I spend a lot (no really, A LOT) of time answering the question
“I want to make an online course/membership site. Which plugin or platform should I use?”
And while there is no easy answer, and your choice will depend on a whole heap of variables, I do have some favourites.
If you’ve decided that you want to put your course on a course platform, rather than straight onto your own website, then this is for you.
Today we are talking about MemberVault, which has firmly become one of my top recommendations (You can read more about my other favourite curse platforms , Thinkific or Teachable.)
What is MemberVault?
Membervault is an online platform which allows you to build and host your content, but it’s so much more than that. You can create and sell a whole range of free offers, services or products through MemberVault, and create a binge and buy marketplace which showcases all of your options (We’ll talk more about this below).
MemberVault ISN’T a plugin for your WordPress site. It sits independently. You don’t need to have a website to be able to host and sell your stuff on MemberVault.
What does MemberVault do?
MemberVault allows you to upload content, build a course, sell a course, and run your course.
But honestly, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more you can do with the platform, including:
Try it for free
(This level ends on the 30th March) You get full use of all its features and functions until you reach 50 members. Then you can start to pay their monthly fee (which is a very reasonable $19) or remove old participants to drop back down below the cap.
Most platforms don’t have a free option, or if they do it comes with limited functionality, or takes a percentage of your sales. The ability to try this completely for free is a major plus.
Creates multimedia lessons
You can easily add video, images, text, audio and pdf files to your course lessons. You can import your content directly from Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, or your hard drive.
You have the choice to make your content downloadable, or just viewable, so you can customise how each piece of content is used.
Drip feeds content
You can create time released content (drip fed) and access expatriation dates, so that you can drip feed your course content out over a period of time.
Use gamification
You can reward your users with experience points for completing certain tasks and lessons. Not only can you show a leader board, encouraging completion and a little healthy competition, you can even create bonus content which is only unlock-able once their reached a certain number of points.
Learn about your students
MemberVault allows you to track and tag your users. This means you can not only see who the most engaged members are, but you can create a strategy to re-engage those who have fallen behind. You can also see what content and offers people are most interested in!
Create quizzes and questions
Get your users even more engaged with the ability to add questions. You can use this to test them on the content they’ve just learnt, or even as a handy tool as part of the welcome section to learn more about them.
Replace most of your current systems…
You can use MemberVault as an (almost) all-in-one system. It can replace your website, landing page tools, shopping cart service and so fort.
You just have to keep your email service provider, as MemberVault doesn’t send emails.
… Or integrate with them.
If you don’t want to replace everything, you can use MemberVault in conjunction with your existing website, and integrate it with a shopping cart like SamCart or Thrive Cart. You can even use your own sales pages and landing pages if you’d prefer.
Make sales on your terms
Your sales aren’t processed by MemberVault, instead being run through Paypal, Stripe or integrated with your own shopping cart.
This means that MemberVault doesn’t take a cut of your sales, charge additional fees, or hold the payments for any period of time. You only have the normal fees charged by your payment gateway to deal with.
Create a binge and buy marketplace
Membervault creates beautiful product pages which show all of your current offerings. Consider it your deconstructed funnel where your audience can easily see all of their options, from day 1, and you can track their interest.
They don’t have to wait til level 4 of your funnel to buy your high level program if they don’t want it.
And if you’ve got offerings that you don’t want people to see straight away, that’s fine too. Simply set them as invisible and link people directly to them when they are ready.
Want to see what I mean? You can see my own personal MemberVault marketplace here.
And a lot more
I could go on and on all day, and probably still wouldn’t cover all of the features that you can use on MemberVault, it’s well worth checking out as an option for your course platform.
What does MemberVault NOT do?
MemberVault is NOT a plugin and does not install directly onto your website.
Your content will be hosted on the MemberVault platform, and you will need to log in there to upload, edit and access your course.
Membervault doesn’t send emails either.
This is important to know, as it won’t create a welcome email, or email the username and password to a student when they first enrol. Instead, you create these emails through your existing email provider. This is a purposeful decision. Your email provider is great at sending emails, they didn’t want to spend their time building functionality which wouldn’t perform as well as your current options. (It does send an email if a password has been lost)
As with any external platform, it’s important to be aware of all the terms of service, and make a decision if it’s right for you.
How much is it?
(Prices in $US – At time of publishing)
Try it for free – No strings, no credit card, no reduced functions. You can use it completely free up to 100 members.
$39 a month for Base level – which gives you up to 1,000 members
$69 a month for Pro level – which gives you up to 25,000 members
Make sure you check out current pricing and deals here
My personal opinion:
I’ve been moving a whole range of my free offerings and paid offerings over to MemberVault.
Yup, I use this one personally, not just for clients.
Tech is no longer a boundary to creating your own online course. You simply follow the instructions, upload your content into modules and lessons.
But for me, it’s the power of the additional functions. The ability for your users to gain experience points, unlock bonus content, and buy other options, offers or templates which interest them, makes it a really powerful platform.
Disclaimer
This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may be rewarded for you purchasing through my link.
This doesn’t impact the price you pay in any way.
I wouldn’t be telling you about it if I didn’t love it. So go on, have a look, and see what you think.