Where can I host my online course?

Where to host an online course: the short answer

You can host an online course in four places, and each fits a different seller.

• A hosted course platform, for a seller who wants lessons, video and checkout in one place.
• A WordPress plugin, for an owner who already runs a WordPress site.
• A community platform, for a creator whose audience is a community first.
• A marketplace, for a seller who wants no school of their own and accepts the marketplace's terms.

Four ways to host a course, with prices for three

Prices are as read on October 4, 2026, each with its billing basis. A marketplace sets its own terms, so that row has no price.

The hosted route runs on the vendor's cloud servers, which host the school and its material, and daily backups come with every LearnWorlds plan. The WordPress route puts the course on your own site: LearnDash is the plugin, its entry license lists a quiz builder, a certificate builder and Stripe and PayPal payment integrations, and LearnDash Pro is $399 a year. Every LearnDash license carries unlimited courses and learners, with no per-student fees.

On a community platform the course lives inside the group, because Skool's Classroom is a section of a Skool group, not a separate site. Skool Hobby carries unlimited courses and members.

Hosting a course on your own domain

A custom domain is your own web address for the school, such as academy.yourschool.com. Without one, a new LearnWorlds school gets an address on learnworlds.com and can keep it.

LearnWorlds includes hosting on every plan, with unlimited video hosting and your own domain, so no separate host is needed; the best online course platform page puts it beside the other hosted platforms. LearnWorlds video hosting covers the video side.

1. Buy the domain from a domain provider; it is bought separately from the plan.
2. Create a CNAME record in the provider's settings that links the domain to the school.
3. Request the change in the school under Settings, School Settings, Site & Email Domain.

A subdomain is the most common way to connect a domain, and a bare domain can be connected too. A subdomain can also give one product line its own address, such as courses.mysite.com for a single course category. LearnWorlds website builder covers the pages the domain shows.

LearnWorlds can be tried for 30 days with no credit card, though a trial school cannot use a custom domain. A trial school is also closed to visitors who are not logged in.

How to choose a host

Choose a hosted platform when you want one vendor to run the school, a WordPress plugin when the course belongs on an existing WordPress site, and a community platform when members matter more than a course library.

The alternative to a hosted platform is LearnDash Essentials, $259 a year, for a site owner who already runs WordPress and wants the course on that site, with hosting managed separately. LearnDash says the owner keeps control of revenue, customer data and brand, and its page pairs the plugin with managed hosting for busy sites. LearnWorlds vs LearnDash compares the two.