What LearnPress publishes
On 30 October 2026, LearnPress 4.4.13 on WordPress.org listed Requires WordPress 6.0 or higher and Requires PHP 7.4 or higher, with 70,000+ active installations. The listing states no hosting requirements, and LearnPress's installation documentation covers installing the plugin and running the setup wizard, which creates pages such as Courses, Checkout and Profile, without listing PHP, database or memory needs.
Those minimums are below what WordPress itself recommends. WordPress.org recommends PHP 8.3 or greater, MySQL 8.0 or MariaDB 10.11 or greater and HTTPS, and says PHP 7.4 is past end of life. A course site takes payments and stores learner data, so use the WordPress.org recommendation.
| Item | LearnPress listing | Use instead |
|---|---|---|
| WordPress | 6.0 or higher | Current WordPress release |
| PHP | 7.4 or higher | 8.3 or greater (WordPress.org recommendation) |
| Database | Not stated | MySQL 8.0+ or MariaDB 10.11+ |
| HTTPS | Not stated | Recommended by WordPress.org; essential for checkout and logins |
| Memory | Not stated | Check plugins you add; WooCommerce asks for 256 MB |
Add-ons that raise resource needs
LearnPress itself is free. Its listing names free add-ons such as Course Review, Prerequisites, bbPress and BuddyPress integrations, and premium add-ons including WooCommerce and Stripe payments, Memberships and Subscriptions, Paid Memberships Pro, Assignments, Gradebook, Certificates, Content Drip, H5P and Live Course via Zoom or Google Meet. The pricing page lists the Pro Bundle at $299 with 12 months of updates, renewing at $209.30, and single add-ons from $19.
Not every add-on costs the same in server terms. The ones that bring in a second large plugin, run scheduled work or keep learners logged in and active are the ones to plan for.
| Add-on type | Why it adds load | Hosting implication |
|---|---|---|
| WooCommerce payments | Adds WooCommerce, which asks for PHP 8.3+, MySQL 8.0+ or MariaDB 10.6+ and 256 MB memory | Check the memory limit and cart and checkout cache exclusions |
| Memberships and subscriptions | Recurring billing relies on scheduled tasks | Replace WP-Cron with a real cron job |
| Content Drip | Releases lessons on a schedule | Same: a reliable cron |
| BuddyPress or bbPress | Community pages are personalized and uncached for members | More PHP capacity for logged-in traffic |
| Assignments and H5P | File uploads and interactive content | Disk space and upload limits |
| Live Course (Zoom or Google Meet) | Video runs on the meeting service, but many learners arrive at once | Capacity for a spike at session start |
Sizing by concurrent learners
Neither LearnPress nor most hosts publish sizing by student count, so this table is a planning assumption, not a vendor figure. It uses concurrent learners, people logged in and clicking at the same moment, because logged-in pages bypass page cache. Kinsta's documentation explains the mechanism: each PHP thread handles one request at a time and extra requests wait. SiteGround's plan figures are its own monthly visit estimates.
| Situation | Concurrent learners (assumption) | Starting point | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Building courses, pre-launch | Under 5 | SiteGround StartUp: 1 site, ~10,000 visits, staging included | Lowest cost while there are no paying learners |
| Self-paced course, steady sales | 5 to 20 | SiteGround GrowBig: ~100,000 visits, 50 GB | More resources and space for media and backups |
| Cohorts, scheduled quizzes, community add-ons | 20 to 50 | SiteGround GoGeek (~400,000 visits) or a plan with published PHP worker counts | Many uncached requests at the same moment |
| Large cohorts or live sessions | 50+ | Cloud or VPS where you can see CPU and RAM use | Need measurable headroom and the ability to scale |
Setup steps that matter on any host
Run the LearnPress setup wizard on a staging copy first, so the generated pages get the slugs you want before you exclude them from cache. Exclude the Courses, Checkout and Profile pages, and any lesson or quiz paths, from page cache. On SiteGround, Dynamic Caching already bypasses cache when a wordpress_logged_in_ cookie is present, and you add further exclusions in Speed Optimizer with wildcards.
If you sell subscriptions or drip content, replace WP-Cron, which only runs on page loads, with a real cron job; SiteGround documents doing this in Site Tools, Devs, Cron Jobs with a 30-minute interval. If you send enrollment and receipt emails from the host, note SiteGround's limit of 400 emails per hour on StartUp and GrowBig.
- Select PHP 8.3 or newer in the host panel.
- Run the LearnPress wizard on staging and settle page slugs.
- Exclude Courses, Checkout, Profile and lesson or quiz paths from cache.
- Set up a real cron job before enabling subscriptions or drip.
- Send transactional email through an SMTP service before a launch.
- Test as two logged-in learners to confirm progress does not leak between accounts.
Worked example: two plans for the same course
A language teacher sells one self-paced course with the free LearnPress plugin and the Stripe add-on, expecting at most 10 learners online at once. SiteGround GrowBig at $4.99 a month on the first 12-month invoice covers it, with the renewal at $29.99 a month to budget for year two.
A year later she adds weekly live classes via the Live Course add-on and a BuddyPress community, and 40 learners log in at the start of each class. Both changes add logged-in, uncached traffic at the same minute. That is the point to move to GoGeek or to a plan that publishes PHP worker counts, and to measure response times during a class before upgrading further.
Questions before you decide
What are LearnPress's minimum requirements?
The WordPress.org listing for LearnPress 4.4.13 requires WordPress 6.0 or higher and PHP 7.4 or higher. LearnPress's documentation does not publish database, memory or hosting requirements.
Should I run LearnPress on PHP 7.4?
No. LearnPress allows it, but WordPress.org recommends PHP 8.3 or greater and says PHP 7.4 is past end of life and may expose a site to security vulnerabilities.
Is shared hosting enough for LearnPress?
For a self-paced course with few learners online at once, a plan like SiteGround GrowBig is a reasonable start. Live classes, community add-ons and overlapping cohorts raise logged-in traffic and are the signal to size up.
Sources & verification
Product details and prices can change. Check the linked provider before buying.
- WordPress.org Plugins: LearnPress Accessed 30 Oct 2026
- LearnPress Docs: Installation Accessed 30 Oct 2026
- LearnPress: Pricing plans Accessed 30 Oct 2026
- WordPress.org: Requirements Accessed 30 Oct 2026
- WooCommerce Docs: Server requirements Accessed 30 Oct 2026
- SiteGround: Shared hosting features Accessed 30 Oct 2026
- SiteGround KB: Dynamic Caching configuration Accessed 30 Oct 2026
- SiteGround Tutorials: Speed Optimizer caching Accessed 30 Oct 2026
- SiteGround Tutorials: Replace WP-Cron with a real cron job Accessed 30 Oct 2026
- SiteGround KB: Acceptable use of SiteGround's email service Accessed 30 Oct 2026
- Kinsta Docs: PHP settings and PHP threads Accessed 30 Oct 2026
- WordPress Plugin Handbook: Cron Accessed 30 Oct 2026
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