It’s easy to appreciate the advantages of membership websites from a business perspective. They allow you to recognize your regular visitors while also raising the revenue from your website. The trickiest part is figuring out how to make one from scratch.
An investment of your time and attention is necessary when starting a membership site. To your advantage, WordPress membership plugins make this procedure a whole lot simpler.
Here, we’ll explain what a membership website is and why it’s a good idea to incorporate it into your WordPress site. After that, we’ll compare five of the most popular WordPress membership plugins.
What Are WordPress Membership Websites?
Membership sites can be used to monetize your blog or website by offering paid subscriptions as well as providing free materials, although this is less common. For example in educational institutions, restricted sections of their websites can only be seen by students and faculty members.
For starters, membership sites allow you to choose who may see what. Profits from your website might be boosted if you have a members-only area. Businesses that provide recurring billing can reap the benefits of long-term profits that rise with time.
Advantages of Using A Plugin for Membership Websites
In order to get your subscription site up and running, you’ll need to deal with several different aspects. However, most of the features and functions required are not included in the basic WordPress package. A plugin is therefore an absolute need.
By now, most WordPress users should be aware of the importance of third-party plugins. Adding membership and subscription options is only one of the many ways you can utilize them to improve your website.
To make launching a subscription site as simple and uncomplicated as possible, there is a wide range of WordPress membership plugins. Because of the wide range of options, it’s much easier to discover one that meets your exact demands and specifications. It doesn’t matter if your major issue is cost, the convenience of use, or compatibility; there’s a plugin for that!
No coding or technical knowledge is required to utilize these plugins, as is true with most WordPress add-ons. Many, like the ones we’ve selected for this post, have a user-friendly interface and allow you to tailor the subscription system to your preference.
Best WordPress Membership Website Plugins
MemberPress
As a popular and effective WordPress membership plugin, MemberPress is a must-have. It’s easy to use and comes with a wide range of options for your website.
With this plugin, you can set up prices, account information for your subscribers, and thank you pages without any coding knowledge required. As an alternative, there is an option called “content dripping,” which is used to limit material after a set period of time has passed for a visitor. If you’re using a third-party tool such as Constant Contact or Mailchimp or payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.net, you may integrate them easily with this plugin.
However, MemberPress lacks the ability to integrate with other payment gateways aside from those listed above. If your company uses a different one, it might not be compatible.
The Basic package costs $149 a year, while the Pro plan costs $349 a year.
Learndash
LearnDash membership plugin is one of the best WordPress plugins for creating online learning courses and resources. Many institutions and businesses use this Learning Management System (LMS) plugin to build, design, and deliver online training and courses using WordPress.
It’s quite versatile and simple to use. You may use LearnDash to divide your site’s content into multiple membership levels and groups after a quick installation and setup process. Additionally, you may set up access controls and payment choices for a certain group.
As far as creating and selling online courses go, LearnDash is the best in the business. With its focus on managing learning materials, it stands out from other membership plugins.
A variety of payment plans are available. The entry-level package costs $159 for a single site license, while the pro version costs $329 that can be installed in up to 25 different websites.
Restrict Content Pro
Create as many membership levels as you like with Restrict Content Pro, another popular WordPress membership plugin. Those behind the well-known AffiliateWP plugin designed it.
In contrast to many other membership plugins, Restrict Content Pro has built-in integrations. PayPal, MailChimp, Stripe, and a slew of other services are already pre-integrated. 2Checkout, Braintree, and PayPal Express are just a few of the many payment gateways that it works with.
Because it provides step-by-step instructions on how to set up and customize your WordPress site, this plugin is ideal for those who are new to the platform. Membership tiers, subscription packages, and membership newsletters are all things you may expect to see with this plugin.
Pricing for the Personal plan begins at $99 a year. The Professional plan, which costs $249 a year, allows you to use it on unlimited sites and gives you access to a wide range of add-ons.
Ultimate Member
Ultimate Member is not just a WordPress plugin for creating a paid membership site. As a user profile management solution, it also has a wide range of options for developing and customizing your membership site community.
User profiles, login, and registration, as well as drag-and-drop form builder and user account pages and emails, are some of Ultimate Member’s distinctive and valuable features.
As far as pricing is concerned, there’s a solution for everyone. There is a free version of the app that includes some of the capabilities stated above. Private Content extension, which costs $40, is another premium add-on option.
The Ultimate Member Extension Pass costs $249 per year and gives you access to all of these extensions and features.
S2Member
WordPress membership plugin s2Member is another freemium option. It is straightforward to set up and has a lot of functionality. Over one million people have used this plug-in so far, so it’s definitely something to consider. It’s also been around longer than many other membership plugins, which means it has a strong support network..
This app is free, but you’ll be limited in your ability to perform some things. As a starting point, it provides a foundation for you to build upon. Restrict your WordPress content and customize your homepage, membership choices page, and registration fields with the help of a premium plugin.
For those who want to upgrade to the Pro package, there are two options. Single-site licenses cost $89, while multi-site licenses cost $189 each. In order to utilize the plugin on infinite websites, the second plan costs $149.
Conclusion
To generate recurring money and supply your audience with great material, a subscription-based membership site is an obvious choice. However, it is strongly advised that you utilize a WordPress membership plugin if you want to simplify and optimize the procedure.
Learn how to narrow down your search for a solution that works best for your business as well as your target audience by studying the many features and specifics of each membership plugin we’ve reviewed above.