You must use a membership plugin in order to create a WordPress membership website. But, choosing the right plugin is always vital for your business and to make it a better platform.
Because the growth is always better with a better platform.
If you are planning to transform your WordPress powered website into a fully functional membership site but you do not understand what plugins should be used for this, then this article is for you.
In this article, we will compare the best five membership plugins. Before that let’s take a look at the benefits of a membership site. And how to choose the right plugin for your site.
Why build a Membership site and what are the benefits?
A membership website let you limit access to all the content on your WordPress site including posts, pages, tags, categories, files you’ve uploaded etcetera only to your registered users. This platform can be beneficial to you in many ways such as-
- You can create an email list of active users
- Membership site helps you to establish your authority
- You can generate recurring income
How to choose the right plugin?
Choosing a Membership plugin is far more complicated than choosing any other plugin. Because, if your decision turns out to be wrong it’s hard to turn back and resolve your mistakes.
Almost every plugin has some upsides and downsides because each plugin was not created keeping the same thing in mind. You need to understand which one is perfect for you.
So before you choose a plugin, you have to look at some of the fundamentals of each plugin.
Easy to use
Creating a membership site is a difficult task. You may need to hire a developer to set up your site, but if you do not want to hire a Developer, then you have to choose a plugin that you can easily use.
You should look for a plugin that is lightweight and the interface is clean because most of the plugins are filled with various unwanted features.
Don’t worry, that is why we are comparing the best 5 plugins so that you can understand which one is the perfect match for you. Though you will be able to expand the capability of your selected plugin by integrating with various add-ons.
Features
Most of the best Membership plugins often comes with various features and page templates to make your platform better.
But before you choose a plugin you need to note down the important features you’ll need on your site and then comprehend if the membership plugin you’re considering can meet your needs.
Compatibility
Once you’ve found your desired plugin, do not install it to your production site.
First, you need to check that your selected membership plugin is compatible and running smoothly. You can do that by installing the plugin on your existing WordPress theme.
The plugin should be installed on your production side only if the plugin runs well on your test WordPress theme.
Now, let’s compare the best 5 Membership plugin for WordPress.
1. MemberPress
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MemberPress is one of the most popular WordPress membership plugins. Also, it is one of the easiest and most powerful to use when it comes to features. With MemberPress you can transform your existing website into a fully-featured membership site without hiring a developer.
The setup process is simple. Once installed just add your payments gateway, set up your products and invite your visitors to join on your Membership site.
MemberPress allows you to limit access to all the content on your WordPress site including posts, pages, tags, categories, files you’ve uploaded and so on. It can also automatically set up pricing, account, log in, and thank you pages for your users.
With MemberPress you will be able to integrate with various popular services such as MailChimp, GetResponse, AWeber and many more. If you want podcast hosting, it also lets you do that by integrating with Amazon Web Services and Blubrry.
This plugin comes with built-in support for PayPal and stripe payment gateways. You can also add Authorize.net support.
MemberPress is well-known for its services which is very easy to use. This plugin is beneficial, especially for beginners. It is quick to set up with tons of powerful features. And the price is not very expensive.
2. Teachable
Teachable is an online platform that allows you to create and publish amazing online courses. You will be able to create and maintain a membership website, discussion forum, LMS, email marketing, and analytics all under one dashboard.
The setup process is simple. Even if you don’t have any technical expertise, you can easily setup Teachable without hiring a developer. It includes built-in tools to quickly create and upload videos, text, PDF, and more. You can import content from Dropbox, One Drive or Google Drive.
With Teachable you can create discussion forums, quizzes, contact forms, and other features to build powerful online communities. You can even issue certificates of a contest to reward your students.
That way it boosts engagement of your site with your students.
You can use this service at an affordable price.
3. LearnDash
LearnDash is a highly flexible and easy to use WordPress learning management system. It has been created to make and sell online courses on your website. LearnDash is quite easy to set up. It built with various advanced options, with these you can easily organize your membership content into groups, levels, etc.
It also offers an amazing set of integration and payment gateways.
With LearnDash you can easily hide any content and limit the access into different membership groups. It comes with various amazing features like allow your user to earn point once they complete a course.
The interesting part is that a new course will unlock based on the points they’ve earned.
If you want to create and sell online courses through your membership site, LearnDash can be very beneficial for you, but if you planning to grow your membership website without selling a course then you may find lots of features that are unnecessary to you.
However, the price is a bit higher for the newcomers.
4. Restrict Content Pro
Restrict Content Pro is yet another powerful membership plugin for WordPress-powered websites. It was built by the same folks who were behind the popular Easy Digital Downloads and AffiliateWP plugins.
Restrict Content Pro integrates smoothly with the WordPress user interface. You will understand how to use it without any difficulty. With this plugin, you can build your own fully functional membership site without hiring any developer.
Restrict Content Pro comes with built-in integrations with Stripe, PayPal, MailPoet, MailChimp, email manager, CSV export, and so on. Most of the other plugins offer those services as paid add-ons. There are a few other features of this plugin that makes your membership site unique. Such as –
- Club memberships
- Magazine subscriptions
- Member Blogging
- Private forums and more
Like other similar plugins, this plugin also has downsides. The integration list contains fewer third-party services than some other plugins. Such as email service providers.
The price is affordable. Though, the plugin has a lite version, which you can download from the official WordPress plugins repository. With this lite version, you will be able to create custom user registration and login forms and a few other types of forms.
5. WooCommerce Memberships
Previously I’ve discussed details about WooCommerce in an article. I hope now you are familiar with it.
WooCommerce Memberships is basically an add-on for WooCommerce. Integrating with this add-on will greatly increase your WooCommerce platform capacity and you can transform your WooCommerce platform to a membership site.
It has some amazing features that you may like. One of the key features is you can limit the WooCommerce products so that only your members can be eligible to purchase them. Also, you can provide special site-wide discounts for premium subscribers.
Price is kind of okay. But hey, if you’re unhappy they are offering a 30-day money-back guarantee.
đź“ť Which one should I choose?
The above-mentioned plugins are now the best in the market. You can pick one of those plugins according to your needs, but we think that MemberPress and LearnDash might be beneficial for most of the beginners.
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