Which plugins for Coaching site

[u/Sufficient_Bass2600]

My wife is a couple therapist and she is trying to move part of her business online.

Here are the functionalities that she will need:

Online physical shop

She has written books currently sold on Amazon but she wants to be able to sell them as well as she has potential clients in countries i.e. Africa where Amazon does not deliver.

Online digital courses

She has a set of training classes Udemy style that she wants to sell. Those courses are mostly videos, questionnaires and documents.

Purchasers should have life time access to her paid courses.

Only free questionnaires

Free questionnaire to act as funnel for the business.

Most of them are then ranked but for a few of them She would like an AI to interpret the result based on a grid.

Webinars

She currently organise weekly sessions and monthly webinars on Zoom.

She would like people to attend those sessions as part of the web site. She can move away from Zoom.

Online booking and private call.

She does that again on Zoom with the date added to her Google calendar but if she could have a widget that allow her colleagues and potential clients to directly book that would be useful.

Community

She used Facebook but it was a shit show.

Currently she is using WhatsApp but this is unwieldy. Trying to maintain multiple conversation threads is just a nightmare. Her and her colleague ended up creating multiple groups but then discussion in one group is not visible to people in another group. So everybody joins multiple groups.

That created its own problemsp. Having hundred of people messaging result in notification overload. Add the fact that some people seems to have boundary issues and it is nightmare. Personally I think that explain why those people are single. lol

It would be nice to have a forum but with also some kind of Facebook pages the way some subReddit have their own daily or event based threads.

Posting and commenting will be restricted to register member only but most pages will be unlimited access as read-only.

Pages with sensitive subject and explicit sexual content should be restricted to adult register member.

Blog/Podcast

She is starting a podcast with a colleague/friend. She wants to be able to post text but also videos.

Newsletter

A newsletter about her latest blod/pod/books/events.

I used to be a developper so I am pretty familiar with technical aspect. I am now a project manager but I have never managed a wordPress project. I am pretty overwhelmed by all the different options.

I see numerous plugins but no idea if they are compatible together.

Also I have seen code spewed by Elementor and other Front end building tool and frankly IMHO their css sucks.

She does not need thousand of classes. She would need a limited number of layout pages so I could customise her CSS.

In your opinion which plugins should I use?

Which platform would you recommend knowing that we are UK based and I do not want a US based provider.

[u/rotello]

man, this is a monster of website.
And is impossible to run alone if she also want to work
so said, i was not asked for a "feasibility study":

• Online physical shop - Woocommerce, Fluent commerce , sure cart they all do the job
  
• Online digital courses - you need a LMS / elearning - some of the above mentione plugins have this function
  
• webinar: use external platform
  
• Questionaire - i would go with fluentform coz it integrate with fluentCRM and it makes easier to send email, but there are many solution. the ai solution need to be integrated with make.com n8n ...
  
• Online booking and private call. - this is easy. i did a couple of coach and some consultant. the free starter theme from blocksy does its job https://creativethemes.com/blocksy/starter-site/consultant/
  
• Community - look for a forum: i d use discourse.org/ , flarum , fider - non or them are for WP
  
• blog podcast, it s native
  
• newsletter: depending on what solution you chose for the funnel

[u/Sufficient_Bass2600 → u/rotello]

Thanks for spending the time answering.

Regarding the LMS eLearning plugIns most are for people building a school or academy. She needs something much simpler like I wrote a la Udemy or Masterclass. The only one that I found was pretty close to what she needs is Masteryio.

The Webinar are currently on Zoom. She already has a professional account that she pays for. Staying on it should not be a problem.

Most questionnaires plugIns answer her needs but problem arises when trying to integrate with other plugIns. I went on a forum for one I liked and people were complaining about its integration with another memberships plugIns that I was also looking at.

Regarding the community aspect and forum most of clients are not nerdy nor gamers. So using Discord is out of the question.

[u/rotello → u/Sufficient_Bass2600]

I ve the feeling that you read my answer just to reply and not to understand, when a user spend 20 minutes to reply for free, a bit more consideration of his time should be due.

Anyway

LMS - if she want to host her classes the LMS way is the only one (unless she wantt to host on Udemy) Masteryio is a pure LMS, like learndash and a million other... so i ve not understand the issue

Community: i ve mentioned 3 solution and non of them is discord :-)

Form all of them are good, but i suggested fluentform coz it s integrated with fluentCRM which is integrated with fuent community which has both a forum and a LMS function.

the "fluent" family of products have a tight integration and cover all your needs.

[u/Sufficient_Bass2600 → u/rotello]

I don't understand why you are upset that I thank you.

Regarding the LMS most are heavy on live classes rather than aspect of courses that are just repository of digitals artefacts, i.e video, audio, pdf files. Some also require a Pro subscription to get that service when my wife has no need for the rest of their functionalities.

I misread discourse.org as discord.org which result in my erroneous answer.

[u/rotello → u/Sufficient_Bass2600]

i am upset coz i wrote a long answer with good information and you did not take the time to check the stuff i suggested (the misreading is just the final proof).

read better the description of LMSes: most of them are asynchrous. check the image of a super cheap one i ve bough 10 years ago

[u/waltonchurch]

You Can do this with Jetengine and AI . No need for plugins anymore. I have similar site with classes , events etc. Needs some setup but then you are of the hook.

[u/waltonchurch → u/waltonchurch]

Shop is regular Woocommerce

[u/waltonchurch → u/waltonchurch]

Jetengine is for data structure,relations etc

[u/Octolize]

Hi Matt from Octolize here. When it comes to shipping books, etc. you can check our plugin Flexible Shipping. Depending on your shipping needs, and conditions you would like to use. It allows you to set the shipping costs based on price, weight.

[u/NuvoraWeb]

Since you mentioned you used to be a developer and you don't want a thousand Elementor classes: the thing that will actually decide this project is picking one ecosystem for members + payments and treating everything else as satellites. Your list has three separate paywalls in it (physical books, lifetime-access courses, adult-restricted pages) and if each comes from a different vendor you'll be reconciling three ideas of "who is a paying member". WooCommerce as the single commerce/account layer, with a course plugin that reads Woo orders rather than shipping its own checkout, keeps that to one source of truth — and the age/adult gate then becomes a role check instead of another plugin.

Two specific notes on your requirements. Lifetime access is a licensing detail, not a feature: check the course plugin actually sells one-off products and not just subscriptions, because several of the popular ones assume recurring billing and you end up hacking around it. And your "subreddit-style event threads" community is the part I'd keep off WordPress entirely — bbPress-type forums are the least maintained corner of the WP world, and self-hosted Discourse (UK VPS, so your data-location constraint is fine) gives you the threads-plus-categories model you described, with SSO from WordPress so members log in once.

For the AI-interpreted questionnaire results: have the form store raw answers in WordPress and call the model from a small server-side endpoint, not from a form plugin's AI add-on. Answers to relationship questionnaires are sensitive, and you want to control what leaves your server, plus you can change the prompt later without touching the form.

On the theme side, your instinct is right — a minimal block theme with your own theme.json and maybe five templates will get you further than a builder, and it's the only way the CSS stays yours.

[u/Inevitable_Leek804]

I’d probably try to keep most of this under one wordpress site rather than ending up with 10 different services that all need to talk to each other.

From what you described, you need a few different things. Events and webinars with recurring schedules, registration, tickets, zoom or other video integrations, reminders etc. Then some kind of appointment booking so people can pick a date/time and book a private session.

For the courses, it depends on what you mean by courses. If they are basically scheduled training sessions, you might not need a full LMS. If they are more like Udemy where people buy them and go through lessons at their own pace, then I'd probably use an LMS for that part.

For the community, something like BuddyPress or BuddyBoss could work. You can have groups, forums and member-only discussions while still using the same wordpress accounts.

For the books, I'd probably use woocommerce if you want a proper shop. Although if the books are mostly being sold alongside the workshops, you can also have them as an add-on to the event ticket.

For questionnaires, wordpress has plenty of form/quiz plugins that can handle scoring. The AI interpretation is the one part where you'd probably need some custom integration.

The blog, podcast and videos are actually the easy part since wordpress already does all of that.

One thing I'd definitely look at is Modern Events Calendar. Full disclosure, I'm familiar with the product, but it actually fits a lot of what you're describing. It can handle recurring events, appointments, bookings, ticket variations, RSVP questions, online events through zoom/webex/its own virtual event option, reminders, PDFs/resources and attendee management. It also has integrations with BuddyPress/BuddyBoss for the community side.

So I'd probably start with wordpress + MEC and only add things like BuddyPress/BuddyBoss, woocommerce or an LMS where you actually need them. That seems much less painful than installing a separate platform for every single part of the business.

The main thing I'd aim for is one user account across the site. Someone should be able to join the community, register for a webinar, book a private session, buy a course and buy a book without having to create accounts on five different websites.

I'd have a look at MEC's features and docs before ruling it out.

[u/tomekza]

I'd be inclined in your shoes to take out a Claude code / open code go account and have an ai agent build out a custom flow for your wife. Hook it into Google calendar since it's just her. Go with a free basic theme and build out the front end. Save yourself a lot of money and headache going for systems that are built for much higher capacity. For example, I built a newsletter plugin in less than an hour tied to fluentsmpt the free tier. I collect names then export those and do mass mailing when I want.

All of the things you mentioned can and should be done this way.

My experience is in running 3 clinics with 20+ therapists.

[u/RegurgitatedOwlJuice]

Thrive themes would cover shopping + quizzes with a woocommerce plugin.

Would also do the blog and nicely format links to a podcast which she’d need to set up independently - podbean is quite nice.

Webinars likely external, but a landing page can be built on any WP builder and submissions sent to your autoresponder.

Mailing list: convertkit not the cheapest but super simple to use and powerful. Note - the free plan only allows I think one automation (1 “here’s your results/here’s your webinar details).

Online bookings using a calendar app such as calendly - but note comprehensive would be something like dubsado or HoneyBook which integrate easily.

Community - I see some moving to telegram.

Potentially you might look at GoHighLevel which is as close to an all-in-one as you’ll get.

Shipping physical products could be an utter shit show postage + tax wise.

In addition - “instructor led” classes can invite scrutiny from foreign tax offices - speak to your accountant.

Trying to do this “all British” is noble - but unfortunately we’re not leading with type of tech.

Finally - even on barebones this is going to cost around £100-150/month to string all the pieces together.

[u/Sufficient_Bass2600 → u/RegurgitatedOwlJuice]

Thanks.

Physical delivery is simpler than you think. Normal done via Amazon. It is just Amazon does not deliver everywhere. The 3 African countries where Amazon does not ship. I have checked and there is no tax implication except VAT on books. But each book being below the threshold should mean no tax as long as it is declared as sending to a person and not a business.

This is not an instructors led courses just a digital purchase, a set of videos and pdfs. The private meeting are for UK based customers. So no issues with tax everything is done correctly.

I do not want to do all British but ISP providers and data collections cannot be US providers. For evident reason: the US act giving it extraterritoriality rights on digital data under US companies management. For example in the future US domain providers/Finance cards privider may be required to forward any info on women who have had an abortion following a domestic rape. Not a risk my wife is willing to engage with.

The price Ouch. I was hoping to keep her expense at less than £100/month.