The 5 Best Learning Management Systems for Small Businesses [June 2024 Update]

Going into 2024, talent shortages worldwide reached an average of 75% and the figure was even higher for smaller companies. Also, employee resistance to change remains a common problem. The good news is that you can address both of these challenges with a single solution — a learning management system (LMS). The right platform will help you upskill your employees and improve the workflow in your company quickly and efficiently.
In this article, we’ve compiled a list of the best LMSs for small businesses, compared them based on the criteria important for small companies, and assessed these eLearning platforms on a 10-point scale.
These are the systems we’re going to review later on in this article:

1. iSpring Learn
2. TalentLMS
3. 360Learning
4. SkyPrep
5. Litmos

At the end of the article, there’s a comprehensive comparison chart of these tools based on several important criteria. If you’d like to see it right away, click here to check it out.

But first, let’s discover how to choose the right learning software for your company.

What to Consider When Choosing an LMS for a Small Business

All learning management systems have a lot in common. In particular, all of them allow you to:

• store learning content, 
• assign online courses to employees, and 
• track their results. 

But there are also some distinctive features that might influence your choice. For instance, some platforms focus on formal learning, while others provide more features for collaborative learning.

Here are some key things the right LMS systems for small businesses should be able to help you do. 

1. Provide clear guidelines and update employees on new procedures promptly. It’s crucial for managers to create policy and procedure manuals, and other operating instructions for employees, and verify whether employees have studied them. This is necessary to introduce changes quickly and make sure the entire staff is on the same page.
2. Understand employees’ level of knowledge and stay updated on their progress. To ensure that team members have the knowledge and skills necessary to perform the tasks assigned to them, make assessments routine. This is also an effective way to spot knowledge gaps and fill them in before they start affecting work results.
3. Make sure the employees match up with their job requirements and identify areas that need improvement. The best way to do this is by conducting performance reviews. When done properly, such reviews can help you create a talent pool and outline paths for employee growth. While you can, of course, purchase a separate tool for employee evaluation, it’s a lot more convenient and efficient to have it all in one place. 
4. Help with onboarding new hires. Onboarding each new employee individually takes a lot of money and effort. Using LMS systems, you can make an induction program for each job position once and have it automatically assigned to new arrivals.
5. Offer consistent channel training and certification to your partners. This functionality will come in handy if you work with partners who sell your products and want to become more successful doing it. In this case, opt for a solution that allows for creating separate learning programs for partners and issuing certificates of completion.
6. Gather a knowledge base that employees can access whenever it’s needed. Every company has documents employees might need to access at any moment — instructions on how to prepare a presentation, a book list for professional growth, a tutorial on how to set up a corporate email account, etc. Instead of using other software to store these materials, it’s easier to keep them all in your learning management system.  
7. Launch online training quickly and easily. Small companies don’t always have Learning and Development (L&D) managers who are experienced in handling corporate training. If you also don’t have one, opt for an LMS vendor who offers cloud-based learning management software with a user-friendly interface and provides a customer success service. 

The Best Learning Management Systems for Small Businesses

Now that you know what to keep in mind when choosing a corporate LMS, let’s look at specific solutions and compare them according to the criteria defined in the previous section, namely: 

1. Course creation
2. Knowledge assessment
3. Onboarding
4. Certification
5. Knowledge base
6. Ease of implementation 

Additionally, we’ve included pricing information and some thoughts on what each product might be best for.

1. iSpring Learn

iSpring Learn boasts a user-friendly interface and allows learners

to access courses, training sessions, and knowledge bases with a single click.

iSpring Learn is a powerful LMS for small businesses that provides top-quality learning experiences to users while also helping trainers manage the entire training cycle, from producing eLearning content to automating its delivery, gathering reports, and assessing results. It also boasts great engagement features, such as an interactive org chart, newsfeed, and gamification, and allows the creation of an online learning community for your employees. 

iSpring Learn has twice received one of the most recognized awards for excellence in technology in the world: in 2018 and 2022, the platform became a Brandon Hall gold winner in the “Learning Management Technology for Small- and Medium-Sized Business” category. 

Now, let’s assess the tool according to the criteria outlined above.

Course creation

This learning management system comes with a built-in tool for creating page-like multimedia courses. The authoring process is simple and takes no longer than putting together a social media post, so you don’t have to be a professional content creator. The tool allows you to break content into chapters, create lists, add quotes and other blocks for engagement, and make quizzes. Creating guidelines and delivering them to your employees quickly and efficiently is just one example of how this tool can come in extremely handy. 

Take a look at this course crafted in iSpring Learn by a non-professional course creator:

If you need to produce more professional training courses, try the iSpring Suite authoring tool
that comes bundled with the LMS. Here’s what a course created with this toolkit looks like:

Knowledge assessment

iSpring Suite also includes a powerful tool for creating interactive quizzes with over a dozen question templates, customizable designs, and testing rules. In the LMS, you can generate comprehensive reports on your employees’ quiz results. 

Here’s what this quiz looks like:

iSpring Suite allows you to conduct employee assessments quickly and efficiently

 by offering interactive quizzes.

Performance reviews

iSpring Learn allows you to conduct 360-degree surveys in order to evaluate your employees’ performance. To accomplish this, the platform collects anonymous feedback from those who an employee interacts with in the company, from subordinates to managers. 

When the performance review has been completed, the system analyzes the responses and provides a detailed report. You can also choose the report type depending on the areas you want to focus on. The available options include a general summary report, a competency summary, comparative analysis, and more.

New hire onboarding

iSpring Learn offers several options for onboarding new employees. One way is to put together a general onboarding program for all newcomers. Alternatively, you can create separate programs for different departments and job positions. 

The platform also lets you build learning tracks that include a series of courses and VILT sessions for blended learning; just specify the order in which your employees should view the content and set deadlines. You don’t even need to assign an onboarding program to each new hire manually; just set up the appropriate rule, and the LMS will automatically enroll all new employees in the program. 

Certification

Similar to onboarding programs, you can create separate partner training programs with iSpring Learn. You can also set up the platform to automatically issue certificates of completion to your partners after they finish each course. Certificate templates are available on the platform, but you can upload your own designs as well. 

Knowledge base

The platform has a knowledge base section where you and your colleagues can upload relevant materials. The system supports a wide range of file types, including HTML5, SCORM, PPT, PDF, DOC, XLS, MP3, and MP4.

Ease of implementation

iSpring Learn boasts a remarkably intuitive interface that allows even beginners to master this software for small businesses fairly quickly. Moreover, iSpring has a dedicated customer success team that will help you get the system up and running in no time. This team will also carefully guide you through each stage of implementing eLearning at your company, from introducing a pilot project to analyzing the results. 

Pricing 

As is the case with the majority of SaaS tools, pricing for this software is flexible and depends on several factors, such as the number of users and the features available. Prices begin at $2.99 USD per month (if billed annually) for the Start plan. For this price, you get 50 users and a wealth of features, including access to the iSpring Suite authoring tool and 24/7 customer support via phone, chat, and email. 

Our evaluation of the LMS 

Overall score: 58

Considering the features that it offers, this learning software for small businesses is best for corporate use and can be a great fit for employee onboarding, training, and evaluation. 

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2. TalentLMS

TalentLMS is another popular software system for small companies that boasts a fairly rich functionality. The platform offers all the necessary functionalities for any training need, from employee training and onboarding to partner training. It provides the tools for building and delivering training courses, monitoring learner results, creating blended learning experiences, and more. Plus, there’s a course library with ready-made courses (available for an additional fee). 

Course creation

The platform allows for the creation of interactive courses via its built-in, intuitive course editor. You can start building courses with ready-made templates or produce learning materials from scratch. The content types you can add to your courses include text, images, videos, audio, web content, documents, and SCORM files. Plus, there is an AI-powered tool that enables you to create content even more easily. 

Knowledge assessment

The learning management system has a built-in tool for assessment through testing. It allows you to build quizzes with six question types and customizable testing rules. You can also set the test duration and the passing score, shuffle questions and answers, and more. The system also provides a reporting functionality, so you can easily keep track of your employees’ performance. 

Performance reviews

There is no performance appraisal tool. 

New hire onboarding

TalentLMS allows you to build learning tracks to create different training programs, including compliance training and onboarding courses. You can also specify the order in which your learners will complete their online courses, define how the test score is calculated, and when to consider the track completed. As with iSpring Learn, you can put together an automated onboarding program for your new hires.

Certification

With this training software for small businesses, you can award your partners with customized certificates each time they complete training. Additionally, you can set expiration dates for your certificates. This option can come in handy if you expect your partners to retake courses regularly to update their knowledge.

Knowledge base

There is no special section for creating a knowledge base on this platform.  

Ease of implementation

TalentLMS is generally considered an easy-to-implement and highly intuitive training platform for small businesses. Also, the company offers various customer success options to customers on Annual Premium and Enterprise plans. If you opt for one of these plans, a dedicated account manager will familiarize themselves with your training needs, resources, and goals and help you use TalentLMS to achieve your expected results.

Pricing 

The platform offers six pricing options that range from a forever-free plan with minimum functionality to Premium and Enterprise plans with robust features and personalized customer support. The annual Starter plan will cost you $69 USD per month without the TalentLibrary subscription and $99 USD per month with the TalentLibrary subscription included. For this price, you get 40 user accounts plus the three basic options of the Starter plan: courses, email support, and a custom homepage.  

Our evaluation of the LMS 

Overall score: 43

Being one of the most popular learning management options, TalentLMS has businesses of all sizes as clients. But it might be especially attractive for small companies that don’t have many employees because of its forever-free plan.

Also read → A Credible Alternative to TalentLMS – iSpring Learn

3. 360Learning

360Learning has a convenient dashboard with a user-friendly interface

360Learning is another user-friendly LMS software solution with a wealth of features for providing effective employee training and customer education. While the platform offers robust features sufficient for larger enterprises, it also has a pricing plan that smaller companies will find attractive. The plan includes all the essential functionality necessary to create and deliver engaging learning experiences to your employees, as well as assessment and certification capabilities. 

You can also optimize content creation on the platform with AI-driven tools, add integrations, make use of collaboration features, and get help with implementation from the vendor’s responsive customer support team.    

Course creation 

Creating learning content is a breeze with the platform’s built-in, AI-driven collaborative authoring tool. You can import your existing documents and add images, presentations, videos, quizzes, and surveys to your courses to make them engaging and versatile. The platform also allows you to import web-based content and SCORM files, and add auto-generated subtitles. To speed up the course building process, the LMS provides pre-designed course templates.

Additionally, the platform allows the creation of learning communities called Academies and pulling in third-party experts to create and curate their courses.     

Knowledge assessment 

This is one of those LMS solutions that offers many options to assess your learners’ knowledge. In particular, you can use quizzes with 10+ question types, including true/false, multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, pick-a-point, open-ended, and more, in your courses. Other ways to test and assess include video pitches and screencast demos that learners can record and upload to the platform. 

Performance reviews

This LMS solution doesn’t offer specific performance appraisal tools. However, it does come with the Skills tool to keep track of your learners’ progress and identify knowledge gaps.     

New hire onboarding

With 360Learning, you can easily manage new enrollments, track your employees’ progress and completion dates, and set reminders either directly on the platform or via email. You can also automate enrollments and onboarding journeys by synchronizing employee data with the HR department and creating specific cohorts within a single workspace. 

Similar to other LMS tools, 360Learning also enables you to structure learning content by creating customized learning paths and leveraging blended learning capabilities.  

Certification

The system allows you to add a certificate block to both learning paths and individual programs. A certificate is issued to learners who have completed an entire path and is also generated upon completion of a single training program. You can customize the name and look of your certificate, set the validity period, and add specific conditions to justify receiving the certificate.

Knowledge base 

This LMS solution doesn’t allow users to create a knowledge base section. However, all users have their own reference section in the form of the “Documents” tab, which contains all documents seen by a user on a platform.  

Ease of implementation 

Users generally praise this LMS tool for being remarkably easy to implement. Many of them note that the platform has an intuitive interface that doesn’t require specific expertise, so even a novice can get it up and running relatively easily. 

Technical support is also very competent and ready to help. However, the Teams plan, which is the most suitable for small companies, doesn’t come with dedicated customer support. If you happen to have difficulties with implementation — and this sometimes occurs, even with the most user-friendly software — the support options that this plan offers might not be sufficient.

Pricing 

This LMS solution comes with just two pricing options. The Team’s plan is for small companies with up to 100 people in need of training. With this plan, you pay $8 USD per month for each active user, which might seem reasonable if you have very few employees. But when there actually are a hundred trainees, the price doesn’t look as attractive. 

The only other option is the Business plan, and it might be a better fit for larger enterprises. This plan offers custom pricing, so you can only estimate your expenses on this plan after contacting the vendor. Also, there is no free plan available — but you can use a 30-day trial to test-drive.

Our evaluation of the LMS 

Overall score: 51

360Learning offers many attractive features for small businesses; for example, AI-assisted course creation that can save you a lot of time. Users also note the platform’s user-friendly interface and ease of implementation, as well as reliable customer support and robust collaboration features. However, some capabilities seem to be limited, such as gamification. Also, small companies with many employees in need of training will find the pricing too steep and the pricing options to be generally insufficient for their needs.  

4. SkyPrep

SkyPrep is an easy-to-use learning platform that can be a good fit for organizations of different sizes in a variety of industries. The LMS features all the essential functionality needed for employee training: course authoring and delivery tools, the ability to conduct ILT sessions, and reporting. Companies typically use SkyPrep for employee onboarding and development, compliance training, customer training, and live webinars. Plus, you can sell your online courses through this platform.   

Course creation

The LMS has an authoring tool called SkyPrep Studio that allows you to create interactive learning content from various content blocks: text, images, videos, charts, quizzes, and more. The authoring process is pretty simple: just select a block you need on the left, drag it to the area on the right, and then edit or replace it. You can either add your own content or choose from ready-made templates to save time. Finished content can then be published as a SCORM file and downloaded.

Knowledge assessment

The platform also features a quiz making tool with seven question types supported: multiple-choice, true or false, order, short answer, mix & match, and more. All questions that you create are added to a single question bank so you can reuse them later on. The tool also enables you to set individual point values and see detailed analytics to stay updated on your employees’ performance. 

Performance reviews

SkyPrep has a so-called Skills Tracking suite that contains two items: skills and competencies. Used together, they let you track what your employees are proficient in with ease. You can set the skills and the number of points that are awarded for successful completion of courses, assessments, or learning paths. They are then used to determine in which areas or capacities your employees are competent. Each competency may include several skills. 

New hire onboarding

Multiple courses can be combined in Learning Paths (groups of courses arranged in a set order), which can be considered employee training programs. So, you can build an onboarding and compliance training program for all your new hires or each department or job position and enroll newcomers in it. There aren’t many differences in terms of possibilities here, as compared to the other best learning management systems mentioned above.

Certification

You can train your partners using this platform and award them with a certificate of completion after they finish a course or an entire Learning Path. Like many others, the LMS enables you to upload your own customized HTML certificate of completion or use the default template.

Knowledge base

SkyPrep LMS doesn’t have a built-in knowledge base. However, the vendor offers a separate integrable product called the BoostHQ Learner Resource Center. There, you can store your reference documents, manuals, and other important files aside from your learning courses. Your employees can view content in this section at any time, and you can arrange this content in categories, use tags, and pin certain documents to help them find what they need faster and easier.

Ease of implementation

The platform has a simple interface, so almost anyone can use it. However, the vendor says nothing about helping clients implement the learning management system on its site, so customers might have to handle this on their own. And there’s not always a knowledgeable person in a small business who can handle this very easily. That said, all plans do offer some sort of customer support, from email to phone support and CSM, so you might still get some help to implement the system at your company. 

Pricing 

Similar to many of its competitors, SkyPrep doesn’t display prices on its website. All you can learn without contacting a manager is about the available plans and the features they offer. Currently, there are three plans: Lite, Premium, and Enterprise. 

If you’re planning to use this learning management platform for a small business, you might want to opt for the Lite plan, since it has all the essential features, as well as 100+ user seats. However, there are some serious limitations that come with this plan: most importantly, the authoring suite is not available. You’ll also have to upgrade to get access to gamification, performance tracking, advanced support, and other important options. On the bright side, there’s a 14-day trial period available for a test-drive.   

Our evaluation of the LMS 

Overall score: 57

SkyPrep is a popular learning platform that boasts some high-profile clients and many favorable reviews. However, small companies might find it difficult to get through the system implementation process without sufficient support, which is not available with the lowest-priced plan. Also, this plan lacks some useful features — most importantly, it doesn’t include access to the authoring tool. While you can surely opt for a higher-priced plan, the fees are not publicly available, so it will take you an extra step to learn all the details. 

5. Litmos

The Litmos LMS allows users to navigate the platform with ease.

Litmos, previously known as SAP Litmos, presents itself as an award-winning learning management system that provides everything necessary to manage an entire training program from a single centralized environment. It unifies virtual, classroom, mobile, and collaborative learning, and offers robust features, such as course authoring, automation, gamification, customized learning paths, and more. Also, the platform has an extensive library of ready-made training courses and e-Commerce capabilities to help you monetize your learning content.  

Course creation

The system features a built-in content authoring tool, which allows you to create SCORM courses right on the platform and deliver them to learners quickly. You can choose from among different components like texts, pictures, headings, media, etc., and combine them to create a single interactive course. The tool also comes with ready-made page templates that make content authoring faster and easier. Besides, you can make use of the Litmos Training Content library or the Litmos + Go1 library, both of which contain thousands of off-the-shelf courses on a variety of topics.  

Knowledge assessment

The platform also has a potent tool for creating assessments. You can build quizzes with seven question types, including multiple-choice, hotspot, and sequence questions. The tool provides a wide range of quiz settings. For example, you can set a specific weighted value for each question, decide if you want to show feedback information, and enable answer hints. Moreover, a Video Assessments feature is available. By using it, your employees can submit completed video assignments that will be assessed through the system’s AI functionality. 

Performance reviews

There is no performance appraisal tool in this learning management system. 

New hire onboarding

With Litmos, you can build comprehensive learning programs for your new employees by stringing multiple online courses together in logical sequences known as customized learning paths. You can also define the order in which your employees will take courses, and set due dates for each course. 

Certification

This learning management system allows you to add a certificate to any course or learning path to be issued to the learner as a PDF upon successful completion. You can also choose a ready-made template or upload your own. 

Knowledge base

As with LearnUpon, there’s no separate Knowledge base section. Instead, you can add content to the Additional Documents section if you need to add any materials beyond the courses that learners are enrolled in. 

Ease of implementation

Litmos is a highly intuitive learning management system that boasts a simple UX-driven design in both admin and learner roles. Also, the vendor offers a wealth of resources to help you through each stage of the system’s implementation process and beyond. Four implementation packages are available, as well as additional subscription services. 

Pricing 

This learning management software comes with three pricing plans — Foundation, Premier, and Platinum Suites — that each offer a different set of features. For small companies, the Foundation Suite is the best fit, as it includes the capabilities that are most relevant to departments and businesses with under 100 users. This plan also includes a ready-made course package and core implementation support. But prices are only available upon request. To get more information, you’ll need to fill in their request form. There is also a free trial option to test the waters.   

Our evaluation of the LMS 

Overall score: 48

Litmos might be more focused on larger organizations. However, it also offers a plan that’s a great fit, specifically for small companies with under 100 employees in need of training. Moreover, the platform’s content library can come in handy if you need to cover essential topics such as mastering popular office software or strengthening teamwork skills.

Our LMS Evaluation Summary Chart

Here you can see a detailed comparison chart of the best LMS systems for small businesses and how we rated them according to their capabilities.

FAQ

In this section, you’ll find answers to some of the most frequently asked questions related to learning management software. 

How do I choose an LMS for a small business?

Earlier in this article, we outlined the most typical requirements that training software for small businesses is supposed to meet. But, of course, some trade-offs are inevitable, so you need to decide which features are must-haves and which are nice-to-haves based on your specific needs and expectations. Once you do that, you can use our comparison chart to narrow down your options based on what matters to you. When you’ve short-listed a few platforms, make use of free plans or trials to test the waters, or book a demo of the LMS to get to know it better.

Also read → How to Choose an LMS: A 5-Step Guide

How can I estimate the cost of an LMS?

Of course, first and foremost, the capabilities of an LMS platform should define your choice. Yet pricing is also a major factor, especially for smaller companies. Since pricing models vary significantly, you need to understand how they differ and which model is best suited for you to be able to estimate the cost properly. To find out how much a learning management solution for a small business will cost you, check out our LMS pricing guide.

Conclusion

Managing any business demands a great deal of energy and resources, and their supply is almost always limited. So, it should come as no surprise that smaller companies that have to focus on sticking to a budget and sustaining themselves often keep training on the back burner. Even when they do some kind of training, many small businesses do without a learning platform. However, it usually proves to be an unwise decision because learning management software can help them develop and thrive in the long run. 

Looking for a great platform that will let you train your employees, customers, and partners effectively? Opt for the iSpring Learn LMS. Sign up for a free iSpring Learn demo now, and our experts will show you how this LMS for small businesses will help you make training in your company a breeze.