Buyer's checklist

How to choose an LMS: 12 questions for your vendor

Comparison tables all look alike. These twelve questions show you the difference before you pay for a year.

Open the checklist General advice

LMS platform dashboard with the course list, student cards and progress reports

Take 2–3 systems

No more than that: by the fourth one the comparison turns into research for research's sake.

Ask all 12 questions of each

By email or in the support chat. An answer of “yes, we have that” with no detail shouldn't count.

Print it out and tick the boxes

The page is laid out for print: the header and the buttons drop away, leaving a clean list.

Twelve questions worth asking before you pay

In the green box under each item — how things stand on our side. We don't think LMSka suits everyone, but on every question we answer specifically, not with “yes, of course we have it”.

Can your instructional designer build a course without a developer?

Usability is the first criterion people trip over during rollout. If adding a lesson, a field in a form or a block on a page needs a ticket for a programmer, your launch speed drops to the speed of somebody else's calendar.

Red flag: at the demo a vendor specialist does all the clicking and you never get to touch the interface yourself.

How LMSka does it

The lesson builder, the website builder, registration forms, plans, groups and roles are all set up with a mouse in your account. A developer is only needed to integrate a third-party CRM through the open API.

Lesson builder

Do they let you properly try it before you pay?

The best way to tell whether a platform fits is to build a real course in it. What matters is that the trial period opens exactly the modules you are taking it for, and not a stripped-down showcase.

Red flag: the trial asks for a card, and the key features are available “on request from your manager”.

How LMSka does it

15 days free, no card needed. The platform's functionality is open: the lesson and website builders, taking payments, campaigns, roles and analytics. Enough to run the whole chain from landing page to first payment.

Start for free

Whose account does the students' money land in, and is there a percentage of turnover?

The most expensive item on the list and the one asked least often. If the revenue first lands in the platform's account, you get a cash gap on payouts and a percentage on top of the bank's fee. As turnover grows, that difference outweighs any saving on the plan.

Red flag: the answer mentions “payouts on a schedule” and a “service fee” separate from the acquirer's fee.

How LMSka does it

The payment gateway connects to your account, and the money arrives directly to your own payment details. Ten payment systems are available, along with different currencies and cryptocurrency. The platform withholds no percentage of turnover — you only pay your own acquirer's fee.

Registration and payment

What is included in the plan and what is sold as separate packages?

The basic subscription often looks cheap until it turns out that the website builder, campaigns, the chatbot and branding are separate lines on the invoice. What you have to compare is the total cost of ownership, not the entry price.

Red flag: in the pricing table half the checkmarks appear only in the top plan, and the price of the top plan is “on request”.

How LMSka does it

All 12 modules are part of the platform: CRM, the website builder, the lesson builder, testing, roles, the chatbot, campaigns, visual identity, analytics, automation and technical capabilities. They are not sold as separate packages.

All 12 modules

Can you show a piece of the course before purchase and without registration?

The main objection a course buyer has is “I don't know what's inside or whether the delivery will suit me”. If the platform can open a lesson publicly, the objection is settled before payment. If the demo hides behind a form asking for a phone number, part of the audience leaves at the point of typing it in.

Red flag: “demo access” in practice means registering with an SMS confirmation.

How LMSka does it

Any lesson is marked in the admin panel as a demo and opens in full right on the landing page — with no form, no phone number and no SMS code. On top of that, the landing page pulls the course program dynamically from the settings, so what the page says always matches what is inside the platform.

Demo lessons and the program on the landing page

How does the system check knowledge and keep up the pace?

Everyone has tests. The difference is whether you can stop a student from going further until an assignment is submitted, and whether you can assess not only memory but thinking and communication skills too.

Red flag: the only assessment format is a multiple-choice test, and “read and understood” is recorded with a checkbox.

How LMSka does it

Four formats: tests with automatic point scoring, long-form assignments and projects, video assignments recorded on a webcam with answer keys for review, and final testing across the whole course. Stop-lessons hold the student out of the next module until the assignment is submitted.

Testing

What exactly will you see in the analytics?

“We have analytics” usually means the number of registrations and the completion rate. To improve the program you need data on every lesson: how long it takes, where the group gets bogged down, which assignment is failed most often.

Red flag: the data cannot be exported to a file, and the reports exist only inside the interface.

How LMSka does it

A summary performance table, time spent on each lesson, completion statistics in percentages and in absolute numbers, individual and group reports, a student ranking, registration and sales statistics. Summary data is exported to a file.

Analytics

Can you delegate the work without opening access to everything?

The moment a second person joins the course, the question of permissions comes up. A guest lecturer shouldn't see the revenue, a sales manager shouldn't see the course content, a curator shouldn't see other people's groups. With no roles, you either do everything yourself or hand over the whole account.

Red flag: there are roles, but the set is fixed and permissions cannot be tuned point by point.

How LMSka does it

Co-organizer, lecturer, curator and manager roles, each with its own account. Permissions are granted point by point, right down to specific lessons, plus distributing users across groups and managing access periods.

Access management

What does the platform use to keep a student to the end of the course?

Completion rate is the main metric and the main pain. Four things work: a set pace, a sense of progress, live communication and reminders for the ones who have dropped off. If lessons are all you have from that set, the completion rate is left to the student's conscience.

Red flag: all communication is pushed out into an external messenger, and there is no conversation inside the account.

How LMSka does it

Stop-lessons set the pace, points and the ranking give a sense of progress, private chats with the lecturer work inside the account, and the chatbot and triggered campaigns bring back the ones who dropped off. At the finish — a certificate with a QR code and a place in the graduate database.

Gamification and retention

What devices will your students be logging in from?

A sizable part of the audience studies from a phone on the move and during the lunch break. If the platform is awkward on mobile or requires installing a client, some people simply will not open the lesson.

Red flag: with an on-premise solution you also acquire your own server, with updates and security on your side.

How LMSka does it

A cloud platform: access from any device and browser, with no servers to install or maintain. There is a mobile app. The open API lets you link the platform to a third-party CRM, and anything missing is added as custom development on request.

Technology

Whose logo does the student see, and are your materials protected?

Two questions in one, and both are about ownership. Training under somebody else's brand feels like a subscription to an outside service. And if the materials can be downloaded and forwarded, your own course spreads around the chats in the very first week.

Red flag: White Label is available only on the enterprise plan with an annual contract.

How LMSka does it

White Label with your own branding for the account, the landing page and the certificates, plus connecting your own domain. Materials are protected from copying and downloading: texts and videos are watched inside the account, and only files attached on purpose can be downloaded. Personal data sits behind role-based access.

Visual identity and brand

Who answers in support, and what happens if you decide to leave?

Ask about the way in and about the way out. Who moves your course to the new platform and at whose expense — that is the difference between a week and a quarter. And the answer to “how do we take our materials with us if we leave” says a great deal about how the vendor treats its clients.

Red flag: help with the move is written up as a separate project with an estimate, and questions about data export get evasive answers.

How LMSka does it

Support is on Telegram, and real people answer — people who know the product. Migrating a course from another platform is done by our team, and with a plan of 6 months or more it is free: structure, lessons, materials, assignments and the student database. Training does not stop while it happens.

Migration terms

General advice

Five rules that save more than the checklist itself

They are not about features but about how to run the choice itself. This is exactly where people get it wrong most often.

Test it instead of reading comparisons

Reviews and rankings are written by people who have never worked on your course. Take two or three systems with a free period and build the same lesson with a homework assignment in each of them.

Half an hour of that work tells you more than a week of reading comparison tables: you see straight away where the interface resists and where you simply do what you set out to do.

Count the total cost of ownership

Add up everything that goes out around the training in a month: the platform subscription, the percentage of turnover, a separate website builder, a campaign service, the acquirer's fee and the hours of the person who stitches it all together by hand.

That figure, and not the price in the pricing table, is the real cost of the solution. Over six months the difference between the options usually turns out to be several times over.

Test the support before you buy

Send the same question to every system on your list and time who answers first and who answers to the point. After you have paid, the priority of your request is not going to change for the better.

Don't buy features to grow into

Pay for what you will use in the next six months. A powerful feature you will get round to in two years will by then either have changed or have turned up in the basic plan.

Ask about the way out, not just the way in

How do you take your materials and your student database with you if you decide to leave? It is an awkward question, and that is exactly why the answer tells you more about a vendor than the whole of the rest of the conversation.

Run the checklist on our platform

15 days of full access, no card needed. Build one course with a landing page, a demo lesson and payment, and check every one of the twelve items yourself.

Try it free Explore the features

Got a question about any of the items — message us on Telegram, real people answer.