Press & Media Kit
LifterLMS Press & Media Kit
Company facts, statistics, brand assets, founder bios, and headshots. All of it is free to use and none of it requires asking us first. If you need something that is not here, email us and we will send it over.
LifterLMS Statistics
130.3 Million
Course & membership enrollments
151 Million
Lesson completions
1.7 Million
Free plugin downloads
169
Countries with customers
Since 2013
Independently owned
Figures current as of August 2026. Download and rating figures are from the WordPress.org plugin directory. Enrollment and completion figures are aggregated from opt-in LifterLMS installations.
About LifterLMS
Paste-ready boilerplate. Copy whichever length fits your piece. No edits needed and no attribution required beyond a link.
Company Description
One line
LifterLMS is a learning management system for WordPress that helps education entrepreneurs create, sell, and protect online courses and memberships on a platform they own.
Short, about 55 words
LifterLMS is a learning management system for WordPress. It gives education entrepreneurs, training organizations, and agencies the tools to create, sell, and protect online courses and training-based membership sites on a platform they own and control. LifterLMS serves customers in 169 countries and has been independently owned and operated since 2013.
Long, about 110 words
LifterLMS is a learning management system for WordPress, used to create, sell, and protect online courses, training programs, and membership sites. Unlike hosted course platforms, LifterLMS runs on the customer’s own WordPress site, so the courses, the student relationships, the payment processing, and the data stay under the owner’s control.
The free core plugin is a complete LMS with no limits on courses or students, and has been downloaded more than 1.7 million times. Paid bundles add commerce, marketing, and automation features as a business grows. Founded in 2013 and operated by Codebox, LLC, LifterLMS has never taken outside funding and serves customers in 169 countries.
Fact Sheet
| Company Name | LifterLMS |
| Legal Entity | Codebox, LLC |
| Company Founded | 2013 |
| LifterLMS Launched | October 2014 |
| Free On WordPress.org Since | February 2016 |
| Cofounder & CEO | Chris Badgett |
| Partners | Jason Coleman & Kim Coleman |
| Ownership | Bootstrapped, profitable, founder-led, independently owned and operated |
| Team | A small team of 10+, fully distributed |
| Headquarters | 63 Federal Street Portland, Maine 04101 United States |
| Customers In | 169 countries |
| Category | Learning management system (LMS), WordPress plugin, edtech |
| Website | LifterLMS.com |
| Press Contact | team@lifterlms.com or the contact form We answer. |
What Makes LifterLMS Different
The short version, for anyone writing a comparison.
01
You own the platform and the data.
LifterLMS runs on your own WordPress website. Your courses and memberships, your students, your payment relationships, and your data live on infrastructure you control. The code is open source and extendable.
02
Freemium without the vendor lock-in.
The free core plugin is a real LMS, not a demo. No limits on courses, students, or memberships. Paid add-ons and bundles extend it when a business is ready, and the pricing is public.
03
Independent and still founder-led.
More than a decade in, with no outside funding and the founder still running it. In a category where most of the well-known names have been acquired or rolled up, an independent vendor is a different kind of bet for anyone building something they intend to keep.
Brand Assets
Logos and icons, ready to drop into a post. For the full set including colors and typography, see the LifterLMS brand guide.
Logos
Black
For light backgrounds
Download PNG
Full color
Primary mark, light backgrounds
Download PNG
White
For dark backgrounds
Download PNG
Icons
Using Our Marks
Please do
- Leave clear space around the logo of at least the height of the rocket icon.
- Use the white logo on dark backgrounds and the black or full-color logo on light ones.
- Use these files as-is at any size, in print or on screen.
Please do not
- Recolor, stretch, rotate, or add effects to the marks.
- Use them in a way that implies partnership or endorsement we have not agreed to.
- Incorporate them into your own product name, logo, or brand marks.
Spelling
One word, capital L, capital LMS. It is never two words and never fully capitalized.
| Correct | LifterLMS |
| Incorrect | Lifter LMS, LifterLms, LIFTERLMS, Lifter |
| Company | Codebox, LLC (the legal entity behind LifterLMS) |
| Founder | Chris Badgett (not Cris or Christopher) |
The LifterLMS Product
A free core plugin, then bundles that add what a growing training business needs. The full feature comparison is on the pricing page.
Free core plugin
A complete LMS. Courses, lessons, quizzes, memberships, students, and reporting. No limits on courses or students.
Earth bundle
The essentials for starting to sell. Payments, forms, and the core commerce add-ons.
Universe bundle
Ecommerce, design, marketing, and automation integrations for a growing business.
Infinity bundle
The entire add-on suite with all the advanced features. Also available as a lifetime license.
Product Screenshots
High-resolution screenshots of the course builder, student dashboard, quiz engine, and reporting views are included in the media kit PDF. Need a specific view or a clean screenshot at a particular size? Email us or use the contact form, and we will make it.
The LifterLMS Story
Where LifterLMS came from and why it still works the way it does.
Chris Badgett spent a decade in Alaska running sled dogs, ending as the manager of a helicopter-supported glacier tour operation with a couple hundred dogs and no road in.
LifterLMS started with a question he asked himself up there on the glacier at three in the morning: what could I teach?
Chris answered it before he ever created software. He and his wife built a course publishing business in the organic gardening and permaculture niche, filming workshops with expert authors around the world, and they built their own platform to sell those courses on WordPress.
Then he started building sites for clients, which grew into an agency. Badgett Media later merged with another bootstrapped web design company, Codebox, and that is the company LifterLMS operates under today.
Client after client turned out to be a course creator, a coach, a training company, or a business with training needs. Some were building their first course and had nothing yet. Some wanted out from under a platform that owned the audience, set the rules, and took a cut. Some were established education companies that had outgrown everything on the market.
Nothing was customizable enough to fit their business, affordable enough to start on, supported by people who actually knew it, and running on a site the owner controlled. LifterLMS was built to be that.
The core LifterLMS plugin launched in October of 2014, and has been a team effort from day one. Co-founders, developers, designers, project managers, support people, marketers, and the voice of the community have all shaped it over the last decade. The work of everyone who has been part of it lives in every version of the product, including the free one anybody can download today.
The company has stayed independent that whole time. No venture funding, no acquisition, no outside board. Over the same stretch, much of the learning platform category consolidated into private equity portfolios and larger corporate parents. LifterLMS did not, and that is a deliberate choice to prioritize the needs of the LifterLMS community of users.
Today the free core LifterLMS plugin has been downloaded over 1.7 million times, the sites running it have powered more than 130 million course enrollments, and customers span 169 countries. Read the full mission, vision, and values.
Chris Badgett, Co-Founder and CEO
Available for interviews, podcasts, panels, and expert commentary on online education, entrepreneurship, WordPress, and bootstrapped software.
Speaks on
- Building an education business online
- Course creation and student outcomes
- Bootstrapping and staying independent
- WordPress and the open web
One line
Chris Badgett is the co-founder and CEO of LifterLMS, and a former Alaskan sled dog guide.
Short, about 50 words
Chris Badgett is the co-founder and CEO of LifterLMS, the WordPress learning management platform behind more than 130 million course enrollments. Before software, he spent a decade in Alaska running sled dogs, ending as manager of a glacier tour operation reachable only by helicopter. He hosts the LMScast podcast.
Long, about 120 words
Chris Badgett is the co-founder and CEO of LifterLMS, the WordPress learning management platform that has powered more than 130 million course enrollments. He has run the company independently since 2013, without outside funding.
Before software, Chris spent a decade in Alaska running sled dogs, ending as the manager of a helicopter-supported glacier tour operation with a couple hundred dogs on a glacier and no road in. He has also hiked much of the Appalachian Trail, run 100 mile ultra marathons, farmed organically, and guided in the backcountry. That guide identity still defines how he works.
He hosts LMScast, one of the longest-running podcasts on online education, with over 560 episodes, and wrote the book Expert Empire (forthcoming).
News & Reviews
Where to follow what LifterLMS is shipping, and what customers say about it.
Announcements
Product releases and company news on the LifterLMS blog.
Release notes
Every version, logged publicly on WordPress.org.
Podcast
560+ episodes of LMScast with course creators and educators.
Ratings & Reviews
LifterLMS holds a 4.8 out of 5 rating across 390 reviews on WordPress.org as of August 2026. Independent reviews are also collected on Trustpilot, Capterra, and G2.
Need Something Else?
Custom screenshots, a specific figure, a quote for your piece, or Chris on your show. Email team@lifterlms.com or send us a note through the contact form. A person will get back to you.
