What Transfers When You Leave LearnDash (Free Worksheet)

A fillable data-inventory worksheet for anyone planning a migration

A free worksheet by Cubite

Before you move anything, take an honest inventory

Most LearnDash migrations do not go wrong because the new platform is missing a feature. They go wrong because of a quiet assumption: that "all the data comes with us." Some of it does. Some of it does not. And the parts that do not tend to be the parts learners and finance teams care about most, like who finished what, who has a valid certificate, and which subscriptions are active.

The reason is structural. LearnDash does not store your program in one neat place. It spreads it across WordPress core tables, LearnDash's own tables, and a handful of plugin-specific schemas (quizzing, membership, e-commerce, certificates, SCORM/H5P add-ons). There is no single clean export that captures all of it, so what survives a move depends entirely on the destination and the method.

That is why an honest inventory has to come before you pick a platform, sign a contract, or schedule a cutover. Once you can see, on one page, exactly how much data you have and what is at risk for each type, three things happen:

1. You stop being surprised. The "we lost everyone's progress" conversation happens on paper, with you in control, instead of in production three days after launch.
2. You can price the move correctly. A migration that needs scripting and a managed export is a different project from a copy-paste of two courses.
3. You can hold any vendor to a clear standard. You hand them this worksheet and ask, row by row, "what happens to this?"

Fill this out before you talk to anyone. It takes about fifteen minutes and it will save you from the most expensive kind of migration mistake: the one you only discover after the old system is gone.

How to use it: print this page, or copy it into a doc or spreadsheet. Go row by row. Count what you actually have, read the pre-filled "What happens on migration" column, and write your own notes. Then run the scoring section at the bottom.

A quick note on the three migration paths

The pre-filled column below assumes one of three common destinations. Knowing which path you are on changes the answer for almost every row, so pick yours before you start.

• WordPress to WordPress (for example, moving to another LearnDash-based host or a different WordPress LMS plugin). This preserves the most, because the underlying database structure is similar. It is also the path that keeps you on the plugin stack you may be trying to leave.
• Hosted SaaS, do-it-yourself import. A self-serve importer on a SaaS platform. Courses and users usually come across. The fragile, plugin-specific data (in-progress completion, quiz attempt history, issued certificates) is commonly dropped unless you export and rebuild it yourself first.
• Managed migration (for example, Cubite's). A vendor scripts the move directly against your LearnDash database, including the fragile data. Progress, quiz history, and certificates are mapped and carried across rather than left behind. This is the path the "scripted across" notes below refer to.

The worksheet uses shorthand in the pre-filled column so you can see all three outcomes at a glance.

Your data inventory

Fill in the second column with your real numbers. The third column is pre-filled from known data-fidelity facts so you do not have to guess. Use the last column to flag anything specific to your setup (custom plugins, weird quiz types, manual workarounds, anything a vendor would need to know).

Score your risk

Now read back down your completed worksheet. The pattern in the "What happens on migration" column tells you how risky a self-serve move would be, and how much a managed migration is worth to you.

Count your rows.

• Count every row where you have data (a number greater than zero) AND the pre-filled note contains "needs scripting", "lost unless exported first", "commonly dropped", or "commonly lost." Call this your At-Risk count.

Read your score.

• 0 to 2 at-risk rows. Your move is relatively contained. You probably have courses, lessons, and simple quizzes, and not much fragile completion, commerce, or membership data. A careful migration on almost any path can work, though you should still verify progress and certificates explicitly.

• 3 to 5 at-risk rows. This is the most common band, and the danger zone for do-it-yourself imports. You likely have real learner progress, quiz history, or certificates that a self-serve SaaS import would drop. A managed migration starts paying for itself here, because the cost of recreating this data by hand (or explaining to learners why it vanished) is higher than the cost of doing the move properly once.

• 6 or more at-risk rows. A self-serve import will almost certainly cost you data that matters. You have a combination of fragile completion data, quiz history, certificates, and probably commerce or membership records. A scripted, managed migration is clearly the right call. The question is not whether to invest in the migration, it is which vendor can prove they preserve every at-risk row on your sheet.

The rule of thumb: the more rows that read "needs scripting" or "lost unless exported first," the more a managed migration is worth it. Each of those rows is data you would otherwise have to recreate by hand, ask learners to redo, or simply accept losing. A migration that scripts that data across is not a luxury at that point. It is the only version of the move that does not quietly destroy something you spent years building.

What a managed migration changes

Everything in the "needs scripting" and "lost unless exported first" lines above exists because no clean standard export captures it. A managed migration solves that by going straight to the source: a vendor scripts the move directly against your LearnDash database, maps the fragile data, and carries it across instead of leaving it behind.

That is the model Cubite uses. The Cubite LearnDash migrator is built to bring across the rows people usually lose: user progress and completion (so learners resume where they left off), quiz attempt history, issued certificates, enrollments, and group assignments. Where data needs reshaping (SCORM and H5P results, membership and commerce records, custom fields), that mapping is part of the migration work rather than a problem dropped back in your lap.

And the platform you land on is fully managed, so you are not trading one plugin stack for another:

• $290/mo flat. Unlimited users and unlimited courses. Hosting, maintenance, and support are bundled in, not billed as add-ons.
• 0% transaction fees on what you sell.
• Native SCORM and xAPI, so externally authored content and its learner data are first-class, not a paid add-on plus a separate record store.
• SSO, white-label branding, certificates, and analytics included.
• One-click LearnDash migration as the on-ramp, with the scripted data work above handled for you.

A soft next step

You now have, on one page, an honest picture of what is at risk in your move. That is the hard part, and you have done it.

If your scoring landed in the 3-or-more band, the most useful next step is simply to have someone look at your actual numbers. Bring this completed worksheet to a free migration assessment with Cubite. We will go row by row, tell you honestly what transfers cleanly and what needs scripting on your specific setup, and show you what your post-migration site would look like, so nothing on this worksheet gets lost in the move.

No pressure, no obligation. Worst case, you walk away with a second expert opinion on your own data inventory.

Ready to get started?

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Keep reading

• LearnDash alternatives and migration guide (2026): https://cubite.io/blogs/learndash-alternatives-2026-migration-guide
• How migrating from LearnDash to Cubite works, step by step: https://cubite.io/blogs/migrate-from-learndash-to-cubite

This worksheet is provided free by Cubite. Cubite is a fully managed LMS: one flat price, unlimited users and courses, hosting, maintenance, and support included, 0% transaction fees, native SCORM and xAPI, SSO, white-label, certificates, analytics, and one-click LearnDash migration. The data-fidelity notes above reflect common outcomes across migration methods; your specific results depend on your plugins and configuration, which is exactly what an assessment confirms.