Learning
LearnDash and WordPress LMS architecture for training organizations: built to scale, integrate with your SIS, and stay stable when it matters.
A learning platform is the system your organization’s whole training capability runs on, which means it has to keep working long after the person who set it up has moved on. I build LearnDash and WordPress LMS architecture for training organizations to do exactly that: scale with enrolment, integrate with your SIS, and stay stable when it matters most.
$275/hr CAD · always fully scoped
The problem this fixes.
The LMS was stood up two platform generations ago. The course architecture doesn’t match how the team actually designs learning. The SIS connection breaks twice a year and nobody knows why. Learner data is split across three systems. The person who built it left eighteen months ago.
Active-learner attendance for M.L. Campbell’s distributor training platform grew ten-fold after a full architecture rebuild. The platform cost a fraction of the proprietary system it replaced. That’s the kind of outcome this work produces when the underlying problem is addressed, not patched.
What this work changes.
An LMS your team can administer and your IT department can support, not a system that only one person understands. Learner data that reaches the SIS reliably and doesn’t require a manual fix twice a year. Course architecture that matches how your curriculum is actually designed, not how it was easiest to build at the time.
For M.L. Campbell, active learner attendance in the distributor training program grew ten-fold after a full architecture rebuild. The platform cost a fraction of the proprietary system it replaced. That’s the kind of outcome this work produces when the underlying architecture is addressed rather than patched.
What I build.
LMS architecture and deployment
LearnDash, Sensei, and LifterLMS deployment built for your learner count, role structure, and access model. Course architecture, group management, prerequisite logic, certificate systems, and the progress tracking that works under load.
SIS integration
Student information system connections that stay connected: enrollment sync, learner provisioning, and progress reporting back to the SIS. Built with the idempotency that makes these integrations reliable rather than fragile.
Curriculum development
Online course content, ILT session design, participant workbooks, facilitator guides, and slide decks built to Kirkpatrick Level 2 and 3 outcomes. The instructional design work, not just the platform the content sits on.
Team training delivery
Onsite and remote training for editorial teams, LMS administrators, and WordPress operators. $1,495/day for private team sessions. The goal is independent operation after handoff. Training is how that actually happens.
xAPI / SCORM reporting
xAPI (Tin Can) and SCORM integration for organizations with external reporting requirements. LRS configuration, completion data to HR systems, and the troubleshooting that keeps these connections from silently breaking.
WP-LMS diagnostic review: $4,950
Seven-day diagnostic of your current LMS architecture. What’s fragile, what’s misaligned with how learners move through the system, and what the right next steps are. Written report and a 60-minute debrief call. Fee applies toward implementation if you proceed within 90 days.
Organizations I’ve built for.
- M.L. Campbell / Sherwin-Williams: distributor training platform (WordPress + LearnDash) for a national sales network. Active learner attendance grew ten-fold over the platform’s life.
- Yorkville University: learning technology delivery
- Le Château: Moodle-driven staff training for a national retail operation (2016–2020)
Who this is for.
L&D managers, e-learning coordinators, and training directors at organizations running WordPress-based learning platforms, or organizations evaluating whether to build one. If your current LMS is two generations old, held together by a contractor who’s no longer around, or disconnected from your student information system, the problems are fixable and the fix is usually architectural.
Schools, universities, training centers, and enterprise L&D teams with an active learner base. If you’re running a national distributor training program, a trades certification track, or an online professional development platform, the work starts with understanding what your learners need to be able to do, and builds backward from there.
For organizations that also operate an editorial publishing platform alongside the LMS: academic journals, association content hubs, corporate newsrooms. The publishing infrastructure service covers the content platform layer.
If you need platform-agnostic instructional design rather than a WordPress LMS build, that’s available as a standalone service. ask in the call.
How engagements work.
The call covers what exists: the LMS configuration, the learner base, the SIS or HR system it needs to connect to, and what’s been failing. If you’ve had a contractor who built the platform and is no longer available, or a system that works but nobody fully understands, that’s the starting point, not a problem.
Scoping produces a fixed-price brief with deliverables defined before the engagement starts. Architecture decisions are documented in plain language so your L&D team and IT department both understand what was built. No black-box implementations that only the consultant can maintain.
Where the work includes instructional design alongside the technical build, curriculum and platform architecture happen together, not in sequence. The platform should match how your instructors want to teach, not the other way around.
Questions.
- Does the engagement include instructional design as well as the technical build?
Yes, instructional design is included. Curriculum architecture and platform configuration happen together, not in sequence, because the platform needs to match how your instructors want to teach. The Masters in Learning and Teaching grounds that ID work; the engineering makes the platform function.
- Can you integrate with our SIS or HR system?
Yes. SIS and HRIS integration is a core specialization; the M.L. Campbell engagement involved full integration of the LearnDash platform with their distributor and sales management systems. The approach depends on what your system exposes (REST API, CSV export, webhook, or file-based) and what the platform needs to consume.
- Which LMS platforms do you work with?
LearnDash is the primary platform, where my work covers architecture and API integration. Sensei (Automattic) and LifterLMS are also in scope for vendor selection and migration conversations. If you’re evaluating platforms, the call starts with what your learners need to do and works back to which platform fits best.
- How does pricing work for LMS builds?
Fixed-price after a scoping call. The call surfaces what exists, what the learner base needs, and what integration requirements look like. From there, the engagement is scoped with defined deliverables and a price set before work starts. The hourly rate for time-and-materials work is $275/hr CAD.
How this connects to the rest of the system
- A newsroom and an LMS are the same infrastructure problem wearing different clothes, both content systems built to outlast the team that set them up, which is why the publishing work and the learning work share an architecture.
- A course nobody can find teaches nobody, so discoverability is part of the platform itself, and that is what Technical SEO builds in.
- If AI is grading, recommending, or tutoring inside the platform, that use needs to be auditable before it goes anywhere near a learner, which is the accountability layer AI Operations puts in place.
Let’s talk about your learning infrastructure.
20 minutes. Tell me what’s fragile, what’s breaking, or what you’re trying to build. I’ll tell you whether it’s in my lane and what the first move looks like.
What I do not take on: learning technology implementations outside WordPress and LearnDash, curriculum development without access to a subject-matter expert, or projects where the goal is credential issuance rather than real behaviour change. If the course design starts from a compliance checkbox rather than a learning outcome, that is outside the kind of work I do well.
Training operation running on a fragile LMS?
The M.L. Campbell distributor training platform started as a disconnected system with manual cohort management. It’s now a LearnDash platform handling 1,200+ enrolled learners, SIS sync, and automated certification, run entirely by the internal team.
Training organizations I’ve built for.
Rates
$275/hr CAD
development & advisory
$4,950 CAD
WP-LMS review
$1,495/day CAD
onsite training
Project work is quoted as a fixed price after a scoping call, and open-enrollment training starts at $200 per student. Read why one rate everywhere.
Ready to audit or rebuild your LMS architecture?
A WP-LMS review covers course architecture, data integrity, SIS integration health, and reporting reliability. Fixed scope, fixed price at $4,950 CAD. Tell me what’s breaking.
Book a 20-minute discovery callRelated: Publishing infrastructure · WordPress for brands · Site audit