Four blocks sell: Checkout Button, Product, Cart and Course Catalogue. They differ in how much choice the visitor gets, not in how the money moves. Prices, currencies, taxes and payment methods are all decided in your memberarea, so WordPress never holds any of it.
Which block for which page
| Page | Block | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A sales page for one course | Checkout Button | One decision, one button, straight to the checkout. |
| A page selling several things | Product plus Cart | Visitors collect first and pay once. |
| An overview of everything you teach | Course Catalogue | Covers, descriptions and prices without touching the page again when you add a course. |
The Course Catalogue deserves a note: it lists your published courses and shows a price only where a product in your memberarea actually grants that course. Courses without such a product appear without a price and without a button, which is what you want for free material. Tick Only courses that can be bought in the sidebar to hide them.
Members who already hold a course see a button into it instead of a price. In the sidebar, the Wording panel sets the Buy button and the Button for a course the member already has, and When no course is on sale sets the text visitors see when nothing is listed. Every option is in Blocks and shortcodes reference.
How the catalogue shows prices
If one course is sold through several products or prices, the catalogue shows the lowest amount, with "from" in front when the prices differ, and the button carries exactly that price into the checkout. Two limits apply:
- Only prices in one currency are compared: the currency of the primary price. Prices in other currencies are left out.
- Amounts are compared as they are. Billing intervals are not converted, so a price of 19 EUR a month counts as lower than 199 EUR once.
The label follows the kind of price:
- Pay what you want reads "Name your price", or "from" plus the minimum if you set one.
- Instalments read like "3 x 50.00 EUR", with a first payment like "100.00 EUR upfront, then 3 x 50.00 EUR".
- Subscriptions read like "19.00 EUR/month" or "45.00 EUR every 3 months".
- A trial adds the free days, for example "19.00 EUR/month, 14 days free".
What a purchase looks like
- The visitor presses your button. The checkout opens in an overlay on your page, served by your memberarea.
- They pay there. Your WordPress server is not involved and never sees card details.
- Your memberarea creates the order, the member and the access that comes with the product.
- Back on your site, the member signs in. Locked pages open, My Courses lists the new course, and the catalogue shows it as one they hold.
Step 4 is why sign-in is worth switching on even for a pure sales site: without it, a buyer has no way to prove on WordPress what they own, and you end up sending everybody to the memberarea instead.
A fresh purchase can take up to two minutes to show, because access answers are cached that long. Clear cached responses on the settings screen skips the wait while you are testing.
Test a purchase before you go live
Run your first purchase in test mode, as described in Test mode and live mode. No card is charged, and the buyer still gets access and the confirmation emails, so you see what the product unlocks. Then open your WordPress page in a private window and press the button, to see the checkout open on your page. A purchase with a real card, refunded afterwards in your memberarea, is the last step, not the first.
One mistake looks fine everywhere until somebody pays: a Checkout Button for a product that does not grant the course the page promises. The editor offers every active product with a price, whatever it unlocks, and the buyer ends up with an order but without the course. Check what the product unlocks before you place the button, as described in What a purchase unlocks.
What stays in your memberarea
Orders, invoices, refunds, VAT and payout details live in your memberarea, not in WordPress. There is no order list here to keep in sync, no shop plugin to maintain, and no second place where a price could be wrong.
The same is true of the buyer: they are a member of your memberarea who happens to have bought on your WordPress page. Everything you do with members, groups, emails or affiliates works exactly as it does for people who bought anywhere else.