A membership plugin allows you to control the access to the content on your website by your users. You can, for instance, require your users to upgrade to a certain membership level to access the exclusive content you offer.
Some membership plugins come with a payment feature to allow you to accept membership payment without installing an extra plugin.
If you need a page builder to style up some pages of your membership website, such as the registration page, you can use Elementor, Divi Builder or Beaver Builder.
Here are some of the best plugins you can use to create a membership website with WordPress.
Best WordPress Membership Plugins
On the list:
- ARMember
- ProfilePress
- MemberPress
- MemberMouse
- Restric Content Pro
- Paid Memberships Pro
- WooCommerce Memberships
- Paid Member Subscriptions
- WP-Members
- s2Member
- SureMembers
1. ARMember
ARMember WordPress Membership Plugin is a robust WordPress Membership Plugin that offers all the advanced level of impressive features along with many free and paid Add-ons with the use of which you can build a membership website where you can count upon recurring payments from the members of your membership website rather than just having a passive income source.
A positive side of ARMember WordPress Membership Plugin is that it allows you to build your desirable membership website without even worrying about the coding stuff.
Let’s jump to the features list!
Classic Features of ARMember:
- Content Restriction: It offers the gated content for different membership plans. Setting the content protection rules for WordPress posts, pages, or for the custom posts can be easily done.
- Multiple Payment Cycles
- Membership Setup Wizard
- Pay Per Post
- Eye-catchy feature built-in form builder.
- Provides in-built support for most prominent payment gateways such as PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.Net, Bank Transfer, and 2Checkout.
- Offers Opt-ins integrations of most popular Email marketing software like Aweber, Constant Contact, MailChimp, and others.
- Can access around 21+ free and paid Add-ons integration.
- Allows custom automated “Email Notifications”
- Supports Third-Party Plugins (BuddyPress, ARPrice, VisualComposer, WooCommerce, etc.)
What about pricing?
When it comes to pricing, the ARMember WordPress Membership plugin comes with affordable pricing of just $59 for its regular license usage with life-time FREE update facility from the author of this amazing WordPress Membership plugin.
You can also try the free version of ARMember for trial experience.
2. ProfilePress
ProfilePress can be a great solution if you are looking for a membership plugin that has a built-in payment system. The payment feature of ProfilePress allows you to accept payments via credit card, PayPal, Google Pay to Apple Pay.
You can even use the free version of ProfilePress to build a fully functional membership website — complete with the payment system. However, you won’t be able to accept the payments via PayPal since the free version only supports Stripe.
ProfilePress is a great plugin for content creators and developers.
If you are a blogger, for instance, you can use to sell paid content or e-books. If you are a WordPress plugin developer, you can use ProfilePress to sell your plugins. ProfilePress allows you to create multiple membership plans, which you can leverage to offer different features on the plan tier.
About the payment, you can apply both one-time payment or subscription-based payment.
Here are the key features offered by ProfilePress:
- Content protection
- Built-in payment system
- Membership
- User profile
- Member directory
- Checkout page
- Form builder
- Social login
- Metered paywall
- Email confirmation
- Passwordless login
- Email marketing integration
- LMS integration
- User moderation
- Spam protection
- Customizable emails
3. MemberPress
MemberPress is arguably the most popular WordPress membership plugin. It is one of the membership plugins that comes with the most complete features. One of the key features offered by MemberPress is the ability to restrict access to content on your website based on membership level or the product your users bought.
Want to offer coupons? MemberPress also allows you to do so. In MemberPress, you can create coupons. Each coupon can have an expiration date and number of uses.
To accept payment on your membership website, you can integrate MemberPress with PayPal, Stripe, or Authorize.net. You can also integrate MemberPress with popular email marketing tools like Mailchimp, AWeber, GetResponse, and so on. Other key features offered by MemberPress include:
- Drip content
- Affiliate program (Pro plan only)
- Reporting
- Subscription management
You can use MemberPress on any WordPress theme. You can also integrate it with BBPress. MemberPress itself is a paid plugin. The cheapest plan offered by the plugin costs $149 per year.
4. MemberMouse
Sometimes — when looking for the best paid plugin — you want to try it first before making a purchase. MemberMouse offers a 14-day trial period, allowing you to try the offered features for free before you make a decision whether you want to buy it or not.
Same as MemberPress, MemberMouse is also a feature-rich membership plugin. The core features of this plugin include:
- Member management
- Content protection
- Payment integrations
- Reporting
- Drip & scheduled content
MemberMouse allows you to accept free and paid members and manage them via an intuitive enough dashboard. MemberMouse also offers a built-in CRM tool that you can use to track your members’ info, activities, and transaction histories.
MemberMouse offers 3 plans you can choose from according to your needs:
- Builder (5,000 active members)
- Advanced (50,000 active members)
- Premium (100,000 active members)
5. Restrict Content Pro
Restrict Content Pro is a great solution if you want to create restricted content on your website in which only selected members are able to access it. In general, the features offered by this plugin are not much different from the first two plugins above.
You can manage your members via its member management feature. The plugin allows you to easily create free, trial, and premium subscription plans for aspiring members. About the payment, Restrict Content Pro supports PayPal, Stripe, Braintree, 2Checkout, and Authorize.net. Features like discount creator and reporting are also available.
You can enrich the Restrict Content Pro features by installing an add-on. You can, for instance, create an affiliate program using AffiliateWP integration. Same as MemberPress and MemberMouse, Restrict Content Pro is also a paid plugin with the cheapest plan costs $99 per year. The plugin offers no trial version.
6. Paid Memberships Pro
Despite its name, Paid Memberships Pro is a freemium membership plugin. Meaning that you can use it for free although with limited enough features. The core of the plugin itself is basically free. What makes it different between Paid Memberships Pro versions is the included add-ons.
The free version of the plugin offers 19 free add-ons while the paid versions offer more add-ons.
In general, the features offered by Paid Membership Pro are not much different from MemberPress, MemberMouse, and Restrict Content Pro. You can restrict content to your users based on their membership level. Crucial features like member management, drip content, and payment gateway are available.
7. WooCommerce Memberships
Unlike the first four plugins above, WooCommerce Memberships is not a standalone WordPress plugin. Instead, it is a WooCommerce extension. So, to use it, you need to have WooCommerce installed and activated on your WordPress site.
You can also use WooCommerce Memberships to create content and make it exclusively available for your site members only.
You can even restrict product viewing to members, meaning that the products will only be visible by the members.
8. Paid Member Subscriptions
Paid Member Subscriptions is another plugin you can use if you want to turn your WooCommerce store into a membership site. The features offered by this plugin are not much different from WooCommerce Memberships above, but you can get this plugin at a cheaper price.
The cheapest plan of Paid Member Subscriptions costs $69. With this plugin, you will be able to:
- Restrict product viewing
- Restrict product purchasing
- Restrict access to entire WooCommerce Shop
- Add member discounts per subscription
- Add member discounts per product
9. WP-Members
If you are looking for a free solution of a WordPress membership plugin, WP-Members might is the one you are looking for. WP-Members is a very simple membership plugin that you can use to restrict content to your site members only.
Being a free plugin, WP-Members comes with limited enough features. There is no feature to monetize your site by default.
You need to install an add-on to accept payment for a paid membership. You can visit this page to learn and get WP-Members add-ons.
10. s2Member
Looking for a free WordPress membership plugin? s2Member is a great item you can try. Unlike WP-Members which doesn’t allow you to monetize your content with the free version, s2Member allows you to do so.
You can protect your content and require your users to make a purchase (via PayPal) to access the content. Since s2Members offers a free version, you can learn how it works without spending a dime. If it suits, you can upgrade to the pro version to unlock more features.
11. SureMembers
SureMembers revolutionizes the way you create membership websites, offering a hassle-free experience right from the start. With its user-friendly setup wizard, your site can be operational in minutes, freeing you from complex configurations.
Say goodbye to tedious setups and hello to effortless membership management with SureMembers.
Features of SureMembers:
- Simple setup and management
- Content drips for scheduled releases
- Automation potential for efficient management
- Restricted content access control
- Customizable access rules for tailored memberships
- Support for drip content and paywalls
- Seamless integration with payment gateways
- eCommerce capabilities for additional revenue streams
- Compatibility with popular WordPress plugins
- Unlimited membership tiers for scalability
- Premium support for peace of mind
SureMembers offers flexible pricing plans to accommodate various needs. Starting at $69 per year for the single website plan and $149 per year for the plan supporting up to 10 sites. Choose the plan that suits your requirements and scale effortlessly with SureMembers.
Join countless others who have discovered the simplicity and power of SureMembers. Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur or managing multiple sites, SureMembers provides the tools you need for success. Experience the difference today and unlock the full potential of your membership websites with SureMembers.
Summary – Which Membership Plugin Should You Use?
You can build a membership website with WordPress without touching a single line of code thanks to a membership plugin. However, you need to pick the plugin carefully because some plugins may be don’t offer the features you need.
If you need a membership plugin that has a built-in payment system, for instance, SureMembers is not the option as it requires SureCart to add the payment functionality. For this particular case, plugins like ProfilePress, MemberPress and ARMember are the better options.
If you are a WooCommerce user, then WooCommerce Memberships is a reasonable option you can use.
