Migration
Moving from Podia to LearnDash
The common trigger is fees and caps at scale. Podia Mover takes a 5% transaction fee and caps email subscribers at 100; LearnDash's license takes no transaction fee and does not cap courses or learners. The trade is Podia's bundled website, email marketing and hosting for a self-managed WordPress site with a separate email tool. The move is still a migration project: inventory, written export answers, a reconciliation test, then cutover.
Why creators consider this move
Three registry facts drive most of these switches. None of them is about export tooling, which we do not claim either way.
- Fees. Podia Mover takes a 5% transaction fee, dropping to 0% on Shaker and Earthquaker. LearnDash publishes no transaction fee at any license.
- Subscriber and product caps. Podia caps email subscribers per plan (100, 500, 1,000). LearnDash's license does not cap courses or learners at all.
- What you take on. LearnDash requires you to run WordPress, hosting and a separate email tool. Podia bundles all three, hosted.
Plan mapping and the cost delta
Map your Podia plan to the LearnDash license, then add hosting and an email tool to the total.
| Platform | Platform or transaction fees |
|---|---|
| Thinkific | Thinkific Payments processes cards at standard processor rates (about 2.9% + 30 cents per card transaction). Using your own Stripe or PayPal instead adds a platform surcharge: 5% on Basic, 2% on Start, 1% on Grow, none on Plus. |
| LearnWorlds | No platform transaction fee above Starter; Starter charges 5 USD per course sale. Payment processor fees apply separately. |
| Teachable | Starter takes a 7.5% transaction fee. Builder and Growth take no platform fee, but payment processing (about 2.9% to 4.99% depending on method) still applies. |
| Podia | Mover takes a 5% transaction fee; Shaker and Earthquaker take none. Stripe or PayPal processing (about 2.9% + 30 cents) applies separately. |
| LearnDash | Payments run through your own Stripe or PayPal integration; no platform fee, only processor fees. |
Podia Mover ($42 per month) selling $2,000 a month pays $504 a year in subscription plus about $1,200 a year in transaction fees, near $1,704 total. LearnDash Essentials is $259 a year for the license, plus WordPress hosting and a separate email tool priced on top. Run your numbers in the cost calculator.
Apply the checklist to your Podia storefront
Follow the full LMS migration checklist and adapt it here.
- Inventory. Count products, email subscribers, community spaces and active payment plans, plus any website content built inside Podia.
- Ask both vendors in writing. Request a sample export from Podia for each object type and check what your WordPress and LearnDash setup can import.
- Run the reconciliation test. Build a fictional dataset, export it, import it into a LearnDash staging site, and compare object counts before and after.
Cutover order
Rebuild and verify before touching anything live. Set up WordPress and LearnDash on a staging site, recreate products, connect a separate email tool, and run the reconciliation test on fictional data. Keep Podia live and billing throughout.
Only when the destination is proven do you migrate customers, point your domain, and cancel Podia's bundled email marketing.
Frequently asked questions
Does LearnDash charge a transaction fee like Podia?
Will I lose email marketing by leaving Podia?
Does LearnDash cap email subscribers like Podia?
Keep deciding
LMS migration checklist: what really moves, and what you rebuild
A migration matrix by object type, courses, learners, progress, subscriptions, with what to inventory and what to demand from each vendor in writing.
Podia vs LearnDash: hosted simplicity or WordPress ownership
Podia is a hosted all-in-one storefront from $42 a month with a transaction fee on the entry plan. LearnDash is a WordPress plugin from $259 a year. Compare cost and fit.
LMS transaction fees explained
The three fee layers on course platforms: card processing, platform transaction fees, and the break-even math for when a fee-free plan beats a cheap one.
Hosted LMS vs WordPress LMS: ownership and total cost
SaaS subscription versus a LearnDash license plus hosting, updates and backups. The yearly cost, the responsibility split, and who owns your data.