Changing a website into a membership website has been done by many online businesses today. It’s no wonder that website memberships provide several benefits that ordinary websites don’t have. Starting from content protection to task automation.
Those of you who want to change your website to a membership website have come to the right place. In this article, we will provide recommendations for the best WordPress plugins for Membership that you can try:
- Ultimate Member
- Paid Memberships Pro
- Simple Membership
- Membership & Content Restriction
- WP-Members Membership Plugin
- WP Private Content Plus
- s2Member Framework
- Restrict User Access
- Users Ultra Membership Plugin
- Membership by Supsystic
- GoUrl Bitcoin Payment Gateway & Paid Downloads & Membership
We will provide a brief review along with the superior features of each of the plugins above. However, before that, we will explain further some of the benefits of this membership website.
Also Read: What is a plugin? How they work in WordPress
Recommended Best Free WordPress Membership Plugins for Your Website
Below, we review the 11 membership plugins available on WordPress. You can find a brief review and the advantages of each plugin. We will also provide suggestions for which plugins are suitable for your website at the end of the article. So, make sure you read to the end, okay!
1. Ultimate Member
Ultimate Member is a free WordPress membership plugin that offers quite complete features but is still light to use. With this plugin, you can easily create an online community on a membership website.
The features that are the focus of Ultimate Member are easy registration for users, member profiles with an attractive appearance, and the many customization options in it. These features allow you to create any community membership website you want, but still user-friendly.
Featured features:
- Complete guide. You can find various solutions regarding the Ultimate Member problem in the existing documentation or ask in the official forum.
- Customization. Apart from the default features, you can also add various features you want by installing additional extensions.
2. Paid Memberships Pro
If you are looking for additional income from the website, Paid Membership Pro can be considered. This WordPress membership plugin is suitable for almost all types of online businesses. Even though it’s free, you can’t underestimate the features of Paid Memberships Pro.
You can use Paid Membership Pro to create unlimited price packages (including recurring payments), a choice of payment options, and special discounts for members. Not only that, this plugin also provides many options regarding content restrictions, report settings, member dashboards, and many more!
Featured features:
- Abundant features. Paid Memberships Pro offers unlimited pricing plan creation, recurring payments, a choice of payment options, and much more.
- Additional add-ons that allow you to add Paid Membership Pro features.
3. Simple Membership
Simple Membership is an easy-to-use and useful WordPress membership plugin for locking posts and pages on your website. With this plugin, you can set up special posts or pages that can only be accessed by members.
Simple Membership also offers a member tier feature. For example, Bronze, Silver, Gold, and so on. You can also set the level of members needed to access certain posts or pages. Incredibly, you can create as many levels as you want.
Featured features:
- Restrict content access. You can lock specific posts or pages on the website so that only members can access them.
- Unlimited member tier settings. You can create as many levels of members as you want.
4. Membership & Content Restriction
Membership & Content Restriction offers many features that will support membership on your website. Starting from receiving payments from members, member management, and making package choices, to restricting access to special content.
This plugin is also integrated with WooCommerce, you know. You can limit access and purchase of products to members only, as well as provide discounts that can be adjusted according to the choice of packages purchased by members.
Also read: Best 5 Security plugins for WordPress
Featured features:
- WooCommerce integration. You can restrict product access and purchases to members only. As well as, providing discounts according to the packages purchased.
- Member management. You can see all members, and their plan options, add/remove members, and change their plan.
5. WP-Members Membership Plugin
This WordPress membership plugin turns your website into a membership website by limiting access to content. You can lock premium content, create registration fields as you wish, and so on.
WP-Members Membership automatically adjusts to the theme and appearance of your website. Starting from the registration process, logging in, locking content, and so on. So, you don’t need to bother rearranging the appearance of your website just to adjust one plugin.
Featured features:
- Customize the appearance of the website. You don’t need to bother rearranging the appearance of the website when using this WP-Members Membership plugin.
- Restrict content. You can set content to be accessible only to members.
6. WP Private Content Plus
As the name suggests, WP Private Content Plus allows you to lock various content on your website to make it private. Starting from posts, pages, navigation menus, widgets and many others.
However, there is one feature that sets WP Private Content Plus apart from other WordPress membership plugins. Namely, you can give special access to certain members. So that only these members can access the content.
Featured features:
- Lock content. Not only limited to posts or pages, but WP Private Content Plus can also lock other content. Starting from the navigation menu, and widgets, to the search feature.
- Gives special access to members. So that only these members can access certain content.
7. s2Member Framework
You could say s2Member Framework is one of the best WordPress membership plugins. Even though it’s free, it has quite complete features, you know. Starting from general features such as locking posts/pages, to features locking specific content in posts that are rarely found in other membership plugins.
Apart from that, s2Member Framework also has several other useful features that you can access. Such as email templates, welcome text settings when members login, IP blocking, and brute force attack protection.
Featured features:
- Rich in features. You can lock posts/pages, to lock specific content in the post.
- Useful additional features. Besides the main features, the s2Member Framework also has additional features such as email templates, welcome text settings, and many others.
8. Restrict User Access
Looking at the name, you can already guess the main features of this WordPress membership plugin. Restrict User Access limits member access to certain content according to their membership level.
For example, “Newbie” level members may only access content in category A by author A. Meanwhile, “Pro” level content in categories A and B by authors A, B, and C. That’s just a simple example. Apart from categories and authors, you can also set tags, post types, dates, and many others.
Featured features:
- Abundant access restriction options. You can set limits for categories, authors, tags, post types, dates, and many others.
- Unlimited membership tiers. You can create as many member tiers as you need.
9. Users Ultra Membership Plugin
With the Users Ultra Membership Plugin, you can create a community in just a few minutes. This plugin also has reCaptcha features, user reviews (members can rate other members), content locking, and many others.
Users Ultra Membership also supports all existing WordPress themes, you know. So, all the existing features can be enjoyed by members without you having to bother changing the appearance of the website.
Featured features:
- Easy to use. You don’t need coding skills to be able to use all the features of the Users Ultra Membership.
- Supports all WordPress themes. This plugin will automatically adapt your theme, so it doesn’t spoil the look.
10. Membership by Supsystic
This one WordPress membership plugin allows you to easily create online communities and website memberships. Membership by Supsystic supports setting up member profiles, front-end registration (without the need to enter the backend dashboard), followers between members, and many others.
Membership by Supsystic also supports several other WordPress plugins, you know. Starting from bbPress to even WooCommerce. Support for other plugins can certainly make Membership by Supsystic more powerful.
Featured features:
- Abundant features. With Membership by Supsystic, you can implement member profile settings, front-end registration, follower features between members, and many others.
- Support for other plugins such as bbPress and WooCommerce. This one feature can make Membership by Supsystic more powerful.
11. GoUrl Bitcoin Payment Gateway & Paid Downloads & Membership
If you want to sell something and require members to pay using cryptocurrency, you can consider this GoUrl plugin. GoUrl supports up to 14 cryptocurrencies and payments will be paid directly to your wallet automatically.
GoUrl also supports other WordPress plugins. Such as WooCommerce, bbPress, Jigoshop , AppThemes, and so on. This plugin is 100% free and no fees are charged for each transaction.
Featured features:
- Payment via cryptocurrency. It’s very rare for WordPress membership plugins to support payments like this.
- There are no transaction fees. Even though GoUrl can be said to be a third party between the seller and the buyer, it doesn’t charge any fees at all. 100% free.
What Are the Benefits of Turning a Website Into a Membership Website?
As we mentioned above, website memberships have several benefits that ordinary websites don’t have–especially from a business perspective. What are they?
1. Additional Income
Website membership requires visitors to pay before enjoying some of the content on the website. This way, you can get additional income every time a new user registers and pays to enjoy your content.
2. Content Protection
The content that you took the trouble to create is an asset that can generate profit, you know. Therefore, you must try to protect it. Well, website membership allows you to protect content by locking it. In this way, the content can only be accessed by members who have registered or paid.
3. Help Your Email Marketing
If you have trouble developing an email list when implementing how to create email marketing, a website membership can be a solution. Because you can add emails from members who have registered. In this way, your email list will contain many active users who are likely to turn into consumers.
Also read: SEO WordPress: Plugins, Techniques, and Tips for Optimizing your site
4. Task Automation
The WordPress membership plugin can perform several automation tasks related to members, you know. Starting from the registration process, sending emails, payment processes, and many others. This way, you can save time and not repeat the same task every time a member registers.
Which is the Best WordPress Membership Plugin?
Determining the best WordPress membership plugin is certainly not an easy thing. Each plugin offers different features and of course, is intended for different types of membership websites.
Website memberships that aim to create an online community are definitely different from website memberships for selling products. Both of course also have different characteristics when compared to membership websites for premium content.
Therefore, to close this article, we will provide a brief summary of the most important features of each plugin. We will also provide suggestions for which plugins are suitable for the type of community membership website, selling products, premium content, and more.
- Ultimate Member — customization features and full guide available. Suitable for creating online communities on membership websites.
- Paid Memberships Pro — unlimited pricing plan creation with repayment option. One of the best choices for membership websites that sell products.
- Simple Membership — a feature to limit access to content with member levels. It is suitable for membership websites that protect premium content.
- Membership & Content Restriction — WooCommerce integration makes this plugin suitable for membership websites that sell products.
- WP-Members Membership Plugin — this plugin can adjust the appearance of the website regarding restricted content. So it’s perfect for those of you who want to protect premium content, but don’t want to bother setting up the appearance of the website from the start.
- WP Private Content Plus — the most striking feature of this plugin is that it can give special access to certain members. It is suitable for membership websites with premium content.
- s2Member Framework — can lock specific content in a page, making it very suitable for content protection.
- Restrict User Access — has abundant access restriction setting features. Starting from categories, authors, tags, post types, and many others. It is suitable for protecting content.
- Users Ultra Membership Plugin — this plugin supports all WordPress themes. So you can quickly create a membership website for the community.
- Membership by Supsystic — this free WordPress membership plugin has tons of features to help you easily create an online community.
- GoUrl Bitcoin Payment Gateway & Paid Downloads & Membership — this plugin has a very rare feature, which supports cryptocurrency payments. So it can be the best choice if your website membership sells products with cryptocurrency payments.
We hope this article helped you find the best WordPress membership plugins. Don’t forget to subscribe to the Xanderblog to get the latest and most complete information regarding the world of technology and business. See you in the next article!
