13 Best WordPress Membership Plugins to Match any Budget –

If you want to know how to setup a membership site with WordPress, then the plugins covered in this article will help you with your objective.

Not only are these plugins packed with features, but they are, for the most part, very easy to setup and use. The tools listed cover a range of budgets, from free to premium, and they are ideal for those just starting out, through to site owners looking for a high end professional solution.

In fact, if you need to add a members’ area to your website, and are using WordPress then you will be pleasantly surprised by some of the tools available to help you accomplish this.

The Best WordPress Membership Plugins for 2020

Keep reading to discover the best membership plugins for WordPress and get your site up and running today.

1. MemberPress – Membership Plugin

This is a well-regarded professional membership plugin for WordPress. It’s not free but it should have all the features you need and more to setup a fully functional membership website.

Once installed, this plugin allows you to restrict access to all the content on your WordPress site including pages, posts, categories, tags and files you’ve uploaded. Some other top features of MemberPress include:

• Management of unlimited members
• Create unlimited access rules
• Offer unlimited pricing pages
• Sell an unlimited amount of digital products
• Accept payments with PayPal Express Checkout and Stripe
• Automatically grant and revoke access when members join or unsubscribe
• Content dripping with timed release of access
• Premium support

When it comes to pricing, there are three plans available:

• Basic – $129 – 1 site and basic features.
• Plus – $249 – up to 10 sites and some more advanced features.
• Pro – $369 – up to 30 sites and all features, including Affiliate Royale.

If you want a premium membership plugin that covers all the bases and gives maximum flexibility then MemberPress is a great choice.

? You can learn more in our full MemberPress review.

Pros: This is a well-regarded option that is very easy to use. The support for digital products as well as managing a membership site makes this a versatile plugin.

Cons: The annual billing could add up to be expensive over time, but the option to renew and use the plugin unsupported is there.

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2. Restrict Content Pro

This is another premium option, this time from Pippin’s Plugins. The admin user interface is well designed and it fits right into the appearance of the WordPress admin area, creating a seamless integration on the backend. Restrict Content Pro is very easy to use and there’s helpful documentation displayed throughout the settings pages to ensure you’re able to get started as quickly as possible.

This plugin is jam-packed with great features that give you complete control over how your content can be accessed. Restrict Content Pro is continually improving and regularly adds new features to the list.

Upon install, this plugin gives you the ability to restrict access to your content in a number of different ways. You can restrict access to individual posts based on membership level or use categories and tags to restrict access. Some other features you get with Restrict Content Pro include:

• Unlimited membership numbers
• Create unlimited subscription package levels
• Customer dashboard allows your customers to view and manage their account details
• Sell an unlimited number of digital products
• Accept payments with Stripe, Braintree, 2Checkout, PayPal Website Payments Pro, and PayPal Standard, and Express.
• Prorated upgrades and downgrades
• Content dripping, restrict access to past content, limit available quantity for products or membership levels, group membership options, and more.
• Premium support and updates

There are four pricing plans available: Personal, Plus, Professional, and Ultimate.

• Personal – $99/year and gives you access to the 13 free add-ons, email support, and the use of the plugin on one site.
• Plus – $149/year and gives you access to everything you get with the Personal plan, however, you can use the plugin on up to 5 sites.
• Professional – $249/year and adds access to 17 pro add-ons (plus future releases) for unlimited sites.
• Ultimate – a one-off fee of $499 for everything included in the Plus plan as well as lifetime updates, support, and future releases.

If you’re after a premium quality membership plugin with ever-increasing features and amazing flexibility then Restrict Content Pro is an excellent choice.

Pros: Restrict Content Pro is extremely versatile and gives you maximum control over access to your content. Drip it out, lock past content, set content to expire and go public after a certain time – all of this is possible with Restrict Content Pro.

Cons: Annual billing is less of an investment upfront, however,the cost of use will add up to more over time.

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3. Paid Memberships Pro

This is a great option that will cost you nothing to get started with. Yes, this is a free membership plugin that you can begin using today in order to restrict access to the content on your WordPress site to selected users. There are also two premium options for this tool. The premium price plans will give you access support including documentation, premium content and members-only forums, but apart from that, it’s the same functionality.

As for the plug in itself, it’s got a great feature set making it a solid choice for anyone looking for a no-budget tool. Some of the standout features include:

• Unlimited Membership Levels
• Easy Payment Gateway Integration
• Flexible Pricing and Free Trial Periods for your members
• Accept recurring subscriptions
• Set access and membership levels for individual pages and posts
• Customise the notification email messages
• Edit or replace the default plugin pages for login etc.
• Offer discount codes
• Drip release content over time
• Expand the features with free extensions and add-ons

While Paid Memberships Pro is lacking the ability to drip content over time, out of the box, there is a free add-on that has been made for just this feature. The plugin has been released by the PMPro development team and is available from GitHub. Information about the other free extensions and add-ons can be found on the add-ons page.

? You can learn more in our full Paid Memberships Pro review.

Pros: The main draw of this plugin is that it is free to use on as many sites as you want, it also comes packed with features. The third party add-ons allow for easy integration with a range of other services you are probably already using.

Cons: Need to install additional plugins and add-ons to get access to some standard features, however they are free and easy to find.

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4. MemberMouse

MemberMouse is a premium membership and eCommerce solution, which lets you create a membership site in minutes. The plugin is built with keeping non-techies in mind, and takes only 2 minutes to setup the site.

Easily restrict or protect your website content using MemberMouse built-in password feature. The MemberMouse plugin makes it easy to deliver your product and customize its delivery based on membership level, duration of membership, referring affiliate and more.

You can also showcase what content is available to your members and what will be release in the future through a content widget. The plugin provides a great features and such feature is SmartTags – it allows you to dynamically display content, member attributes, offers, upsells, downsells, and more using simple shortcodes. Put a decision tag on a confirmation page or thank you page and display relevant products after a purchase.

Other features include – customer management, self configuring checkout, share anywhere links, coupons, international currency, group functionality, sharing auto-lock, prorated upgrades, social media integration, protected upgrades, overdue payment handling, and much more.

7 payment gateaways are supported currently – PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, Auth.net CIM, Braintree, ClickBank, Lime Light CRM, and Coinbase. You can also sell physical or digital goods, along with maintaining a membership site.

All this functionality comes at a hefty price tag, however. A starter package comes at $19.95 per month only allowing for up to 1,000 members. Up to 5,000 members — $39.95 per month. MemberMouse is a high-end and expensive plugin, but if you are starting a professional online and eCommerce business, this is the best membership option money can buy.

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5. WooCommerce Memberships

WooCommerce was released in June of 2015 to much anticipation. While most of the time, these roundup posts are about listing the primary things that a plugin “can” do, when it comes to WC Memberships, there’s no doubt that the shorter list would be the things it “can’t do”. WooCommerce Memberships is absolutely loaded with features.

This plugin is all about one thing – control over your membership website. You’ll be able to create simple memberships that offer content in exchange for a fee or your can tie a membership to into the purchase of a specific product. You can also choose to drip content to members based upon categories, tags, specific post or pages and projects. The plugin can also be combined with WooCommerce Subscriptions to provide equal control over the content provided during free trials.

Additional features include the ability to create a purchasing club – visitors need to become a member before they can complete a purchase. Once they’ve signed up you can keep them coming back by offering loyalty discounts.

Billing control is better than many other plugins as well. When combined with subscriptions, members will have complete control over their own memberships. Including the ability to pause, upgrade, downgrade along with the other requested proration adjustment.

• Restrict either viewing of content or purchasing of products
• Offer unlimited membership levels
• Multiple membership are possible for one customer
• Access to a great selection of payment gateways
• Ability to integrate an affiliate program into your membership structure
• Full eCommerce features
• Premium support and updates for 12 months included

Pros: It’s WooCommerce. That means you’ll be able to take advantage other extensions that Woo offers including Subscriptions, Bookings, and Groups.

Cons: It’s not inexpensive and in order to maximize the functionality, you might need to purchase additional extensions which make it more expensive.

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6. aMember Pro

This is a premium membership service that can be used on many online platforms including WordPress. It’s not an online service, but is a PHP script that you pay for access to, and then install on your own webhosting server. Non-technical users will be pleased to know that a free installation is included in the one-off fee and for WordPress users, there is a free plugin for easy integration with your site.

Some of the highlights from the feature list of aMember include:

• Unlimited membership levels and items
• Incremental content delivery for drip release
• Integrated with PayPal, ClickBank, 2Checkout and more
• Select fail-back payment processors
• Automated member signups and expirations
• Integrated modules including email newsletter, helpdesk and affiliate management
• Create coupon codes

This plugin certainly seems to have all the requisite features to manage a fully featured membership site. However, the user interface did feel quite dated, so it’s worth thinking about whether this option is the right choice for portraying your brand in the best possible way.

Pros: Available for a one-off fee, full access to source-code with ability to customise it to your needs, supports multiple payment options, comes with a few support videos for help with setup, integrates with other platforms such as vBulletin forums.

Cons: A comparatively expensive option, user interface not consistent with WordPress UI and appears dated.

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7. Paid Member Subscriptions

This is a versatile membership plugin for WordPress that will help you set up a full-featured membership site. The basic plugin is free, but if you want to unlock features like content dripping you’ll need to upgrade to one of the paid plans.

Install this plugin and you’ll be able to restrict access to your site content by post, page, tags, or categories. You can also trial the features on the demo site to get a feel for how the plugin works.

Some of Paid Member Subscriptions’ other features include:

• Management of unlimited members
• Navigation menu filter, members see only what their access level allows
• Accept payments with PayPal Pro, PayPal Express Checkout, and Stripe
• Globally restrict access to content based on post type, taxonomy, and terms
• Content dripping with timed release of access
• Discount codes for running promotions or rewarding your members for upgrading their membership level.

When it comes to pricing, there are three plans available: free, Hobbyist, and Pro. Both paid plans come with a year of updates and support, so to continue receiving them you’ll need to continue paying annually.

If you want a membership plugin that gives you great flexibility and the ability to drip content, then Paid Member Subscriptions is a great choice.

Pros: This is a full-featured plugin with a clear, user-friendly interface. You can get started with the free version of the plugin and upgrade once you know what features you need.

Cons: Annual payments add up and may end up being more expensive than simply purchasing the unlimited license outright.

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8. MagicMembers

Update: We are not recommending MagicMembers anymore.

If you are looking for a solution that will enable you to deliver an online course, or need a way to drip feed content over time, instead of making all your premium content available to your members in one go, then the content dripping abilities of MagicMembers are top notch.

While some other plugins feature this ability, including MemberPress, MagicMembers continues to draw praise for doing it the best. However, that is not all this plugin does, other top features include:

• Multiple payment gateway compatibility
• Integration with email newsletters such as Aweber and MailChimp
• Payment subscription support including daily, weekly, monthly and more
• Download manager for restricting file access
• Sequential course delivery for content dripping
• Pay Per View for paid access to specific content such as videos
• Automated expiration email reminders

The list of features is outstanding and is well-worth checking out. This is a premium membership plugin for WordPress, so you will have to pay to get access to it, but hopefully the revenue generated by your membership course will cover the cost in no time. There are three price plans to choose from and each comes with detailed support to help you get up and running in no time at all.

The only downside with this plugin is that the control panel doesn’t use the standard WordPress interface. This means the settings have the feel of being tacked on to your WordPress dashboard rather than seamlessly integrated. While this isn’t a major issue, it can make using the plugin feel less intuitive than it should be and might be something to consider when deploying MembershipMagic for clients.

Overall though, if you want a feature packed plugin that excels at content dripping and sequential course delivery, as well as everything else associated with running a membership site, then MembershipMagic is a highly recommended option.

Pros: The strong content dripping and sequential content delivery make this plugin ideal for those looking for offer a premium or members only online course. Also supports multiple payment gateways for making it even easier for your customers to sign up.

Cons: The interface uses a custom design, rather than following the standard WordPress interface, which might be confusing for some users.

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9. OptimizePress 3

We recently published a full OptimizePress 3 review, covering the best features and usability of this landing page builder for WordPress. However, it’s worth another mention here as it does allow you to enhance the membership functionality of your WordPress site.

OptimizePress comes with a number of templates specifically for dealing with membership sites and is a great tool for those looking to optimise the signup pages of their site.

The page builder makes it very easy to setup and customize the landing pages for your membership offering, and the membership portal aspect of the plugin works with a range of membership plugins. If you want to customize the sign up pages, login forms and membership lesson and module listings then OptimizePress, used in conjunction with a supported membership plugin equals a powerful combination.

? You can learn more in our full OptimizePress review.

Pros: Comes with a very large selection of templates. The page builder is also very easy to use, giving you access to an unlimited amount of designs. Ideal for any type of landing or registration page, not just membership sites.

Cons: Does not deliver membership management functionality to your site, and must be used in conjunction with a supported dedicated plugin.

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10. Wishlist Member Plugin

Wishlist Member is a premium membership plugin that is renowned for being able to give you lots of control over how your content is restricted and made available, and to which members. This also means that there are lots of options to explore, which can sometimes be confusing for new users. However, lots of settings and expansive menu systems are often the price you pay for this level of control over your membership site and premium content.

Some of the features of this premium WordPress membership plugin include:

• Create unlimited membership levels
• Sequential content delivery and auto-upgrades of membership levels
• Easy ability to hide or restrict individual pieces of content from non-members
• Handles free, trial and paid memberships
• Integrates with PayPal and ClickBank
• Secure RSS feeds
• Subscription length control with auto-expire
• Free previews with protection after the ‘more’ tag
• Partial content display for protecting as little as one sentence within a post

The plugin also comes with a good selection of support material to help you get started such as video tutorials, support guides, one year of unlimited updates and one year of unlimited support. Wishlist Member is available for $197 for the single site license, or $297 for the multisite license.

Developers might want to give this one a miss though, as the plugin code has been encrypted. This means you can’t easily dive in and make any adjustments to the plugin to help it better fit your needs. Also, it’s worth pointing out that if you are an existing customer of Pressable (formerly ZippyKid), or plan to use their managed WordPress hosting service in the future, they do not allow use of the Wishlist Member plugin due to performance issues.

The Wishlist Member plugin can be integrated with your WooCommerce store using a premium extension and there are also a few other addons for the plugin available here.

This WordPress membership plugin does have everything you will probably ever need when setting up and managing a membership site or restricting access to content using registered user accounts.

Pros: Lots of control over how your membership site works, comes with a risk-free 30 day trial and integrates with PayPal and ClickBank.

Cons: Unable to view or edit the plugin code so making custom alterations is not an option, not supported by some managed hosting services.