The course access settings allow you to define a set of criteria for how a user gains and maintains access to your course. We’ll go through all the options, some of which include a one-time payment, recurring payments, free access, prerequisites and more.

Locating Course Access Settings

1. Navigate to LEARNDASH LMS > COURSES
2. Click on the course you want to edit
3. Click on the Settings tab at the top of the page
4. Locate the section titled “Course Access Settings”

Access Mode

Access mode is how you determine the way in which someone can gain access to a course (completely free, free with registration required, one-time payment, recurring subscription, etc.). LearnDash has 5 course access modes to choose from. By default, the course will be set to Free.

Open

The following rules apply to Open courses:

• Free & open to anyone visiting your site
• No registration, login, or payment is required for access
• Must be registered/logged in to track course progress
• Linear Progression will only apply to logged-in users, it will not affect guests (logged-out users).

NOTE
If you have Open courses on your site, as soon as someone registers an account, they will automatically gain access to all Open courses.

Free

The following rules apply to Free courses:

• Must be registered/logged in to access
• No payment is required
• “Take this Course” button is shown to users not yet enrolled. They are sent through the registration process. If you’re using LearnDash’s customized login & registration, the button will say “Login to Enroll.”

By default, the course will be set to Free. The Free access mode is a good choice if you want an administrator to manually enroll students into the course.

Buy Now

The following rules apply to Buy Now courses:

• Must be registered/logged in to access
• Requires a one-time fee to be paid (no free access)
• Only works with the following payment methods: PayPal, Stripe, Razorpay & 2Checkout. Visit our Payments page to learn more about setting up payment methods.
• Do not use if you’re selling courses via a shopping cart or membership plugin (see Closed below)

The Buy Now access mode does not allow you to use discounts/coupons. Consider using an ecommerce or membership integration, along with the Closed access mode.

When using the Buy Now mode, you need to enter a price in the Course Price field.