Build an Online Course Marketplace With One Starter Recipe
“Can I set up affiliates, instructor royalties, and a monthly revenue share for my course platform in one go?”
This starter bundle gives an online course marketplace its full compensation stack on WordPress, pairing an affiliate program for student acquisition with instructor royalties on direct course sales and a monthly revenue share on subscription income.
What's Included
Siren EssentialsCourse Affiliate Program
Instructor Royalty Program
Instructor Revenue Share
Optional add-ons
Turn these on in the setup. Each installs with the recipe and can raise the plan it needs.
- Reusable collaborator group Siren Plus
Reviews
Trusted by Teams Running Real Incentive Programs
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Siren is extremely flexible, and it opens up a whole world of possibilities in WordPress based collaboration. I recommend you try it out for yourself, and if you have any questions, the support is excellent.
Armando J.
Principal Software Engineer, PerezCarreno & Coindreau
Siren is so much more than an affiliate plugin with its multiple rewards structures. There's nothing like it on the market. Period.
Justin Ferriman
Founder, BrightGrowth
Finally, a WordPress solution that allows you to turn your learning site into a Netflix, or Udemy clone. Siren is the future of affiliate marketing and partnerships for the eLearning and WordPress industries.
Chris Badgett
CEO, LifterLMS
Siren Affiliates plugin has all the features I need, and the ones that I didn't know I needed!
It lets me track traditional affiliate referrals, but also, allows me to track revenue shares with my course co-creators.
And, one of the most important things I like most about Siren isn't a feature, but it's the top notch support provided by the development team!
I highly recommend Siren from the support to the plugin features.
Thank you for creating this, and at an affordable price.
Darren Mullen
Smart Workflow Guru
I feel support actually reads and understands what is being asked, which is one of my biggest frustrations with most support teams in the plugin's business. Most support replies are scripted and not relevant to what's being asked. This is not what happens with Siren.
Marco Almeida
Founder, PT Woo Plugins
These guys are the best. The program is simple and easy to use and their support is very quick to answer questions.
Adam McGee
Founder, Lemon Head Design
Siren is fantastic. Intuitive, powerful, well-supported. I'm thrilled I switched from AffiliateWP.
Corey Maass
Creator, Developer
I am thrilled to be a new Siren customer. Today, I created the first Affiliate Program for my LifterLMS site. This is an excellent solution for compensating content creators, and I can think of a couple of other use cases that I can't wait to try out! I highly recommend this product.
Robert Mascatello
Founder
I purchased Siren Affiliates and had a one-on-one with Alex. I was really impressed with the product and all the features it has. He was really thorough. I'd definitely recommend this plugin to anyone who needs to launch an affiliate program.
Anita
Web Designer
Siren Affiliate Manager is an exceptionally well-designed and thoughtfully built WordPress plugin. If you're running an affiliate program with multiple affiliates, different transaction types, or custom engagement triggers that need to generate commissions, this tool gives you serious power and flexibility. What really sets it apart, though, is the developer. Alex has been incredibly helpful and willing to customize the plugin for my specific use case. More importantly, he was focused on creating real value for my business - not just billing hours. That kind of mindset is rare. The plugin is robust, flexible, and clearly built by someone who understands real-world affiliate program complexity. I can't recommend Siren highly enough.
Julian Foster
Digital Strategist
Online Course Platform Starter Snapshot
A quick overview of who this program is for, what it tracks, which partners it rewards, and how Siren helps you manage it.
| Best for | LifterLMS and LearnDash sites running multi-instructor marketplaces |
|---|---|
| Main goal | Pay promoters and instructors automatically from every revenue stream |
| Partners involved | Affiliates who refer students and instructors who create courses |
| Actions tracked | Referral link visits, course sales, course and lesson completions |
| Rewards supported | Percentage commissions, instructor royalties, performance-weighted pool shares |
| Starting point | Start free with Siren Lite. This program runs on Siren Essentials ($229/yr). |
What This Recipe Does
This recipe creates a complete course marketplace monetization system with three components:
- Course Affiliate Program - 30% commission to affiliates who refer students, tracked via referral link visits
- Instructor Royalty Program - 50% royalty to instructors when their courses sell, tracked via product ownership bindings
- Instructor Revenue Share - Monthly distributor that splits subscription revenue among instructors based on student engagement with their courses
The two programs are deliberately not grouped. When a student buys a course, the affiliate who referred them earns 30% and the instructor who created the course earns 50%. Both fire on the same transaction because they reward different people for different roles.
The distributor adds a recurring revenue layer. Each month, it pools a percentage of subscription income and distributes it to instructors proportionally based on how much student engagement their courses generated. Instructors whose courses see more completions earn a larger share.
This is the recipe that turns a WordPress site with LifterLMS or LearnDash into a full course marketplace.
Building a Udemy-Style Platform on WordPress
If you’ve ever wanted to run your own version of Udemy, this recipe is the Siren half of that stack. Pair it with LifterLMS or LearnDash for course delivery and WooCommerce for payments, and you’ve got the core of a multi-instructor education marketplace: instructors publish and sell their own courses, affiliates bring in new students, and the platform earns a cut of every transaction. The three programs bundled here handle the compensation math so you don’t have to track sales by hand or calculate instructor royalties in a spreadsheet.
The video above walks through a full buildout of this pattern using LifterLMS, but the same approach works with LearnDash. It covers LMS setup, Siren installation, and the three programs this recipe creates in one step. It’s a useful reference if you want to see how the pieces fit together in a real WordPress site.
Who It’s For
- LifterLMS and LearnDash site owners building a multi-instructor marketplace where affiliates acquire students and instructors create content
- Education entrepreneurs launching a Udemy-style or Teachable-style platform on WordPress
- Platform operators who want automated compensation for both content creators and promoters without manual payouts
How It Works
The recipe has three pieces that operate simultaneously, each handling a different part of the marketplace economy.
The Course Affiliate Program handles student acquisition. Affiliates share referral links to drive traffic to the platform. When a referred visitor purchases a course, the affiliate earns 30% of the transaction. Attribution uses newestBindingWins, so the most recent referral determines who gets credit. This is the growth engine of the marketplace.
The Instructor Royalty Program handles creator compensation on direct sales. When an instructor is bound to a course in Siren and that course sells, the instructor earns 50% of the line item total. This happens automatically based on product ownership, with no referral link needed. The instructor simply needs to be associated with their courses in Siren. On a single sale, both the affiliate and the instructor earn because the programs are independent.
The Instructor Revenue Share handles subscription income. Many course platforms sell access through monthly or annual memberships rather than individual course purchases. The distributor pools a percentage of that subscription revenue each month and distributes it to instructors based on student engagement. The performanceSharedPool resolver means each instructor’s share is proportional to their engagement score relative to all other instructors.
The distributor ships ready to run. It comes with two metric tracking events, courseCompleted at 10 points and lessonCompleted at 1 point, a model that weights full course completions heavily and rewards instructors who create courses that students finish, and the pool is preset to 10% of qualifying revenue. The system runs on autopilot from the moment you apply it. Siren tracks completions throughout the month, builds each instructor’s score, and distributes the accumulated pool on the first of the following month. Adjust the pool percentage or reweight the metrics in the Siren admin, and configure the commission pool filters to include only subscription revenue if you want to keep one-time course purchases out of the pool.
The combined economics are straightforward. Direct course sales pay the affiliate (30%) and the instructor (50%), leaving 20% as platform revenue. Subscription revenue pays instructors monthly through the performance pool. You control the pool percentage, so your margin on subscription income is whatever you choose.
How the Online Course Platform Starter Works in Siren
- 1
Start with the full marketplace stack
One recipe creates the 30% affiliate program, the 50% instructor royalty program, and the monthly revenue share distributor together. The two programs deliberately stay ungrouped, so one sale can pay both the affiliate who referred the student and the instructor who built the course.
- 2
Define partners and eligibility
Affiliates enroll to promote the platform, while instructors get tied to their own courses through product ownership bindings. One person can hold both roles, earning royalties on their own courses and commissions for referring students to everyone else's.
- 3
Set tracking rules
Affiliate credit follows referral link visits, with the most recent referral winning attribution. Royalties need no link at all, since they fire on product ownership when a bound instructor's course sells. The monthly pool ships scoring student engagement so a finished course counts ten times as much as a single completed lesson, which you can reweight in the Siren admin.
- 4
Customize rewards
Both percentages are adjustable when you apply the recipe. At the defaults, a direct course sale pays the affiliate 30% and the instructor 50%, leaving 20% with the platform, and the instructor pool ships at 10% of subscription revenue, which you can change anytime.
- 5
Manage approvals and payouts
Direct-sale earnings accrue per transaction, while the distributor pays on the first of each month in proportion to each instructor's engagement score. You review and approve everything in the Siren admin before money goes out.
Everything You Need to Build and Manage a Online Course Platform Starter
Siren gives you the tools to create the program structure, track the right actions, and reward the right partners, all from one flexible incentive program system.
Create
- Prebuilt Online Course Platform Starter recipe
- Custom program builder
- Program-specific rules
- Partner eligibility rules
- Product and category filters
- Multiple program support
Track and Manage
- Referral link tracking
- Coupon tracking
- Product or category tracking
- Lead, form, or signup tracking
- Partner dashboard
- Payout management
Reward
- Percentage commissions
- Flat-rate rewards
- Recurring commissions
- Royalties or revenue share
- Tiered rewards
- Performance bonuses
Why Use Siren for a Online Course Platform Starter?
| Traditional course marketplace software tools | Siren |
|---|---|
| Built for one program type | Built for multiple incentive programs |
| Often limited to one reward model | Supports commissions, bounties, royalties, revenue share, and bonuses |
| Rewards usually tied to one action | Rewards can be tied to different measurable actions |
| Harder to manage overlapping programs | Program groups and rules control how programs interact |
| May require multiple tools as you grow | Supports different partner programs from one system |
Hosted course marketplace software sets the fee split for you and owns the storefront. Run the marketplace on your own WordPress LMS instead and Siren covers the incentive layer, keeping the affiliate, royalty, and revenue share programs adjustable as the marketplace economics change.
Connect Your Online Course Platform Starter to the Tools You Already Use
Siren works as the incentive layer behind the systems where partner-driven actions happen: your website, checkout, ecommerce store, forms, LMS platform, subscription flow, or custom workflow.
Start Your Online Course Platform Starter for Free
Start with Siren Lite for free to learn the basics, then run this online course marketplace on Siren Essentials ($229/yr) when you are ready for the full structure. No upfront commitment.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an online course marketplace?
An online course marketplace is a platform where multiple instructors publish and sell their own courses, the way Udemy or Skillshare do. The platform handles delivery and payments, keeps a cut of each sale, and compensates instructors for the rest. Affiliates often sit alongside that, earning commissions for the students they bring in.
How does an online course marketplace work?
Instructors create courses, students buy them or subscribe, and the platform splits the revenue among everyone involved. With this recipe, a direct sale pays 30% to the referring affiliate, 50% to the instructor, and leaves 20% for the platform. Subscription income is pooled monthly and shared among instructors based on how much of their content students actually complete.
Why are the affiliate and royalty programs not in a group?
Because they compensate different people for different contributions. The affiliate drove the student to the platform. The instructor created the course. Both deserve to be paid from the same sale, so the programs stack intentionally.
Does the distributor work the moment I apply the recipe?
Yes. The distributor ships with a working default scoring setup: metric tracking events of courseCompleted at 10 points and lessonCompleted at 1 point, which weights full course completions ten times more than individual lesson completions, plus a monthly pool preset to 10% of qualifying revenue. You can adjust any of it in the Siren admin, reweighting the metrics, changing the pool percentage, or configuring commission pool filters to include only subscription revenue and keep one-time course purchases separate.
Can an instructor also be an affiliate?
Yes. A collaborator can be enrolled in both programs. They would earn royalties on sales of their own courses and affiliate commissions for referring students to other instructors' courses. The programs evaluate independently.
What if I do not sell subscriptions?
The distributor works with any revenue stream. If you sell courses individually rather than through memberships, configure the commission pool filters to include those transactions instead. The performance-weighted distribution model works regardless of how students pay.
Related Programs You Can Build With Siren
Instructor Revenue Share
Monthly subscription revenue split among instructors by student engagement.
1 distributor
Course Creator Royalty Program
Instructors earn a royalty when their courses sell.
1 program
Course Affiliate Program
Affiliates earn 30% on every course enrollment they refer.
1 program
Marketplace Vendor Commission
The revenue-share engine for any multi-vendor marketplace.
1 program
Related Documentation
Build Your Online Course Platform Starter With Siren
Start with a prebuilt recipe, customize the rules around your business, and manage partners, tracking, rewards, and payouts from one place.