If you run Moodle or Totara and want to charge for training, you have more options than ever. Some are free. Some take an afternoon to set up. Some are full commerce platforms. The right choice depends less on the software and more on who is buying, how they pay, and how many people they are buying for.
This guide compares the main options side by side and is honest about where each one stops. That includes Kano Store, our own product. If a free option covers what you need, you should use it.
Start with how your buyers buy
Before comparing tools, answer these questions. Each “yes” narrows the field.
- Do learners buy more than one course in a single order?
- Do you sell to organizations that buy seats for their staff, then assign and reassign them?
- Do any buyers need to pay by purchase order or invoice rather than card?
- Do members, partners or employees of certain companies get different prices?
- Do you sell subscriptions or annual access that renews?
- Do you need to charge sales tax, GST or VAT correctly across regions?
- Do you sell in more than one currency or language?
- Are you on Totara rather than Moodle?
- Do you want someone else to host, patch and support the store?
If every answer is “no”, Moodle’s built-in payments will probably serve you well. The more answers are “yes”, the further down this list you will need to go.
Moodle Payment Options for Selling Individual Courses
1. Moodle core: enrolment on payment
Since Moodle 3.10, Moodle has had a payments subsystem. You set a fee on a course, add the “Enrolment on payment” method, and learners pay before they get in. PayPal ships as standard; Stripe, Alipay and WeChat gateways are available from the Moodle plugins directory.
Good for: selling individual courses to individual learners, at no software cost.
Where it stops: the Moodle documentation describes one fee per course, paid at enrolment. It does not describe a cart, coupons, buying on behalf of others, organization seats, invoices or purchase orders, or tax calculation. Totara has its own codebase, and we have not found Moodle’s payment subsystem documented for Totara.
Source: https://docs.moodle.org/en/Payment_gateways
2. The Stripe payment gateway plugin
The Stripe gateway plugin adds Stripe to the same core enrolment-on-payment flow, which many organizations prefer to PayPal for card payments.
Good for: the same use case as core payments, with Stripe as the processor.
Where it stops: it changes how payment is taken, not what can be sold. The limits of core payments still apply.
3. Wunderbyte Shopping Cart
Wunderbyte’s Shopping Cart plugin adds a cart to Moodle’s navigation so learners can collect items and pay once. It works together with Wunderbyte’s table plugin and needs a supporting plugin, such as their Booking module, to supply the items being sold. Payment runs through Moodle payment gateway plugins. The moodle.org listing shows it in use on roughly 90 sites.
Good for: Moodle sites selling bookable sessions and events that want a cart inside Moodle.
Where it stops: it is Moodle only, and you install, configure and maintain the plugin stack yourself. Check the plugin documentation for organization seats, purchase orders and tax before relying on them.
Source: https://moodle.org/plugins/local_shopping_cart
4. WooCommerce bridges (Edwiser Bridge, MooWoodle and similar)
These connect a WordPress site running WooCommerce to Moodle. The store lives in WordPress; when an order completes, the bridge creates the user and enrolment in Moodle.
Good for: teams already comfortable running WordPress who want WooCommerce’s large catalogue of extensions for coupons, subscriptions and payment gateways.
Where it stops: you now run two systems, plus the sync between them, and each WooCommerce extension is another licence and another thing to update. Organization seats, purchase orders and member pricing usually mean stacking several extensions. These bridges are built for Moodle; check with the vendor before assuming Totara support.
5. Arlo
Arlo is training management software for training providers: scheduling, registrations, a public website with checkout, invoicing and reporting. It connects to Moodle through an enrolment plugin that Arlo maintains with LearningWorks. Arlo supports multiple registrations in one order billed to an organization, discounts and vouchers, automatic invoices and credit notes, multi-currency and tax, and an integration with Xero.
Good for: training companies whose business runs on scheduled courses and events, with Moodle as the place learning happens.
Where it stops: Arlo is a separate system of record that you adopt alongside your LMS. We did not find Totara support, member pricing or purchase-order checkout on its public pages. Published pricing is per administrator per month (from US$118 on the Simple plan, billed annually) plus a fee per paid registration.
Source: https://www.arlo.co/pricing
6. Open LMS eCommerce
Open LMS, a managed Moodle service, offers eCommerce as a licensed feature that Open LMS enables. Its help centre describes products that bundle several learning items, one-time, subscription and recurring prices, a currency per price, vouchers for bulk sales and “buy for others” workflows, automatic enrolment after purchase, and Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.net and PayU Latam gateways.
Good for: organizations already hosted on Open LMS.
Where it stops: it is a feature of the Open LMS service, so it is not an option if you host Moodle elsewhere or run Totara. We did not find purchase orders, member pricing or tax described in its help articles. Pricing is by quote.
Source: https://support.openlms.net/hc/en-us/articles/11787031441180-eCommerce-Overview
7. Course Merchant (D2L)
Course Merchant is a long-standing course commerce platform, acquired by D2L in 2023. D2L’s page lists seat limits and waitlists, multi-seat purchases, bundles, membership discounts, early-bird pricing, discount codes, more than 30 payment gateways, and card, PayPal or offline invoice payment.
Good for: organizations that want a mature, dedicated course store, particularly on Brightspace.
Where it stops: Course Merchant historically supported Moodle and Totara, but D2L’s current Course Merchant page does not name either. If you are a Moodle or Totara customer, ask D2L directly about the roadmap for your LMS.
Source: https://www.d2l.com/brightspace/course-merchant/
8. Think Learning e-Commerce Platform
Think Learning offers an e-commerce platform for Totara. Its UK G-Cloud listing prices it between GBP 10,300 and GBP 85,280 per instance per year.
Good for: Totara organizations, particularly in the UK public sector, buying through G-Cloud.
Where it stops: it is Totara only. Its most recent public updates we could find date from 2023, so confirm current development and support before committing.
9. Kano Store
Kano Store is hosted commerce for Moodle and Totara, from Lambda Learning. It puts a full storefront in front of your LMS: catalogue, cart and checkout, with enrolment created automatically when an order is paid. It is built on the Magento commerce platform, so it brings proper commerce features rather than a payment button.
- Coupons, bundles and early-bird pricing
- Member and customer-group pricing
- Seat blocks for organizations, with assignment and reassignment
- Purchase-order checkout, invoices and credit memos
- Subscriptions with automatic retries on failed payments
- Sales tax, GST and VAT, multiple currencies, and English and French storefronts
- Stripe, Moneris, PayPal and Braintree payments
- Integrations with Salesforce and Mailchimp, plus the Magento API for custom work
- Revenue reporting through Zoola Analytics
- Hosted, patched and supported by Lambda Learning, which holds SOC 2 Type II certification
Good for: associations, training companies and organizations that sell to other organizations, on Moodle or Totara, and want commerce handled for them.
Where it stops: Kano is not free and is not a one-day install. A typical go-live takes 6 to 12 weeks, and pricing is by quote. It does not manage continuing-education accreditation, and it does not ship a ready-made integration with association management systems; those can be built through the API. If your needs are simple, the options above will cost you less.
Side by side
“Not documented” means we could not find the feature on the vendor’s public pages in November 2026. It may exist; ask the vendor.
| Option | Moodle | Totara | Cart and coupons | Organization seats | PO and invoices | Member pricing | Subscriptions | Hosted for you | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Moodle core payments | Yes | Not documented | No | No | No | No | No | No | Free |
| Stripe gateway plugin | Yes | Not documented | No | No | No | No | No | No | Free |
| Wunderbyte Shopping Cart | Yes | No | Cart: yes | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented | No | Free plugin |
| WooCommerce bridges | Yes | Not documented | Yes | With extensions | With extensions | With extensions | With extensions | No | Plugin and extension licences |
| Arlo | Yes | Not documented | Yes | Billed to organization | Invoices: yes | Not documented | Not documented | Yes (Arlo only) | From US$118 per admin per month plus per registration |
| Open LMS eCommerce | Open LMS only | No | Bundles and vouchers | Vouchers for bulk sales | Not documented | Not documented | Yes | Yes | Quote |
| Course Merchant (D2L) | Not named today | Not named today | Yes | Multi-seat purchases | Offline invoicing | Membership discounts | Not documented | Yes | Quote |
| Think Learning | No | Yes | Ask vendor | Ask vendor | Ask vendor | Ask vendor | Ask vendor | Yes | GBP 10,300 to 85,280 per year (G-Cloud) |
| Kano Store | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes, with reassignment | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Quote |
How to choose
- Individual learners, one course at a time, on Moodle: use core enrolment on payment, with the Stripe plugin if you prefer Stripe.
- Events and sessions with a cart, on Moodle, and an in-house team to maintain plugins: look at Wunderbyte.
- You already run WordPress and are happy to manage extensions: a WooCommerce bridge.
- Your business is scheduled training and you want one system to run it: look at Arlo.
- You are hosted on Open LMS: start with Open LMS eCommerce.
- You sell to organizations, offer member pricing, accept purchase orders, run Totara, or want commerce hosted and supported for you: that is what Kano Store was built for.
Talk it through
If you are not sure which camp you are in, we are happy to look at how you sell today and tell you honestly whether Kano is the right fit.
Book a demo
Vendor details in this guide come from each vendor’s public pages as of November 2026. Products change; if something here is out of date, please let us know and we will correct it.