COMPARED WITH THE CORPORATE LMS
Built for people who were told to be there.
TalentLMS, LearnUpon, Docebo and, in Lagos, Talstack. These are strong products for training a workforce: courses, tests, instructor-led sessions, custom roles, certificates and reporting across thousands of staff. They start from a person who already works for you.
WHERE EACH TOOL STOPS
The chain starts at enrolment, because nobody applied.
Drawn from what these platforms publish. The first three steps are missing by design rather than by omission: in a corporate LMS an administrator assigns a course, so nobody applies, nobody is admitted and nobody pays.
Corporate LMS: Apply to Pay, not published; Enrol to Credential, in Assigned learning, live sessions, tests and certificates; Employer verifies, not published. Alethris: Apply to Employer verifies, in One record per learner.
THE JOINS
Three steps that do not exist when the learner is an employee.
This is not a list of things they forgot. It is the difference between training staff and running an academy.
An administrator assigns a course to a person who is already in the directory. An academy's first problem is deciding who gets in, from people it has never met, and defending that decision later.
An application form on your own page, a queue of answers, a decision recorded against a named member of staff, and an offer the applicant accepts.
The employer already paid, once, for seats. An academy takes money from each learner, in degrees of trust: a card, a transfer with a screenshot, an employer standing behind one place, a funder covering twenty.
Payments on each learner's record, with receipts, refunds, sponsor commitments and an earnings ledger, and no fee on money you collected yourself.
The certificate is an internal record, proving to the company that its own staff did the training. Nobody outside was ever meant to read it, so there is nothing for them to read it with.
A public verification page carrying the issuer, programme, status, assessment method and the competencies the academy approved, and a Skills Passport the learner carries between academies.
SIDE BY SIDE
Where they stop and this starts.
Delivery and reporting are strong on both sides, and at scale the corporate platforms are stronger. These are the rows where the two are not comparable.
| CORPORATE LMS | ALETHRIS | |
|---|---|---|
| Courses, tests and reporting | The core of the product | Programmes, assignments and progress |
| Instructor-led sessions | Built in | Sessions with a schedule and a register |
| Roles and permissions | Custom roles and access levels | Staff roles with separate authority |
| An application and an admission decision | — | On the record, with its author |
| Collecting a fee from each learner | — | Card, a bank transfer your staff confirm, or a sponsor |
| Reducing what a learner pays | Coupons and automatic discounts, where it sells courses | A code on the application, or an automatic offer for a window, with caps and a price floor |
| Rubric assessment by a named assessor | — | With performance levels, per criterion |
| Which competencies were demonstrated | — | Recorded, with the evidence |
| Whether an outsider can check a certificate | — | A public verification page |
| What the learner keeps when they leave | — | A Skills Passport they control |
| Training ten thousand employees | What it is built for | Not what this is built for |
WHAT IT COSTS
Per seat, or per academy.
A corporate LMS charges for the size of your workforce. Alethris charges for the size of your academy and takes a share only of money it collected.
| CORPORATE LMS | ALETHRIS | |
|---|---|---|
| Each month | A plan, by users or active users | A plan, by the size of your academy |
| Quoted in | Dollars, mostly | Naira |
| Taking money from learners | Not what it is for | Card, Pay with Transfer, evidence, or a sponsor |
| When you collect the money yourself | — | Recorded, with no fee |
| Certificates | Inside the plan | Inside the plan's allowance |
Per seat is the wrong shape for a cohort
When a corporate LMS is the right answer
- The learners are your own employees, and the training is onboarding or compliance.
- You educate customers or partners on a product, at a scale where nobody is assessed individually.
- You need SCORM, xAPI or an existing content library, and deep integration with an HR system.
- Your reporting question is what percentage completed by when, not what any one person can now do.
If you are training staff rather than running an academy, these products are built for you and Alethris is not. Talstack is worth a look if the team is in Nigeria.
MOVING
Most organisations here need both, for different people.
A company that also runs a public academy has two different problems, and they do not have to share one tool.
ONE
Keep staff training where it is
Onboarding and compliance for your own people belong in the system that already knows who works for you.
TWO
Bring the programme you sell to outsiders
The cohort that strangers apply to, pay for and want proof from is the one this is built for.
THREE
Your curriculum comes with you
Give the Course Builder the material you already teach and it drafts the modules, lessons and outcomes for you to correct.
FOUR
Collect the fees the way your learners pay
Card, Pay with Transfer, a bank transfer your staff confirm, or a sponsor covering a place.
Ask who the certificate is for.
If it is for your own HR record, a corporate LMS has already solved it. If it is for somebody who has never heard of your company and has to decide whether to hire the person holding it, that is a different piece of software.