What are the best WordPress mem­ber­ship plugins?

Having a mem­ber­ship site for your WordPress website comes with many ad­van­tages. When choosing a mem­ber­ship plugin, it’s best to compare the different features that a plugin offers as well as the cost.

What is a mem­ber­ship site?

Creating a mem­ber­ship site is a great way to generate more revenue and increase customer loyalty. Having such a site allows you to offer premium content, stay in contact with site visitors and build a strong community. By requiring a sub­scrip­tion to access certain content, you can also generate an ad­di­tion­al stream of income. With mem­ber­ship plugins for WordPress, you can easily manage sub­scrip­tions and divide your website into different areas. In this article, we’ll explain how to create a mem­ber­ship site and highlight some of the best tools for doing this.

What are the different types of mem­ber­ship sites on WordPress?

In the world of WordPress, not all mem­ber­ship sites are alike. There are a number of plugins available that carry out different tasks and cater to various mem­ber­ship site models. Before creating a mem­ber­ship site for your WordPress site, you first need to consider what the added value will be for your customers. This means con­sid­er­ing not only what you would like to offer your customers, but what you are able to offer them as well. The following models are some of the most popular:

• Premium content: Consider using this model if you want to create a paywall for high-quality content on your website. You can use teasers to attract interest for articles or images, but users can only unlock these after paying a fee. If you want to create an online store with WordPress, you can use this model to reserve certain products for members.
• Course model: This model is es­pe­cial­ly helpful for those looking to offer online courses. You can advertise a course on your general website and upload the course material to your WordPress mem­ber­ship site. Only after students have enrolled in your course, will they be able to access course material, like videos, documents, quizzes and surveys.
• Community: With the community model, you can create an ad­di­tion­al source of revenue while also cul­ti­vat­ing customer loyalty for your brand. While part of your website is freely ac­ces­si­ble, only paying members are allowed to comment, use the forums or par­tic­i­pate in live chats.
• Drip content: With this model, you can gradually release content. This can be es­pe­cial­ly useful for course in­struc­tors who want to ensure that par­tic­i­pants complete course material in the order outlined in the syllabus. This model also gives you the pos­si­bil­i­ty to release bonus material on a monthly basis.
• Temporary sub­scrip­tions: The temporary sub­scrip­tion model is ideal for a program that is only offered for a couple of weeks or months. Par­tic­i­pants are required to pay a fee to access content during this time, but do not have any ad­di­tion­al oblig­a­tions after the program or course has ended.

What do you need for a WordPress mem­ber­ship site?

Before you decide to add a mem­ber­ship site to your WordPress site, you should think about what it needs in order to be suc­cess­ful. In addition to having enough high-quality content, you also need to think about the technical demands that come with operating such a site. Mem­ber­ship sites are very resource intensive. Therefore, we recommend using managed WordPress hosting and in­stalling lead gen­er­a­tion to ensure your site is secure and stable.

What features should a WordPress mem­ber­ship plugin offer?

Different WordPress mem­ber­ship plugins offer different features. Your needs and goals will determine which mem­ber­ship plugin is right for you. However, we recommend first narrowing your search down to plugins that have the following features:

• Intuitive profile and member man­age­ment
• API access for de­vel­op­ers
• Social logins
• Templates for course structure, coupons or discount pro­mo­tions
• Different sub­scrip­tion models
• Different WordPress themes
• Different payment options
• Email marketing

The 5 best WordPress Mem­ber­ship Plugins at a glance

Data as of December 2022

A closer look at the best WordPress Mem­ber­ship Site plugins

Similar to WordPress plugins, there are also countless mem­ber­ship plugins to choose from. Since it can be time-consuming to sift through them all, we’ve made a list of the most note­wor­thy con­tenders here:

LearnDash

LearnDash spe­cial­izes in the creation and dis­tri­b­u­tion of online courses. With an extensive range of functions, it’s a virtual course in­struc­tor’s dream. With this WordPress mem­ber­ship plugin, you can easily set up courses and track students’ progress. However, due to its rel­a­tive­ly high price, this tool is best suited to those who are planning to offer several courses.

WooCom­merce Mem­ber­ships

While there are al­ter­na­tives to WooCom­merce, the eCommerce platform is still leading the market. The WordPress mem­ber­ship plugin WooCom­merce mem­ber­ships is a powerful option if you want parts of your website to only be ac­ces­si­ble to a select group of people. Discounts, locked products and partial re­stric­tions within subpages are all easy to do with this plugin. It does come with a hefty a price tag though.

Mem­ber­Press

Mem­ber­Press is another high-priced yet feature-rich WordPress mem­ber­ship plugin. The tool is not only intuitive to use, but it also boasts many ad­di­tion­al features that will make your mem­ber­ship site even more at­trac­tive. These include a well-designed access control system, numerous payment options, excellent in­te­gra­tion with email marketing software and many optional add-ons.

WP-Members

WP-Members has opted for a different approach by offering users a WordPress mem­ber­ship plugin that is com­plete­ly free of charge. If, however, you want access to customer support and add-ons, you’ll need to pay a fee. While this tool has a con­sid­er­ably smaller range of features, you can customize it at an af­ford­able price.

Teachable

If you want to offer online courses on your website, Teachable is certainly one of the best plugins. The intuitive builder is extremely versatile and the different pricing options means there’s something for everyone. From the initial creation to the main­te­nance and billing of a course, this tool has every­thing for your teaching needs.