5 Best WordPress Membership Plugins (Free & Paid)

Looking for the greatest WordPress Membership Plugins to grant people access to your exclusive content?

In fact, you can get a lot of benefits when integrating this membership plugin. For example, connecting with potential customers, user segmentation, and content restriction. It’s a smart way to grow your business and make extra income online.

Building a membership website is not easy but it’s not hard if you find our article here. Let’s explore 5 membership plugins with different budget options, including several free ones.

Benefits of Having a Membership Website

The most effective way to make money is to create a membership site using a membership plugin. This kind of website can help you limit access to your content for paid users only. This content can include downloads, videos, forums, study materials, support, and more. So it’s necessary to find the Best WordPress Membership Plugins.

Here are some of the reasons when having a membership site:

– Generate stable income: Since your customers have to pay for access, you definitely get a recurring income. In particular, you will get even more if many people register on your membership site.

– Increase email list: When users register on your membership site, you can get their information and add to your email list. This way can improve your email marketing strategies too.

– Deliver more value: Your content can be valuable to your paid users forever. Plus, you have an option to make your content more valuable for users to encourage them to pay for the access next time. 

– Automation: Membership plugin can help you update your content automatically for your target audience. 

What to Look For in WordPress Membership Plugins

There are many WordPress Membership Plugins on the market, but choosing the right one has features you need is not easy. Plus, you have to determine your membership types. Some of the common ones are online communities, online courses, online consulting, etc. Get the plugin that allows you to create any type of membership website you want is a great choice. 

So what important things do we need in Membership Plugins WordPress?

– Ease to use: Not all have the same skill level, so a good membership plugin should be easy to use and simple with necessary functionalities when you need it.

– Compatibility: It’s another key thing you should look for. The membership plugin you prefer should be compatible with your existing plugins and your WordPress theme. It can help your work easier and avoid breaking your website. You can test that plugin on your local install before using it on your live website.

– Features: You can find tons of features for each membership plugin, however, you should find the one has some important features like: Member management, forums integration, email marketing services, content dripping, course builder support, multi-level subscriptions, coupons and discount codes, recurring payments, etc.

Top 5 WordPress Membership Plugins

MemberPress – WordPress Membership Plugins

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MemberPress is our first choice among the Best WordPress Membership Plugins available out there. It offers a ton of amazing features that you need for building a membership site. Plus, MemberPress integrates seamlessly with plugins and your theme. 

Features:

– Easy to use: You can install MemberPress with ease in a minute. In addition, it lets you to configure your payment channels, create any type of membership levels, and even add your products. After that, you can invite anyone to connect to your membership site.

– Content restriction: This plugin restricts members’ access to any piece of content such as pages, posts, tags, categories, etc. You can have full control over your members.

– Course builder: Creating, managing, and selling your online courses are possible with MemberPress using drag-n- drop method. You can even track students’ progress too.

– Integrations: The plugin integrates with email marketing services, BuddyPress, and so on.

– Widgets: This feature helps your members sign-in easily.

– Payment gateways: There are PayPal, Authorize.net, and Stripe channels, depending on your Membership’s plan you choose.

– Documentation: Available to use anytime with detailed documentation.

Other features you will find in MemberPress are coupon creation, content dripping, analytic dashboard, etc.

Teachable – WordPress Membership Plugins

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Compared to other WordPress Membership Plugins, Teachable is a fully-featured platform. You can actually build any membership site you want but it’s perfect for creating and selling online courses. Surely, your business will grow, thanks to sales and marketing services support. 

Features:

– Quick installation: Teachable is simple and easy to set up with a few clicks.

– Powerful customization: You can create online courses using their built-in customization platforms. Uploading videos, audios, lectures, and so on are included in this Teachable. It lets you link your site to Teachable under a custom domain.

– Learning feature: Teachable lets you issue certificates and create quizzes, discussion forums, and surveys for your online courses. Moreover, the plugin uses Zapier to connect to stay organized and on track.

– Marketing feature:  Get more members using coupon codes or promotions. Plus, you can create your own affiliate program for your membership site. The plugin supports different pricing like membership subscriptions or one-time membership.

– Easy member management system: You can monitor your members with detailed analytics. In addition, giving access to others for creating courses and managing students is available.

There are some features like dripping content, several payment gateways, automated email marketing services, and multiple currencies.

s2Member

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S2Member is one of the Membership Plugins for WordPress you can go with. It is packed full of features. You can even use S2Member without any charge. Simply download on WordPress.org and give it a try with basic offers. However, the free plan has limited features and support.

Features:

– Registration option: You can restrict registrations to only paying customers to get an account. But if you enable the open registrations, anyone can create accounts. 

– Payment gateways: The free one has only PayPal. The Pro plans support PayPal, Stripe, and even Authorize.net.

– Content restriction: You can protect your content like posts, pages, URIs, conditionals, tags, etc. Even if you plan to restrict your downloadable files or your streaming audios or videos, you can do it as well.

– Integrations: It works well with MailChimp, AWeber, GetResponse, bbPress, BuddyPress. 

– Different membership levels: If you use the free plan, you can have up to 4 membership levels. But the pro plans let you make unlimited number of users.

LearnDash

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LearnDash is the next option in our WordPress Membership Plugins today. It’s also a LMS plugin. So that it’s possible to create and sell your courses online with ease. 

Features:

– Easy to use: Any level can install the WordPress plugin – LearnDash in a few clicks to create a membership website. Then just add your content and it’s done.

– Powerful course builder: You can make any course with quizzes, lessons, assignments, certificates, and so on using drag-n-drop method. No code is required at all.

– Multiple payment gateways: There are over 300+ available payment channels to choose. 

– Integration: LearnDash works great with most of the plugins and any theme such as bbPress, WooCommerce, Slack, etc.

You’ll find content restriction, dripping content, online community, and member management in LearnDash as well. Get it now!

Restrict Content Pro

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Restrict Content Pro, as its name implies, is a simple, lightweight, and clean membership plugin. It includes anything for making a complete membership website. 

Features:

– Different payment methods: Similar to the above WordPress Plugins Membership, this plugin supports famous channels like PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, Braintree, and 2Checkout.

– Built-in integrations: It integrates with the email service providers such as MailChimp or MailPoet. Besides, you will find the email manager and CSV export files.

– Easy Digital Downloads: It helps to sell your digital products.

– Subscription levels: You can create different subscription levels.

– Discount feature: You can create various discounts. In particular, it can be a flat discount type or a percentage. Each discount will have expiration dates and number of uses.

– Documentation and customer support: Free documentation is available for anyone and a dedicated support with fast response.

Final Thoughts

Have you decided which one to choose after viewing our WordPress Membership Plugins? In our opinion, MemberPress is the perfect plugin that includes everything like simple to use, multiple payment channels, email marketing integration, content dripping, online course creation, detail reporting, and so on.

Read More: +7 Best Email Marketing Services for Small Business