On the heels of our big announcement last month of the iThemes acquisition of Restrict Content Pro, we are excited to announce the acquisition of WPComplete, an easy-to-use, interactive course completion plugin for WordPress.
What is WPComplete?
WPComplete is a WordPress course completion plugin that helps your students become more successful with online courses by helping them track their progress.In a nutshell, WPComplete is the functionality most online course plugins are missing. By giving students a way to track their progress through online courses, they’re more likely to finish. That means happier and more accomplished students (or customers).
Out of the box, WPComplete works with most WordPress course and membership plugins, requires zero programming and can be connected to your mailing list software (think: automatically email students when they finish a lesson or entire course). You can also use WPComplete with any WordPress theme or page/post type.
With WPComplete, course progress is tracked in two ways: For the student, they can see what lessons they’ve finished and what’s left to do. For the teacher, you can see how far each student has progressed and which lessons are the most or least completed.
The Backstory: Why iThemes is the New Home of WPComplete
Created by Paul Jarvis and Zack Gilbert, WPComplete was built out of a necessity for their own online course projects. Over the last 18 months, WPComplete has seen substantial growth.
Paul and Zack believe a key to their success has been their ability to keep their team small and manageable. The growth of WPComplete has presented a number of challenges for a team of two people, so the decision was made to start looking towards alternative ownership solutions that could continue to grow WPComplete and provide it with a stable team. iThemes is a perfect fit.
Why We Believe WPComplete is the Right Fit for iThemes
WPComplete is an excellent plugin that allows you to create a simple online course without all the extra complexity of a full-blown learning management system. As a stand-alone product, it fits well with our current product lineup and we couldn’t be more excited to bring it into the family.
Additionally, pairing WPComplete with a WordPress membership plugin like Restrict Content Pro, the acquisition was an easy choice for us to make. The two plugins work great hand-in-hand and are complementary to each other, so adding WPComplete to our product lineup is a win-win for our customers. Adding WPComplete to the iThemes product lineup also allows us to move more quickly on some plans we have for Restrict Content Pro.
What Does This Mean For Current WPComplete Customers?
Aside from an ownership change, current customers should expect “business as usual.” Existing WPComplete customers won’t notice many changes—you can expect to continue to use the plugin that you love without any interruptions.
We’re currently working through the transition period, so for a while you will continue to hear from Paul and Zack as we get support and development up to speed. On top of that, we’ve added a few team members from the iThemes team that will be working on WPComplete.
As we look ahead to the future of WPComplete, you’ll start to see updates on a more frequent basis and a number of enhancements we’ll be sharing with you in the coming weeks.
What Does This Mean for iThemes Plugin Suite and Toolkit Members?
One of the reasons our Plugin Suite and Toolkit memberships are such a great investment is that your membership automatically gets you access to all new plugins we build (or acquire!) through your membership year, so we’re proud to deliver on that promise to you today. What’s even better? This is one way to get an unlimited site license for WPComplete.
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What’s Coming Next for WPComplete?
We have a couple of ideas of where we can start, but we’re listening. Do you have an idea? Maybe there’s a feature you are missing that you’d like to see included in WPComplete. Leave a comment below. We’d love to start having conversations with WPComplete users.
Wrapping Up: Let’s Go Far Together
I want to thank Paul and Zack as they’ve built an incredible product and allowed us to continue it on its path. I also want to thank you, the customers. Without your support, WPComplete would not be where it is today.
Looking ahead, we know the future is bright. We’re more excited than ever to continue to innovate, lead, grow and help you do more with WordPress.
Perfect for course creators and membership sites, the Course Creator bundle features all the necessary plugins you need to create your new course or membership site.
Matt Danner
General Manager
iThemes
Taking WordPress Further Since 2008
Questions?
Where can I purchase WPComplete?
WPComplete can still be purchased at wpcomplete.co. You can also purchase it as part of our Plugin Suite or Toolkit bundles that we offer on iThemes.com.
How well does this work with existing iThemes Products?
WPComplete works great with Restrict Content Pro. In fact, Paul has created several courses that are built with RCP and WPComplete. As for other iThemes plugins, it should continue to work as expected.
Where do I get support for WPComplete?
Plugin Suite and Toolkit customers can continue to get support for WPComplete like all other iThemes products, from the iThemes Help Desk. WPComplete customers can get help from the iThemes Help Desk or wpcomplete.co/support.
More questions?
If you have additional questions, our account services team is ready to help. Contact us today.
Matt is a developer and overall nerd. He rides motorcycles, turns wood, and conjures portmanteaus. Matt began working at iThemes in May of 2009. You can usually find Matt judging drinking coffee. If you are bringing him a cup, make sure it’s black. That frilly crap isn’t for him.
I like the course completion functionality. Is there a way to issue a course completion certificate? If not, would you consider adding this functionality or provide a way to do so?
It would be absolutely amazing if you could do video on & all its functions.