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01. Introduction to MemberSync

MemberSync connects LearnDash and WooCommerce Memberships so that access to your courses stays in step with the memberships, licenses, and organizations you sell. It began as a bridge that kept course enrollment aligned with membership status, and has grown into a platform for selling and managing access at scale — for individuals and for whole organizations.

This page explains what MemberSync does and introduces the ideas you'll meet throughout the documentation. It doesn't contain setup steps; for those, see Installation & Setup and Basic Usage.

What MemberSync does​

MemberSync gives your site two connected ways to control who can access which LearnDash content:

  • Membership-driven access. When a customer gains or loses a WooCommerce membership, MemberSync grants or removes access to the LearnDash courses associated with that membership plan — including access that starts immediately, after a delay, or on a specific date. This keeps course enrollment synchronized with membership status automatically.
  • Organizations, licenses, and seats. MemberSync can also model access the way businesses buy it: an organization purchases a number of seats, assigns them to its members, and grants access through licenses. This suits selling training to companies, teams, and groups, where one buyer provisions access for many people.

Both approaches ultimately do the same thing — enroll the right people in the right LearnDash courses — and they can be used together on the same site.

Key concepts​

You'll see these terms throughout the docs:

  • Organization — a group (such as a company or team) that holds seats and licenses and has members in different roles (owner, manager, member).
  • Seat — a place within an organization that a member occupies. An organization buys a set number of seats and assigns them to people.
  • License — a unit of access. Assigning a license to a person (or an organization) grants the LearnDash access it carries. Licenses are created from license types, which act as reusable templates.
  • License type / seat type — templates that define what a license or seat grants, so you can issue many of them consistently.
  • Course enrollment — the LearnDash access that MemberSync ultimately grants or removes, whether through a membership plan or a license.

These pieces are covered in detail in the References Hub and demonstrated in Basic Usage.

How MemberSync fits with its dependencies​

MemberSync is an integration layer, so it relies on several plugins being installed and active:

  • LearnDash — the LMS whose courses and groups MemberSync grants access to.
  • WooCommerce — the store MemberSync sells access through.
  • WooCommerce Memberships — the membership plans MemberSync syncs to course access.

Depending on how you sell access, you may also use Teams for WooCommerce Memberships (for team memberships) and WooCommerce Subscriptions (for recurring licenses). See Installation & Setup for the full requirements.

MemberSync does not replace these plugins or duplicate their documentation — it links their pieces together. Where a task belongs to LearnDash or WooCommerce itself, this documentation points you to their official docs rather than repeating them.

Where to go next​