions and installments, you should not connect to a different Stripe account; otherwise, you will not be able to receive payments from the users who purchased a subscription or installment while you had connected the first account.
• If your users have already activated their subscriptions, you should not change the currency since your existing customers will not be able to pay in the new currency.
• If you change the price of a subscription, existing users will not be affected; they will continue to pay the amount they originally subscribed to. Only newly enrolled users will be charged the updated price.
• Deleting a product that was purchased with a recurring payment does not mean that the recurring payment will stop automatically. The recurring payment (either payment or subscription) should first be canceled prior to deleting the product itself.
• When a user is enrolled in a subscription with trial days (and while they are still in their trial period), if they decide to change their subscription plan to a different one, the remaining trial period is not extended, as it is considered they have already benefited from the free trial for this product.
• Once a user starts a free trial for a subscription, they are not eligible for another one in the same product, regardless of whether they cancel before it ends or let the trial run its full length.
• If you manually enroll a user in a subscription through your school, this will not synchronize with Stripe, and no payments will be processed. To ensure the user is charged, you also need to manually add the user to the subscription through Stripe.
• When purchasing a subscription, the card of the user needs to be stored in your Stripe account for upcoming recurring payments. Since this part of the process is not a transaction, the amount displayed in the card authentication and 3D Secure will be 0. If the user's bank approves this procedure, then the card will be charged the actual amount of the subscription.
• According to Stripe policy, when you start processing live payments from your customers with Stripe, you won’t receive your first payout until 7–14 days after receiving your first successful payment. You can find out more here.
• Suspending or deleting a user account does not automatically cancel or pause their active subscription. The subscription will continue to renew, and any associated payments will still be processed via Stripe unless manually canceled by the user or the admin.
• Your school sends a set of notification emails related to subscriptions, but Stripe offers additional options you may find useful, such as managing free-trial messaging, preventing failed payments, handling failed payments, and managing disputed payments.