If you are using LearnDash then there is a good chance that you are selling your courses.

One question that comes up from time-to-time from people selling courses is how to add an affiliate program so others can earn a commission for selling the courses as well.

As with anything in the WordPress space there are many paths to the same destination.

I’ll discuss one of those paths but by no means should it be understood as the “only” way.

The method I will be mentioning is one that we’ve seen others implement with success as it is pretty straight-forward.

Step 1: Create Your Courses

This one goes without saying, but I think it’s worth mentioning for the simple fact that it is easy to get distracted with the sales and marketing stuff.

Remember that your course has to deliver on the promises you make so take the time to create a course worth purchasing.

Step 2: Install a Shopping Cart

Now that you have your courses, you’ll need to decide on a way to sell them.

Lucky for you LearnDash comes with many options for selling courses.

If you’re thinking about implementing an affiliate program, then it’s best if you choose a shopping cart for your course sales. For this example, I’ll recommend Easy Digital Downloads (EDD).

Using the EDD plugin you can associate your LearnDash courses to EDD products. You can create course bundles, discount codes, and a whole slew of other features with their add-ons.

When the course is purchased, the user is enrolled into the associated course(s).

While there are a bunch of EDD add-ons to explore, the one you’ll absolutely need is…

Step 3: Install AffiliateWP

AffiliateWP is awesome.

It ties into EDD perfectly as it’s created by the same folks that are behind EDD.

But if you’re a fan of WooCommerce or iThemes Exchange you can use those too.

Where AffiliateWP excels is in the affiliate program management. There are multiple options on commission tracking and revenue splitting. It evens makes creating an affiliate dashboard as simple as adding a shortcode.

That’s it!

Now all you have to do is recruit affiliates and they’ll have the resources and reporting they need to increase your course sales.