Do you have a WordPress website and want to setup membership functionality on your website?
You can achieve this by using a WordPress membership plugin but it is very important that you select a right membership plugin for you.
Do you want to know which WP membership plugin can be a good choice for you?
WordPress plugin market has a wide list of membership plugins and a number of choices can make confusion in your mind because every plugin has its own good features. It will become a difficult task for you to select a good one plugin for you.
Don’t worry! We are here to help you to take out from this confusion situation. In this article, we will list out 5 most popular and very easy to use WP membership plugins which are widely used in market and has very good trust level by WordPress users and developers as well.
At the end of this article, you will be able to take a decision to select a WP membership plugin for you website and enjoy the benefits for membership functionality on your website.
How to decide which WordPress membership plugin is good for your website?
It is very difficult to find out a good membership plugin because there are a lot of membership plugins available in the market but if we focus on very important points, it will be easy to take a decision. A good membership plugin should have few qualities or key features. Some of them are listed below:
- Easy to Use: Membership plugin should be very easy to setup. Normally a good membership plugin comes with setup by step integration tour guide and once you install this plugin on your website and process with installation guide. It handles everything itself. Choosing a complicated plugin will creates issue for you to setup and you may need a developer help. I suggest we should always use a easy to setup membership plugin in our website. It helps us to manage the membership functionality in easy way a well.
- Design and features: Always select a membership plugin
which fulfils your website requirements for membership needs. Its admin user
interface should be easy to handle so that you can manage everything yourself. Some of the important features are:
- Member management
- Email Marketing Tools
- Easy Digital Downloads
- Course Building Tools
- Multi-level Subscription
- Coupons and Discounts
- Support for forums and live chats
- Content Drip Functionality
- Recurring Subscription
- Design Templates and other design features
- Compatibility: Always select a membership plugin which should be compatible with latest version of WordPress and latest PHP version. Also, it should be important that your selected membership plugin should be compatible with your WordPress theme and other installed WordPress plugin on your website.
- Popular Payment Gateway Support: Primary motive of every membership website is to sell their membership plans to sell their product or services and we will need payment gateway integration for this as well. It is important that before selecting membership plugin for your website, it should support your needed payment gateway otherwise it will be useless for you.
- Content Access Control: Restricting your website content for your membership members are always necessary on WordPress membership website. Normally, all membership plugin do have this feature on them but it is a good choice to verify this before deciding and finalizing a membership plugin for your website.
When to use membership plugins or Membership WP website?
- You can use membership website to sell your online courses.
- To sell your digital content (documents/videos)
- IF you want to sell your physical product and want to give some special offers to membership users, or send regular offer or products to your membership users, you can create a membership website for you.
- Fixed term membership content: If you want to give your membership users access you’re your website restricted content for a limited time of period.
- Membership member to give access for premium service or content to membership users.
- Monthly based subscription service for your website.
Contents
Best WP membership plugin 2020
- MemberPress
- Restrict Content Pro
- S2Member
- WooCommerce Membership
- LearnDash
MemberPress
MemberPress is one of the most popular WP membership plugin. It is very easy to setup and help you charge you users instantly for your restricted content or membership plans.
MemberPress plugin will allow you to create membership plans or subscriptions plans for your website and easily manage and track for membership users. With the help of this plugin you can convert your website into a fully functional and powerful membership website which will be very easy to use.
This plugins works in very simple steps. You will just need to download and install this plugin and setup your payment gateway, setup your products or restricted content and you are ready to sell now. Start inviting your website visitors to join your membership plans.
Key Features of MemberPress
- Easy to setup: This plugin is very easy to setup and have very user friendly admin interface. You just need to install and activate this plugin and you can manage everything else in a very easy way by its very simple admin interface and using short codes as well.
- Content Restriction: You can restrict your website visitors to view your private or premium content which you want to sell on membership plans. With the help you this plugin you can restrict your post/page, custom post type, categories, tags and much more.
- Payment Gateway: MemberPress plugins comes with inbuild Paypal, Stripe, Authorized.net payment gateway.
- Integration: MemberPress has integration compatibility with most of the email marketing plugins like: AWeber, Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Madmini and Get Reponse. You can also integrate it with BuddyPress and Amazon Web Service etc.
Pricing: MemberPress pricing starts with $129/year for a single website licence.
Restrict Content Pro
Restrict Content Pro is a powerful and widely used membership plugin for WordPress. This plugin is created by the development team which has developed Easy Digital Downloads and AffiliateWP plugins.
Restrict Content Pro is a very light weight WordPress membership plugin which has all the features which you need for a full functional membership website.
Key Features of Restrict Content Pro
- Easy to Use: Restrict Content Pro WP membership plugin is very easy to use and have very simple user interface. You just need to install and start using this plugin, setup your content and setup payment gateway. You will be ready to use your membership wbsite.
- Built in Payment Integrations: This plugins comes with inbuilt payment gateway like Paypal, Braintree, 2Checkout and authorize.net
- Flexible Subscription Level: You can create and level of subscription plan and assign them a different price as per your needs. You can create multiple subscription plans allow your members to easily upgrade or downgrade plans.
- Promotional Tools: With the help of this tool you can create promotion discount coupons or code to your members and for normal visitors as well. Users can use these discount codes to purchase membership plans and get discount on pricing as well. You can setup discount codes expiry time, no to times it can be used etc.
- Works with Easy Digital Downloads: If you want to use Easy Digital Download plugin to sell your digital products as well along with the membership functionality then this plugin is best choice for you.
Pricing: $99 with 12 addons and single site license, $149 for 5 sites, and $249 for all addons and unlimited sites. There is also a $499 lifetime plan.
s2Member
s2Member is a Full Featured Membership Plugin to sell your physical and digital products. S2Membership WP plugin comes with Free/Paid version.
s2Member is powered almost entirely by WordPress shortcodes, making complex integrations quick & easy. Sell recurring (or non-recurring) subscriptions with lots of flexibility. Or sell “Buy Now” access in various ways. You can also sell specific Posts/Pages, sell access to file downloads, or sell Custom Capabilities that provide highly configurable access to specific portions of your content.
Key Features s2Member Plugin
- Content Restriction: This plugin allow you to restrict your page/post content which you can use for your membership subscription. It will encourage your website visitors to subscribe to your membership plans to get access for such restricted content.
- Registration Functionality: s2Member plugin can restrict registrations to payment customers. Or, you can allow open registration for free users to create accounts but restrict them for content. In this way, you will can have member users on your website and if any user is not using any membership plan now, you can send them some special discount or offers to join the membership plans.
- Email Marketing: you can integrate s2Member with of the the popular email marketing tool like: Mailchimp, AWeber etc and send customized email promotions to your website members. In can include your customers personal information and transaction details as well.
- Multiple Membership Level: You can create upto 4 membersihp level with free version of s2member plugin and with pro version of WP membership plugin you can have unlimited number of users.
- Payment Gateway: The free version supports Paypal and Pro version plugin supports Stripe and Authorize.net as well.
- Content Driping: s2Member Pro comes with content drip features.
Pricing:
The base version of this plugin is free and Pro version for single site licence costs around $89 USD. For unlimited sites pro vesion costs $189 USD.
LearnDash
LearnDash is of the most popular WordPress LMS (Learning Management System) membership plugin which allow you to sell your online courses or digital content. This plugin is extremely easy to use and very flexible which comes with a lot of integrations, membership modules and powerful admin features and interface.
Key Features of LearnDash
- Easy to Setup: LearnDash plugin is very easy to use and setup. Just install and activate the plugin on your website and start adding content on your website.
- Advance Course Builder: LearnDash membership plugin is specially designed to sell your online digital courses. Its Drag and Drop course builder allow you to create multi-layer courses with category, lessons, topics, assignments and quizzes.
- Easy Payment Structure: Its easy and flexible payment structure allows you to sell your online courses for one-time payment, monthly subscription based payment and membership bundles plans a well. You will be able to decide which best payment plan for which courses is.
- Easy content restrictions: You can restrict content on your website or courses to decide which content should be visible to normal website visitors and which content is available to membership users only.
- Drip Content: This plugins comes with powerful drip content feature allowing you to roll out content to users on regular interval or upon complete of course level or lesson type.
- Integration & Payments: LearnPress support popular payment gateways and you can connect it with MemberPress, WooCommerce, bbPress, Slack etc.
- Built-in Community Features: It comes with tools to create highly engaging membership sites with quizzes, user badges, course specific forums, certificates, user profiles, etc.
Pricing: LearnDash Pricing starts with $159/year for single site licence.
WooCommerce Membership
WooCommerce membership is a WooCommerce plugin which allow you to sale your products and services to your registered users.
To use this plugin you will have to use WooCommerce Subscription plugin to accept recurring payments on your website. With the help of this plugin you can restrict your website content and products.
Key Features of WooCommerce Membership Plugin
- Easy Member Management: WooCommerce membership plugins has very easy admin interface for both website owner and membership users which is very easy to handle and use.
- Member Rewards: You can setup rewards management system for your website members on their each purchase to motivate them for further shopping. You can give free shipping and other special discount your membership users.
- Content Driping: Easily schedule when members see you content as part of a drip campaign. Restrict access to WordPress posts or pages so you can control how members use your site.
- Membership Flexibility: You are very flexible to create your membership plan. You can create one-time payment membership plans, monthly subscription membership plans or yearly subscription based plans as well.
- Payment Gateway: You can enjoy the power of WooCommerce as it supports popular payment gateways supported by WooCommerce plugin.
Pricing: It comes with $149/year for single site licence.
Conclusion
If you are normal WordPress user and want to setup membership functionality on your existing WP website or a new WP website to sell your products or services then MemberPress and Restrict Content Pro are best choice for you.
If you are an intermediate or expert WP user and want to enjoy the advance features of membership website then use s2membership plugin.
If you are WooCommerce lover and want to sell your WooCommerce products along with the membership functionality then WooCommerce membership plugin is best choice for you.
And finally if you are looking for a Learning Managmenet System with membership functionality then use LearnDash, it will be your perfect companion.
I hope this article will help you to decide a good membership plugin as per your needs.