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The 10 Best WordPress Membership Plugins

November 2, 2020

Thinking of turning your website into a membership site? Then you will be surprised how much of the work is done by a simple plugin, but you have to do your homework. There are some key differences. But at the end of the day, a good membership plugin allows you to control access to your site’s content and at the same time manage your subscribers.

With a plethora of plugins available, choosing can be a bit cumbersome. So, to help you decide, our review team has rounded up the best WordPress membership plugins on the market. The final consensus is that these are all quality plugins so in the end, you most likely won’t go wrong with choosing any one of them. Still, we took the time to highlight what each plugin can do and how well it plays ball in the WP environment so you can get an idea if integration with your current theme is going to be challenging. By the end of this review, we hope you’ll know which membership plugin is right for your site.

Let’s get on with the list:

MemberPress

MemberPress

“The all-in-one membership plugin for WordPress.”

Function

Powerful and user-friendly. MemberPress allows you to easily create and manage membership subscriptions and control access to your content. Depending on the membership plan, you can grant and revoke members’ access to your posts, pages, videos, files, and more. Not only that, but MemberPress also allows you to accept credit card payments as well as sell online courses and digital products.

Compatibility

MemberPress backs up their claim that their product fully integrates with your WordPress website. You don’t need to worry about changing your current theme as it works well with any WordPress theme.

Restrict Content Pro

Restricted Content Pro

“A full-featured, powerful membership solution for WordPress.”

Function

Exclusive and extensive. Restrict Content Pro allows you to keep track of your members’ status - active, pending, expired, cancelled, and free. You can then limit access to premium content only to specific members. Restrict Content Pro also provides email management. You can easily send welcome emails, payment receipts, and regular reminders to your site subscribers.

Compatibility

Restrict Content Pro is designed to work with any theme that follows WordPress coding standards. While a few page builders may tend to cause issues, Restrict Content Pro’s support team is more than happy to extend help.

Paid Memberships Pro

Paid Memberships Pro

“The most complete WordPress membership plugin.”

Function

As the name suggests, Paid Memberships Pro lets you manage member subscriptions with recurring payments. You can restrict your site users’ access to content in accordance with their membership level.

Compatibility

Paid Memberships Pro will work with any WordPress theme so you can rest assured you won’t run into problems installing it on your site. You can check out their demos to view Paid Memberships Pro in some popular WordPress themes.

WooCommerce Memberships

“Not just another membership plugin.”

Function

WooCommerce Memberships is not a standalone membership plugin, but a WooCommerce add-on. It’s the perfect membership solution for your online store. You can enhance your customers’ experience by offering them membership perks and exclusive store content. WooCommerce Memberships also allows you to drip content to schedule when your members can access them.

Compatibility

WooCommerce Memberships is fully compatible with most WordPress themes. However, there’s no guarantee that it will work with every plugin or extension.

MemberMouse

“The enterprise level membership plugin for WordPress.”

Function

Member management to the core with enterprise level quality. With MemberMouse, you’ll have access to the following features: member-only content protection, member tracking (info, activity, transaction history, and more), engagement, support, and marketing automation, and tools for reporting sales, customer lifetime value, retention, and more.

Compatibility

MemberMouse affirms that it will work with most plugins and themes, but also admits that compatibility problems are unavoidable once in a while.

WP-Members

WP-Members

“A free plugin to make your WordPress website membership-driven.”

Function

The WP-Members membership plugin gives you the option to restrict your site content and make it viewable only by registered members. It’s perfect for private blogs and premium sites as it will make your engagement with members more personal and exclusive.

Compatibility

The WP-Members plugin is fully compatible with any WordPress theme. It’s also customizable so you can modify its look and feel.

Paid Member Subscriptions

Paid Member Subscriptions

“A WordPress and WooCommerce membership plugin.”

Function

With Paid Member Subscriptions, you can create a membership website and start getting paid right away. You’ll be able to manage member subscriptions by granting and revoking access to posts, pages, and categories. You can also create custom post types for the different subscriptions your members have purchased. It also integrates with WooCommerce so you can restrict product viewing and purchasing and at the same time offer membership discounts and special product prices.

Compatibility

Paid Member Subscriptions easily integrates with your existing WordPress website and content.

LearnDash

LearnDash

“LearnDash Memberships have arrived!”

Function

While LearnDash is technically a Learning Management System, you can now use it as a membership plugin. It has a group function which allows you to create groups to control access to certain courses. If you’re running an online education website, then this is perfect. You can easily manage your students, their membership levels, and their access to learning materials.

Compatibility

LearnDash was built with theme compatibility in mind. It will integrate easily with your current WordPress theme.

Ultimate Member

Ultimate Member

“The #1 User Profile and Membership Plugin for WordPress.”

Function

Ultimate Member makes signing-up for your website easy and fun. The plugin offers features like user profiles, member directories, user registration/login, user role editing, and content restriction, among others.

Compatibility

Ultimate Member works well with any properly coded WordPress theme. But there may be conflicts with some themes at times.

Wishlist Member

Wishlist

“Premium membership plugin for WordPress.”

Function

Wishlist Member makes it easy for you to create a membership site as it keeps the functionality of WordPress and integrates with the tools already in use on your website. It’s easy to set up, gives you total content control, and allows integration with over 60 third party providers.

Compatibility

Wishlist Member works great with any WordPress theme. If you’re using a popular theme like Divi, Ultra, and Astra, then you won’t have any compatibility issues with the Wishlist Member plugin.

Conclusion

The WordPress membership plugins we’ve enumerated above are all worthy options. You can simply pick one based on your website needs and personal preferences. Running an online store? Then we suggest you go with WooCommerce Memberships. Want beautiful user profiles on your website? Then Ultimate Member is the perfect fit. But if you want an all-inclusive membership plugin, then MemberPress will suit you best.

It’s important to build your membership site on a robust platform that will support you as you grow. This is what we recommend.