# Academy LMS Lifetime Deal (LTD) & Review - Lifetime Deals > Academy LMS lifetime deal review: the AppSumo WordPress LMS from $59, why WordPress.org closed the free plugin two days before the relaunch, its security record, and what the six two-taco reviews say. _Source: https://thelifetimedeal.com/reviews/academy-lms-lifetime-deal_ Academy LMS is a WordPress plugin for building and selling online courses: lessons, quizzes, certificates, multiple instructors, and memberships, all inside your own WordPress site. It comes from Kodezen, a team based in Bangladesh, and it has been on WordPress.org since 2021. The AppSumo deal is **$59** for one site, up to $349 for two hundred. On price alone, that is cheap. The problem is what happened two days before the deal opened. The verdict? **Skip, for now.** Here is how it scores against [the way we review deals](/#how-we-review). **TL;DR.** Academy LMS is on AppSumo from $59 for one site to $349 for 200, with every feature on every tier. But WordPress.org closed the free core plugin on 11 October, pending a full review, and Pro depends on it. Add a long security record and six two-taco reviews. Skip until WordPress.org reopens it. > ## The Verdict > **Skip** 4.8/10 — A cheap LMS licence, sold two days after WordPress.org pulled the plugin it depends on. > > Academy LMS is a Skip for now. The pricing is good and the feature list is long, but WordPress.org closed the free core plugin on 11 October pending a full review, and Pro will not run without it. The plugin also has 20 listed vulnerabilities, including a critical one fixed in December. Wait for the closure to be resolved before buying a lifetime licence. **Academy LMS - License Tier 1** on AppSumo — $59 (was $99/yr) — [Open the deal](/go/academy-lms) ## What does Academy LMS actually do? Academy LMS turns a WordPress site into a course platform. You build courses from lessons, video, quizzes, and assignments, issue certificates, and drip content on a schedule. It supports multiple instructors with revenue sharing, a Udemy-style open marketplace, memberships, SCORM 1.2 and 2004 packages, Zoom and Google Meet sessions, and a one-click migration tool for LearnPress, LearnDash, Tutor LMS, LifterLMS, and MasterStudy. There is no checkout built into the LMS itself. You sell courses through Kodezen's free StoreEngine plugin, WooCommerce, SureCart, Easy Digital Downloads, or a membership plugin. The certificate builder needs Kodezen's free aBlocks plugin. The setup is a **free core plugin plus a Pro licence**. The deal sells the Pro licence. The free core has to be installed for Pro to work, and the vendor's own licence docs say so. ## Is the Academy LMS lifetime deal active? Yes, the AppSumo deal is live with no end date set. This is the third run, after 2023 and mid-2025. The buy box shows Tier 1 at **$59** against a **$1,428** anchor. The listing has **29 reviews** at a **4.28 rating**: 21 at five tacos, one at four, one at three, and six at two. The deal terms give lifetime access, all future plan updates, activation within 60 days, and upgrades while the deal is live. The founder confirmed on 15 October that every tier has the same features; only the site count changes. Refunds run for 60 days. ## What does the Academy LMS deal include? | | T1 · $59 | T2 · $129 | T3 · $249 | T4 · $349 | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Sites | 1 | 25 | 100 | 200 | | All Pro features and add-ons | yes | yes | yes | yes | | Vendor yearly price for the same site count | $99 | $149 | $199 | $229 | | Mapped plan | Individual | Business Plus | Agency | Agency | | StoreEngine Pro, Booster Pack, Kodezen Bundle | no | no | no | no | The add-ons in the Pro licence are included. Kodezen's other paid products are not. StoreEngine Pro, the Academy Booster Pack ($299 to $499), and the Kodezen Bundle ($999 and up) are separate purchases, and three of the critical reviews come from buyers who found that out after paying. ## How do the maths work out? There is no monthly plan to run this against. The vendor sells yearly licences only, so the comparison is against yearly renewals. [Academy LMS's pricing page](https://academylms.net/pricing/) sells one site at **$99 a year**, 25 sites at $149, 100 at $199, and 200 at $229. Tier 1 at $59 costs less than one year of the single-site plan and saves $238 over three years. Tier 2 at $129 costs less than one year of the 25-site plan. Tiers 3 and 4 pay back at the second-year renewal. Ignore the AppSumo anchors. $1,428 is twelve times $119, and no plan the vendor sells costs $119 a month or $1,428 a year. On paper this is a good deal. The next section is why the paper is not enough. ## What is the honest catch? There are three, and the first one decides the verdict. > **The honest catch** > > WordPress.org closed the free Academy LMS plugin on 11 October, two days before this AppSumo run opened. The [WordPress.org page](https://wordpress.org/plugins/academy/) says it "has been closed as of October 11, 2026 and is not available for download. This closure is temporary, pending a full review." No reason is given. Pro needs the free core, and the vendor now offers it as a download from GitHub instead. I found no mention of the closure in the founder's answers on the AppSumo listing. Until WordPress.org finishes its review, you would be installing an LMS outside the official directory's update channel. The second is the **security record**. [WPScan lists 20 vulnerabilities](https://wpscan.com/plugin/academy/) for the plugin. The worst, an unauthenticated account takeover rated 9.8, was fixed in version 3.5.1 last December. Nine more access-control bugs were published between June and October, and the vendor's changelog shows security fixes on 1, 8, 11, and 13 October. WordPress.org has not said whether these are why it closed the plugin, but an LMS stores student accounts, so this matters more than usual. The third is **the reviews and the replies**. The six two-taco reviews describe translations wiped on update, support asking buyers to switch off their cache or the plugin's own features as a workaround, course editing that felt unfinished, SCORM appearing to need another purchase, and heavy reliance on Elementor. Several founder replies argue with the reviewer, and one came eleven months after the review. The mobile app promised as included in June 2025 has not shipped, and there is no incoming webhook or enrolment API. ### Pros - $59 for one site against a $99 yearly plan; all features on every tier - Long feature list: SCORM, multi-instructor revenue share, drip, quizzes, certificates, Zoom - Built-in migration from LearnDash, Tutor LMS, LearnPress, LifterLMS, and MasterStudy - Free StoreEngine plugin can take payments without WooCommerce - Self-hosted, so student data stays on your server ### Cons - WordPress.org closed the free core on 11 October, pending a full review - 20 listed vulnerabilities, including a critical account takeover fixed in December - Six two-taco reviews out of 29, with combative or very late founder replies - Separate paid products (StoreEngine Pro, Booster Pack, Bundle) confuse buyers - No mobile app despite the 2025 promise, and no incoming enrolment API - Certificates and design lean on other Kodezen plugins and Elementor ## Who should buy Academy LMS? Not yet, for most people. If you already run Academy LMS from an earlier AppSumo run, keep it updated to the latest version and watch the WordPress.org page for the outcome of the review. If the closure is resolved and the plugin returns to the directory, the deal becomes worth a fresh look for course creators who want a self-hosted LMS with multi-instructor support at a one-time price. The listing would also need to still be live by then. ## Who should skip it? Skip it if you are choosing an LMS today for paying students. Pick a plugin that is in the WordPress.org directory and has a longer record. Skip it if you need SCORM-heavy corporate training, a mobile app, or enrolment from an outside store through an API. None of those are solid here. Skip it if you dislike being upsold. The line between what the licence covers and what Kodezen sells separately has tripped up several buyers. ## How does Academy LMS compare to Tutor LMS and LearnDash? Tutor LMS is the closest match: a free core on WordPress.org with 100,000+ installs, and Pro at $199 a year for one site or $499 lifetime. It costs more, and it has a much larger user base. LearnDash is the established premium option, now sold by Liquid Web from $399 a year. No free core, no lifetime licence. LifterLMS sits between them, with a free core and Pro from $199 a year. If you prefer a hosted course platform to a plugin, [Acadle](/reviews/acadle-lifetime-deal) and [Mastera](/reviews/mastera-lifetime-deal) are the hosted LMS deals we have reviewed. The [Education shelf](/category/education) tracks the rest. ## Frequently Asked Questions ## Frequently Asked Questions ### Is the Academy LMS lifetime deal still available? Yes. Academy LMS is live on AppSumo from $59 for one site to $349 for 200 sites, with a 60-day refund. We rate it Skip until WordPress.org resolves the closure of the free plugin. ### Why was Academy LMS removed from WordPress.org? WordPress.org has not given a reason. Its page says the plugin was closed on October 11, 2026 and that the closure is temporary, pending a full review. The vendor shipped several security fixes in the same weeks. ### Does Academy LMS Pro work without the free plugin? No. The vendor's licence documentation says the free Academy LMS core must be installed for Pro to work. With the WordPress.org listing closed, the vendor offers the core as a download from GitHub. ### Is StoreEngine Pro included in the Academy LMS deal? No. The founder confirmed StoreEngine is a separate product with its own Pro version. The free StoreEngine plugin can still take course payments, and WooCommerce, SureCart, and EDD also work. ### What would Academy LMS cost without the lifetime deal? The vendor sells yearly licences only: $99 for 1 site, $129 for 10, $149 for 25, $199 for 100, and $229 for 200. Every plan includes all features. ## Is it worth buying? Academy LMS is a **Skip**, for now. The deal itself is priced well. One site for $59 against a $99 yearly plan, every feature on every tier, and a migration tool for every major WordPress LMS. But a lifetime licence is a bet on the plugin's future, and right now its free core is out of the WordPress.org directory, pending a review nobody has explained. Combine that with a long vulnerability list and a review section where a fifth of buyers gave two tacos, and the safer move is to wait. If WordPress.org reopens it and the deal is still live, we will re-review it.