Having a WordPress website means opening a portal to generate plenty of income. Installing a WordPress membership plugin is one of the most effective ways to monetize your website.
This method is perfect for content creators and entrepreneurs who want to create an extra source of income without converting their website into an E-commerce store.
Instead of featuring products and services, you can provide member-only exclusive content through a WordPress membership plugin.
We got your interest? Wait till you read the entire blog. This article will highlight the top 4 best membership plugins for WordPress. We have tested each plugin personally to help you narrow down the best Membership plugin for your WordPress website.
Table of Contents
What is a WordPress Membership Plugin?
A WordPress membership plugin is one type of tool that implements login access to your WordPress website. This plugin will allow users to view member-only content by logging in with their unique credentials.
When you install a membership plugin on your WordPress website, you can offer visitors:
- Exclusive content
- Login forms and registration forms
- Free trials
- Recurring payments
- Tiered membership options
Remember that WordPress membership plugins are completely different from gated content marketing. Gated content will only ask users to provide their email addresses for newsletters. On the other hand, WordPress membership plugins will let you charge visitors in exchange for exclusive content. It will also require more subscriber information.
Benefits of WordPress Membership Plugins
Membership plugins will make your WordPress website a membership site. These plugins will create huge potential to earn an extra source of income through your WordPress website.
This is because these plugins for WordPress websites help you have solid control over the customer journey of your users. Whether you have an e-commerce business or publish blogs only, these WordPress plugins will prove extremely helpful.
While a Membership plugin can enhance your WP website’s functionality, we recommend using a robust hosting platform like Hostinger to host your WordPress website for better performance.
Here are a few examples of how a WordPress website can utilize these subscription plugins:
- You can share free content such as articles and blog posts initially to build a follower base. After that, you can introduce membership-only content and charge certain fees from your customers.
- You can offer membership subscriptions of different price levels. You can also include a free trial or a free plan.
- Restrict access to digital downloads
- Create an email list to provide your customers with exclusive updates, coupons, and upselling offers. You can also encourage your subscribers to upgrade their membership.
In short, with a WordPress membership plugin, you can sell one-time or recurring access to your digital content. The digital content could be anything from newsletters and courses to blog posts and downloadable.
Best Membership Plugins for WordPress
While many free membership plugins for WordPress are enough to monetize your website, they usually come with limited features and support.
Hence, choosing a premium WordPress membership plugin is always the best decision. A premium membership plugin will feature all the required tools to provide a unique customer experience.
But what happens when you start getting high traffic on your WordPress website? To prevent downtime, this is where WordPress cache plugins come into the picture. Take our recommendation on the best WordPress cache plugins in 2024.
1. MemberDash
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(This discount will be applied automatically)
MemberDash is our #1 choice for e-commerce websites, creators, or influencers who want to sell premium content to their audience, earn extra income, and grow their community of members.
Features:
- Flexible memberships to create multiple levels
- Precisely control what content members see by restricting access
- Set up recurring payments, offer prorated charges, and create coupons
- Integrate seamlessly with popular payment processors
- Offer exclusive downloadable content
- Drag-and-drop elements and shortcodes for easy content restriction
MemberDash is the best Membership Plugin for WordPress and there are quite a few reasons why we put it on top of our list.
It provides a guided setup and installation process to convert your WordPress site into a monetized one. From a simple dashboard to ease of use, MemberDash is packed with many helpful features.
It excels at offering a wide range of features for building and managing membership sites. You can create different membership tiers, restrict content access, and even sell courses (with LearnDash integration). This lets you design a membership program that perfectly suits your goals.
MemberDash will let you create non-recurring, recurring, and one-time payments according to your needs. We used the free trial and saw that it’s fully functional, something we liked a lot.
Managed by Learndash creator Justin Ferriman, Memberdash creates diverse membership tiers with varying access levels, pricing structures, and content offerings. This caters to a wider audience and allows you to segment your members effectively.
Now, we know the importance of having a beginner-friendly plugin. Not every user will have technical knowledge and facing technical roadblocks takes a lot of time to resolve.
MemberDash boasts a user-friendly interface that lets you set up your membership site without needing to know how to code. It is perfect for anyone who wants to get started quickly. This is why we recommend it as the best WordPress membership plugin.
Apart from providing users with coupon codes, you can also server-side protected pages that are hosted by MemberDash itself. You can also use the Javascript widget to protect the existing pages of your WordPress website.
Mark our words when we say monetization is a key strength. You can offer paid memberships, sell courses, and control what content members can access at each level. This lets you generate revenue from your membership site.
Upon installing MemberDash, all you need to do is register, login, and add the content link. This will allow users to access your website’s membership content without redirecting away from your site. Not to mention, you can collect payments in just one click.
You will have total control over what you want your members to see. Protect not just posts and pages, but also categories, tags, custom content types, and even specific sections of content. You decide exactly what your members see at every level.
But our recommendation of Memberdash doesn’t stop here. For instance, you can effortlessly organize and deliver content based on membership levels. Members only see what they’re entitled to, resulting in a clear and valuable membership experience.
Thanks to its intuitive dashboard, MemberDash will let you know how many sign-ups you received and how many people paid for the premium membership. As it can also serve as a dedicated CMS, you can create protected courses, pages, lessons, file downloads, and much more.
But why use Memberdash when there are a couple of other plugins available on the market? It’s because the key features provided by Memberdash are far more beneficial than the others. Let’s take billing management as an example.
Finance is crucial to every membership business, and MemberDash recognizes that. Its integrated billing management capabilities make it easier to manage transactions ranging from one-time purchases to recurring subscriptions.
The technology enables a seamless flow of revenue while decreasing the administrative burden on content creators. Here, you can generate an invoice for a specific member and membership category. You may also set custom actions for invoice payment here.
When users register on your WordPress website, MemberDash will let you collect user information so that you can create numerous customized field types and store the data within your user’s profiles.
Changing site builders is also possible with MemberDash. As it provides different themes and templates, you can change the appearance of your membership area easily. If you want to reflect your brand image, modify the colors of the membership area.
Now, sometimes building a community will go a long way. MemberDash provides tools to help foster a community among your members. You can create member directories, forums, and even drip content to keep members engaged over time.
You can also create member directories where members can connect with each other, set up forums for discussions and knowledge sharing, and even utilize drip content to keep members engaged over time by releasing content in a strategic sequence.
However, keep in mind that MemberDash is exclusive to WordPress websites. If you’re using a different platform like Wix or Squarespace, you’ll need to explore membership plugin options compatible with your chosen platform.
Pricing
The pricing structure of MemberDash depends on the number of WordPress websites you’re planning to use.
- 1 site: $199/year
- 10 sites: $399/year
- Unlimited: $799/year
2. ProfilePress
ProfilePress is not only the most flexible but also one of the most popular membership plugins you can choose for your WordPress site. With hundreds and thousands of customers worldwide, ProfilePress is known for its top-notch features.
The best thing about ProfilePress is that it will let you sell your digital downloads besides creating a membership WordPress site. You can sell your music and eBooks through your website, even if you don’t have WooCommerce themes installed.
You can create recurring or one-time payment plans for your customers to access the exclusive content and download them. It supports popular payment gateways such as Paystack, Stripe, Direct Bank Transfer, Razorpay, PayPal, and Mollie.
Mark our words when we say the content restriction features of ProfilePress are unparalleled. Only a few membership plugins can match its flexibility in terms of content access restriction. With ProfilePress, you can restrict your entire website, page content, custom taxonomy pages, specific pages, archive pages, and more.
There’s one thing that we found extremely eye-catching. ProfilePress will let you create a metered paywall, which will allow your website visitors to view specific pages for free. However, once they cross the limit, they need to purchase a subscription plan.
As we have tested numerous plugins, we found that ProfilePress provides features that you cannot find in any other membership plugin. For instance, it offers a Passwordless login.
When you enable this feature, premium members of your website will receive an email containing a magic URL upon entering their email address on the login page. Upon clicking on that email, they can access the restricted content on your website. No password is required.
ProfilePress also supports numerous social login networks. This way, members can use Facebook, Twitter, and other social logins to access your website’s exclusive content.
Features
- Paid membership plans to monetize your website
- Coupons and discounts
- LLM integration to sell courses
- Easy member management
- Email marketing using Campaign Monitor and Mailchimp
- Seamless paywall setup
Pricing
ProfilePress features three pricing plans
- Standard: $129/year
- Plus: $299/year
- Agency: $499/year
When you choose the premium plan, you don’t need to worry about the 2* extra Stripe fee. The hosted demo of ProfilePress will let you try the features before investing.
Moreover, just like other plugins on this list, ProfilePress too has a 14-day money-back guarantee policy.
3. MemberPress
MemberPress deserves a spot in our list of the best WordPress membership plugins. While testing MemberPress, we realized that it’s more than enough to create a membership WordPress website catered specifically for online learning.
MemberPress comes with an easy installation process, which helps us integrate this plugin into your WordPress website in a matter of seconds. Thanks to the extensive content restriction abilities, you can limit access to your files, posts, pages, and even categories.
This WordPress membership plugin has pre-built templates. As they are code-free, you can just start using them instantly. These templates will allow you to customize the pricing page as per your needs.
MemberPress supports numerous WordPress forum plugins to boost your website’s membership retention rates. The list includes plugins like bbPresss, which will allow you to create a password-protected forum.
MemberPress will also give you complete control over the payments and coupons. It supports payment options such as Stripe, PayPal, Google Wallet, Apple Pay, Authorize.net, and credit cards. They also have a buy-now-pay-later option.
Apart from supporting content dripping, MemberPress will also let you set the expiration date of the content. If you want specific content to be unavailable on your website after a certain time, MemberPress will help you out.
The automated billing will let users grant and remove memberships as per their current payment schemes. They don’t need to go through any complicated cancellation process.
If you want to step into the affiliate marketing campaigns, MemberPress has integration with Affiliate Royale. This will let you start affiliate programs to grow your community. The plugin will generate reports and insights, allowing you to monitor your WordPress website’s growth.
We also loved MemberPress’s integration with the Zapier plugin. This feature will let you extend your WordPress website’s functionality using numerous apps. The premium plan of MemberPress will undoubtedly help you create the best membership WordPress site.
Features
- Customizable checkout
- Unlimited members and memberships
- Powerful LMS features for online courses
- Content dripping
- Integration with Constant Contact, Mailchimp, Easy Affiliate, and more
- Content restriction rules
Pricing
MemberPress has four different pricing plans, each catering to different needs.
- Basic: $359/year
- Plus: $599/year
- Pro: $799/year
- Elite: $999/year
While the Basic version will give you access to 1 site, the Elite plan will give you access to 5 sites. On top of that, the no-risk money-back guarantee ensures you receive a 100% refund within 14 days from purchase, if you don’t like the services.
4. Thrive Apprentice
For the past couple of years, Thrive Apprentice has been a course platform to build, organize, and sell courses to students. However, things changed after the 4.0 update.
Now, Thrive Apprentice is a fully functional WordPress membership plugin that will not only help you sell any content on your website but also the ability to protect any website content from visitors.
Unlike the other plugins, Thrive Apprentice is more convenient for both website owners and visitors. This is because you can control the paywall of your website from a single product interface.
The restriction aspect of Thrive Apprentice is also phenomenal. When you create the products you want to hide, they will automatically be moved to restricted access.
Once you move content to the product option (The product option works like the restriction. Think of it like an imaginary container where you can place your restricted pages), you can determine what mechanisms will give someone access.
Access restriction will let you determine what happens when someone tries to access the restricted content. You can set these features on the default level or by the product. For memberships, this means that you can show different messages to different subscription levels.
Unlike other WordPress membership plugins that come with unfriendly and complicated interfaces, you won’t face the same problem with Thrive Apprentice. This plugin has streamlined all operations, allowing you to access anything you want with just a few clicks.
One of our personal favorites is the integrations with WooCommerce, ThriveCart, and SendOwl. You can integrate Thrive Apprentice technically with other membership plugins and tools too.
When you try to sell a membership through Thrive Apprentice, all the payment-related information will be handled by ThriveCart. It accepts numerous payment options like PayPal, Stripe, Apple Pay, and more.
If you want your visitors to view certain website content, make sure you enable the Conditional Display option. This way, users will see information on your WordPress website that you want them to see.
Features
- Customizable designs
- Drag and drop course builder
- Easy course creation
- Simple and easy-to-understand interface
- Helpful customer support
- Dynamic and personalized content
Pricing
Thrive Apprentice comes with 2 pricing plans
- Thrive Suite: $599/year
- Thrive Apprentice: $299/year
If you choose the Thrive Suite, you will get an entire suite of integrated plugins, including Thrive Quiz Builder and Thrive Apprentice. But, choose the latter payment plan if you need the standalone WordPress plugin.
Thrive focuses on customer satisfaction. Thus, if you’re not happy with the services or features, you can request a full refund within 30 days.
Important Factors to Choose the Best WordPress Membership Plugin
As there are different WordPress membership plugins out there, choosing the right one can be an extremely overwhelming task. To ensure you don’t choose an irrelevant plugin, here are 3 important factors you need to consider:
- Compatibility: You need to choose a membership plugin that works smoothly with your WordPress themes and other plugins. Don’t forget to use a staging site to check if the membership plugin is 100% compatible. If you face any compatibility issues, consider installing a versatile WordPress theme like KadenceWP.
- Features: Determine your needs from a WordPress membership plugin. Do you need the basic features or a more interactive experience? The more features you want, the more you need to pay. But, when you’re clear about what you want from the WordPress membership plugins, you can make a more data-driven decision.
- Ease of use: Make sure the membership plugin is easy for you and your team to use. This is only to provide a top-notch experience to the customers. User-friendly plugins with fewer learning curves will always prove more beneficial.
The installation process of membership plugins is quite straightforward. As long as you know how to start a website on WordPress properly, you will have no problem installing a plugin.
Final Thoughts
Now that you know the 4 best WordPress membership plugin options, you can choose the right one. Remember to evaluate your needs, budget, and your WordPress website before you buy and install any plugins.
From our rigorous testing, we believe MemberDash is the best membership plugin for WordPress. From a simple dashboard to effective protection features, it provides everything one can ask for.
To ensure your WP database is safe, we encourage you to use a solid WordPress backup plugin. Remember, a reliable web hosting service will go a long way in assisting a Membership plugin.
We hope you found this blog informative. Make sure you follow our blog page to gain more information about trending topics.
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