Quick answer
Yes — Lessonforge is a one-time-purchase alternative to Teachable. It costs $49 once, while Teachable runs $39+/mo — about $468 per year, every year. Self-hosted LMS with modules, quizzes, progress tracking and PDF certificates — payments run through your own Stripe. It is for people who want the job done on their own hardware without a renewal date — not for teams that live inside Teachable's ecosystem.
The verdict
Switch to Lessonforge if you are an individual or small team paying Teachable $39+/mo for work your own machine can do. Selling one course to a handful of students on Teachable Basic costs more in a single month than Lessonforge costs once.
Stay with Teachable if your workflow depends on its integrations, you need enterprise features (SSO, admin controls, SLAs), or your team is large enough that per-seat collaboration tooling is worth the bill. Lessonforge does not try to replicate those.
Head to head
| Lessonforge | Teachable | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $49 once | $39+/mo |
| Transaction fee | 0% (Stripe direct) | 5% on Basic |
| Courses / modules / lessons | Unlimited | Plan-limited |
| Certificates | Yes | Pro plan only |
| Custom domain | Yes | Paid plans |
| Your data | Your SQLite file | Their cloud |
| Self-hosted | Yes | No |
| 5-year cost | $49 | $2,340 |
Where Teachable still wins
- Ecosystem and integrations. Established tools accumulate years of third-party integrations, templates and add-ons. If your workflow is wired into Teachable's ecosystem, switching means rebuilding that plumbing — a real cost.
- Team and enterprise features. Shared workspaces, granular permissions, SSO, audit logs and a vendor to call when something breaks — that is what the higher subscription tiers actually buy, and a pay-once app does not come with it.
- Familiarity and hiring. Teachable is the name people already know. Onboarding a team onto a tool nobody has used before takes time the subscription never charges for.
Where Lessonforge wins
- Price, permanently. $49 once versus $468/yr for as long as you use it. There is no renewal, no seat count and no tier gate.
- Courses, modules, lessons. Video via YouTube/Vimeo embed or self-hosted upload up to 500MB, rich-text lessons, downloadable attachments, reorder everything.
- Three enrollment paths. Add a student manually, let them self-serve with a per-course access code, or take paid enrollment via your own Stripe Checkout.
- Progress and certificates. Mark-complete per lesson with a live completion percentage, and a PDF certificate generated the moment a student hits 100%.
The math
Selling one course to a handful of students on Teachable Basic costs more in a single month than Lessonforge costs once.
- After 1 year: Lessonforge has cost you $49 total — Teachable has cost $468.
- After 3 years: Lessonforge is still $49 — the subscription is at $1,404.
- After 5 years: Lessonforge is still $49 — the subscription is at $2,340.
Common questions
Is it really free on GitHub?
Yes — Lessonforge is MIT-licensed at github.com/bensblueprints/course-builder-lms-mvp. The $49 buys the packaged installer and 1-click setup; building from source is free.
Where does my course data live?
In a SQLite file plus an uploads folder on your own server or machine. Nothing is uploaded to us.
Do you take a cut of my sales?
No. Payments go through your own Stripe account at Stripe's standard rates, and Lessonforge takes 0%. It's $49 once, no renewal.
Try Lessonforge — $49, one time
Or get Lessonforge plus every other app in the suite: the OneTimeSuite bundle is currently $97, one time.