Everything MasterStudy does. Without the add-on architecture.
Masteriyo gives you everything MasterStudy does, plus AI course creation, native payments, and multi-currency pricing. No add-ons to buy, no weekends lost to plugin glue. Import your MasterStudy courses in a single click.
Why make the move
Three reasons creators leave MasterStudy for Masteriyo.
MasterStudy is a popular WordPress LMS with a strong free version. But its commerce, AI, and subscriptions ship as separately-priced add-ons, and the architecture leans on Elementor for course pages. Here is what a move to Masteriyo changes.
AI in every plan, not a separate add-on.
Native payments, subscriptions, multi-currency, certificates, bundles, coupons, gradebook, and reviews are built in. No WooCommerce bridge, no per-feature add-ons, no annual stack to babysit.
Subscriptions and memberships included.
A typical MasterStudy production install carries eight to twelve plugins working together. Masteriyo lives in a single codebase, so updates land together and the pieces are designed to fit.
More engagement features, built in.
Course Q&A per lesson, course reviews and ratings, wishlists, course announcements, and event calendar are core in Masteriyo. MasterStudy keeps several of these to add-ons or 3rd-party plugins.
The comparison
Masteriyo vs MasterStudy, feature by feature.
Each row shows the lowest plan that includes the feature on each side.
1. Pricing & access
Masteriyo prices shown above are introductory; renewal is $199 / $299 / $799, same as the strikethrough.
2. Course creation & content
3. AI features
4. Selling & payments
5. Student experience
6. Reporting & admin
7. Marketing & integrations
8. Migration & support
Prices and feature inclusions verified April 2026 against masterstudy.com and masteriyo.com. MasterStudy sells discount bundles (Professional Suite, Ultimate Course Creator) that lower per-add-on cost. See the math section below for total cost over 3 years either way.
Look closer
What a move to Masteriyo actually changes.
The table tells you the “what.” Here’s the “why it matters.”
Subscriptions, memberships, and AI included.
MasterStudy ships Subscriptions, Memberships, and AI Lab as separately-priced add-ons. To match Masteriyo Pro’s native subscription billing, recurring memberships, and AI course creation on MasterStudy, you would buy the core licence plus three add-ons. Masteriyo Pro at $149/year bundles all of those in one plugin.
Add the paid ones a serious course business uses, and the real MasterStudy bill lands at $495/year, before WooCommerce-based commerce, multi-currency plugins, or live-class integrations.
Masteriyo Pro is $149/year in year one, $299/year on renewal. Everything in that list is included: gradebook, multi-instructor with revenue sharing, reviews, native multi-currency, native gateways for Stripe, PayPal, Razorpay, and Mollie, and the migration tool.
One plugin instead of core plus add-ons.
MasterStudy core plus AI Lab plus Subscriptions plus Memberships plus Taxes plus Custom Course Pages (if you want them on Elementor) — that is five to six separately-purchased products on top of the core licence. Masteriyo collapses that into one codebase. Updates land together, the pieces are designed to fit, and your support surface shrinks.
Every one is a thing that can break on update day. Every one is a support ticket waiting to happen. Every one is a line on an invoice.
Masteriyo is a single plugin. Payments, subscriptions, multi-currency, bundles, coupons, certificates, gradebook, multi-instructor revenue sharing, the migration tool, and the course builder all live in the same codebase, so updates land together and the pieces are designed to fit.
AI in the box, not bolted on.
Both Masteriyo and MasterStudy use OpenAI for AI features. You supply the API key, the plugin uses it. The difference is access: with Masteriyo, AI course outlines, lesson drafts, and quiz generation work on every plan including the free version on WordPress.org. With MasterStudy, you have to be on the $199/year Standard plan before AI is unlocked at all.
The admin is built on Gutenberg so it feels like the rest of WordPress, not a plugin from a different decade. If you’ve ever stared at a blank course builder wondering where to start, this is the difference. You start from a draft, not a blank page.
Honest comparison
MasterStudy is a serious product. Here is where it still wins.
We respect MasterStudy. They have built a strong free version on WordPress.org with a polished course player, and there are specific cases where MasterStudy is genuinely the better fit.
If you want a Lifetime licence at a low entry point.
MasterStudy sells Lifetime licences from $249 (1 site) to $999 (unlimited). Masteriyo offers Lifetime tiers too, but at different price points. If you specifically want the lowest-cost Lifetime option in the WordPress LMS space, MasterStudy has it.
If you want more starter templates.
MasterStudy ships a wider library of starter templates and theme variations than Masteriyo currently offers. Both products give you starter templates to launch with, but if breadth of design choices is important to your workflow, MasterStudy has more options today.
Two more things worth knowing. MasterStudy has been on WordPress.org for years with a large free user base, so the ecosystem of community knowledge is real. And the 800+ ThemeForest reviews tell you the product has a long track record. These are not the headline reasons to stay with MasterStudy, but they’re fair points.
Make the move
Keep your courses. Keep your students. Keep your orders.
The reason most creators hesitate to switch is not price; it is the fear of rebuilding months of work. That’s what the LMS Migration Tool solves — one click and your courses, students, quizzes, and orders are in Masteriyo, with nothing deleted on the MasterStudy side.
Migrate in one click.
The LMS Migration Tool ships in every Masteriyo plan, including the free version on WordPress.org. Install Masteriyo alongside MasterStudy, hit Migrate, and the tool handles the rest in batches so large catalogs do not time out.
What we import from MasterStudy
Courses & curriculum
Courses with curriculum (sections and materials), course categories, course difficulty, and retake settings preserved.
Lessons & quizzes
Lessons and quizzes with ordering. Quiz questions (true/false, single/multiple choice). Quiz settings: duration and passing grade.
Lesson media
Lesson videos (YouTube, Vimeo, self-hosted, external) and lesson attachments preserved.
Users & enrollments
User enrollments and co-instructor assignments per course preserved.
Pricing, orders, reviews
Course pricing, sale prices, and access modes. Orders and order items with customer info. Course reviews migrated cleanly.
Nothing deleted
Your MasterStudy install stays put during the import. Test on staging first if you want.
Creator voices
Creators made the switch and didn’t look back.
Real public reviews from WordPress.org and G2. No bought testimonials, no paid creators. 4.8★ average across 165+ reviews.
“I tried all the ‘top’ LMS plugins with limited success. Masteriyo trumps all of them — and the price is really good compared to the others. FANTASTIC support, unlike any other. I am absolutely blown away”
“As a non-techie teacher who doesn’t know how to create a website and doesn’t know coding, I tried LearnDash, LifterLMS, MasterStudy LMS, and Tutor LMS — but I faced issues with all of them. With Masteriyo I finally did it, thanks to the easy setup and ready websites. This LMS has almost everything necessary for online course websites.”
“I tried so many WordPress LMSs and there was always something wrong or not working like I wanted it to. Masteriyo is amazing, the support team is great and managed to deal with a problem I had with my hosting provider very efficiently and professionally. They’re always adding new features and listening to their customers.”
FAQ
The questions switchers actually ask.
Will my MasterStudy courses really come over intact?
What do I lose by leaving MasterStudy?
Is Masteriyo really feature-for-feature comparable?
How much will I actually save?
What if I want to come back to MasterStudy?
Is there a free version?
Everything MasterStudy gives you. Plus AI, payments, and one plugin instead of a stack.
Join 4,000+ creators who run their course business on Masteriyo. One-click migration from MasterStudy.