How to Create Your First Course in Tutor LMS
Create a course in the Tutor LMS 4 course builder: the Basic, Curriculum and Additional tabs, pricing, visibility, enrollment limits and publishing.
Checked against the plugin source: Tutor LMS 4.1.3, Tutor LMS Pro 4.1.3
The Tutor LMS course builder is where you create everything a student will see: the course page, the curriculum and the extras such as certificates and attachments. This guide walks through creating a complete course in Tutor LMS 4, tab by tab.
Open the course builder
In the admin, go to Tutor LMS > Create Course (or Courses, then the create button). Instructors can also create courses from the frontend dashboard. The builder has three tabs: Basic, Curriculum and Additional.
Tab 1: Basic
Title and description
Write a title that says what students will be able to do, and a description that answers a buyer's questions: who it is for, what they will learn, how long it takes and what they get. With Tutor LMS Pro, AI Studio can help draft these.
Visibility
Choose Public, Private or Password Protected. Public courses appear in your catalogue. You can also Schedule a course to publish later, and show it as "coming soon" in the course list until then.
Featured image and intro video
Upload a thumbnail (JPEG, PNG, GIF or WebP) and, optionally, an intro video from YouTube, Vimeo, an upload, an external URL, an embed code or a shortcode. A short intro video helps sales.
Pricing
Set the Pricing Model to Free or Paid. For paid courses, enter the Regular Price and, if you want, a Sale Price with optional start and end dates. With subscriptions enabled (Pro), the Purchase Options can be one-time purchase only, subscription only, both, or membership only. If WooCommerce is your engine, you select an existing product or let Tutor LMS create one for you. See setting course prices.
Note that a public course in the sense of "no enrollment required" (the option Make This Course Public) cannot be paid.
Categories, tags, level and instructors
Add categories and tags for the catalogue filters, choose a Difficulty Level, and, with the Multi Instructors add-on, add co-instructors. Admins can change the course author.
Enrollment options
- Maximum Student: limit seats; 0 means no limit.
- Course Enrollment Period: open and close enrollment on dates.
- Pause Enrollment: stop new enrollments temporarily.
- Enrollment Expiration (Pro): remove access after a number of days; 0 means lifetime.
Q&A and Content Drip
Enable the Q&A section if you want students to ask questions. Content Drip settings appear here when the Pro add-on is active.
Tab 2: Curriculum
This is the course content. Click Add Topic to create your first module, then add items inside it:
- Lesson: text, video, attachments.
- Quiz: questions and settings. See creating a quiz.
- Assignment (Pro).
- Live class with Zoom or Google Meet (Pro).
- H5P content (Pro) and items from the Content Bank (Pro).
Drag topics and items to reorder them. See adding topics and lessons and course structure.
Tab 3: Additional
- Overview: what students will learn (one benefit per line), target audience, total course duration, materials included, and requirements or instructions.
- Certificate (Pro): choose a certificate template or edit one in the Certificate Builder.
- Course Prerequisites (Pro): courses students must finish first.
- Attachments: downloadable resources.
- Live class scheduling (Pro).
Fill in the overview fields. They appear on the course page (if enabled under Settings > Design > Course Details) and help buyers decide.
Publish
Use Preview to check the course page, then Publish, Save as Draft or Schedule. After publishing, open the course as a test student: enroll, open the first lesson, complete it and check progress.
Tips for a better first course
- Keep lessons short and topics focused on one outcome each.
- Put a short quiz at the end of each topic.
- Make the first lesson a free preview (Course Preview add-on) to show quality.
- Write a specific course description; it is also your SEO content. See SEO-friendly courses.
Frequently asked questions
Can I create courses with Elementor or Gutenberg?
You can enable the Gutenberg editor for course descriptions under Settings > Advanced, and builders such as Elementor can design course pages. The curriculum is always managed in the course builder.
Can instructors create courses without admin access?
Yes, from the frontend dashboard. Whether they can publish directly depends on "Allow Instructors to Publish Courses".
How do I duplicate a course?
The course list has a duplicate action for existing courses. See duplicating a course.
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I’m Vishavjeet Choubey, an Enterprise LMS Architect with 10+ years of experience helping businesses, coaches, universities, and online academies build and scale powerful digital learning platforms. I specialize in enterprise LMS architecture, WordPress, WooCommerce, LifterLMS, LearnDash, Moodle, custom plugin development, and AI-driven automation. I build scalable LMS platforms, high-converting eCommerce solutions, and custom WordPress applications designed to improve user experiences, streamline operations, and drive measurable business growth. My approach combines deep WordPress and LMS engineering expertise with modern AI automation to reduce manual work, improve efficiency, and help organizations launch, scale, and grow faster.
