Gaze 12 Best WordPress Plugin For Membership Site in 2020

If you have considered setting up a membership site to take full control of your revenue and reap other benefits, then my friend a WordPress membership plugin is a prerequisite. In order to scale your business to its new heights and open the doorways to more opportunities, a membership plugin is the first thing that you need to get started.

All these plugins are packed with unique features and suitable for your budget. In fact, you’ll be surprised to check the number of benefits these plugins will provide to help you start a WordPress membership site.

However, most of us find ourselves in a dilemma when it comes to choosing the best membership plugin WordPress amidst these heaps of great plugins out there. It seems that each one of them is packed with great features and you can’t miss a single one of them. Isn’t it?

WordPress Membership Plugins: Compared

To help you choose the ideal plugin for your site, we’ve listed the best 12 plugins here. This list will help you to choose the ideal plugin as per your business requirement. So, let’s get started,

1. MemberPress – Membership Plugin
2. LearnDash
3. Restrict Content Pro
4. Paid Membership Pro
5. MemberMouse
6. WooCommerce Membership
7. Paid Member Subscriptions
8. iThemes Exchange Membership Add-on
9. s2Member
10. Teachable
11. The Ultimate Membership Pro WordPress Plugin
12. AR Member

Detailed comparison of the best WordPress membership plugins is mentioned down here –

MemberPress – Membership Plugin

Memberpress is one of the popular professional membership plugins including all the features that a user needs to get started with his WordPress membership site. Along with that the features also support you to do other professional stuff like categorizing different membership levels to predefined upgrade paths, creating unlimited membership levels, using multiple payment methods and trial periods, etc.

MemberPress provides nifty features named MemberPress reminders that make your customers aware of upcoming events like subscription renewal. Speaking of its marketing service integration, MemberPress is integrated with major payment gateways like Authorize.Net, Stripe, PayPal, etc. So, if you’re selling online courses, your users will find these payment methods extremely satisfying.

And there’s good news if you’re selling online courses. MemberPress also has integration with LearnDash which is a learning management system helping you create online courses with your WordPress site.

Now, the important part, the pricing section. So to start with let us tell you that it’s not a free plugin. The range of features it offers doesn’t come for free. However, it has an affordable pricing section to make it suitable for each and every WordPress membership site user.

MemberPress – Membership Plugin Pricing

• Basic – This starts at $129.
• Plus – This starts at $249 includes advanced features.
• Pro – This starts at $369 includes all the advanced features.

Pros

• It’s easy to set up and use.
• Support all digital products.
• The content dripping features allow you to stop using restricted content for your members.

Cons

• The range of payment gateways it allows is not enough as compared with other plugins.
• It has limited integration with popular services.

LearnDash

LearnDash is a powerful WordPress membership plugin packed with a flexible and simplified interface. It comes with tons of integration with popular plugins apart from its helpful features. The easy to setup process of LearnDash helps to add content in a simpler way. It also has some advanced tools like organizing your content into membership levels, groups, etc.

LearnDash also has content dripping features that allow you to hide content and restrict it to the non-members of your site. You can sell courses while managing your learning material far better than earlier methods. So, you can build an awesome community with LearnDash’s integration with popular platforms. It lets you connect to MemberPress, bbPress, WooCommerce, slack, and whatnot.

The best part of using this plugin is that it allows you to roll our content on intervals and completion of levels. You can start quizzes, courses, certified courses, etc with this plugin.

LearnDash Pricing

• Now the pricing starts at $159 a year which is pretty affordable as compared to other sites.

Pros

• It’s pretty affordable as compared to other sites.
• Integration with top payment gateways.
• Drip content feature to organize courses in the most likely manner.

Cons

• If you’re trying not to sell courses with LearnDash, then it doesn’t have enough features to support you in that case.

Restrict Content Pro

Restrict content pro comes with the most advanced features like structuring content as per post basis or using shortcodes to restrict specific content, etc. The maker of this plugin is from Pippin’s plugins, the team that designed plugins like Affiliatewp and easy digital downloads. So, clearly, there is no question of reliability here.

Apart from that, these plugins come with the most flexible subscription option. You can either choose free, trial, or premium packages. Also, the creative pricing section which allows you to add a certain fee for a certain period or a one-time fee. This is a flexible combination that allows your user to choose the one as per his or her benefits.

Also, whenever someone wants to upgrade or downgrade a plan, restrict content pro gives flexible moving. This is not seen in other WordPress membership plugins. You can use shortcodes to restrict certain contents otherwise it’ll be available for your users. You can also create new coupon codes to offer a discount to your members. This plugin has integration with Easy digital downloads, other email marketing services, and major payment gateways.

Restrict Content Pro Pricing

• The pricing is also affordable starting at just $99 per year that gives you limited access. This is their personal plan.
• They have a $149 a year plan which is named plus planes. You can operate 5 sites with this plugin.
• Also, they have professional and ultimate plans which start at $249 and $499 respectively.

Pros

• Create unlimited subscription packages.
• You can sell any number of digital products
• Premium support from experts.

Cons

• The cost of using add-ons will increase over time.

Paid Membership Pro

Paid membership pro is one of the best WordPress membership plugins if you’re looking to create professional feature-rich subscription sites. One thing that makes it rank among the top membership plugins is its dedicated theme. Yes! you heard it right! the plugin comes along with a dedicated WordPress theme. It’s because users get mostly confused when it comes to choosing a nice theme for their membership site. So, this makes the process easier for every user.

Paid membership pro also allows its users to create unlimited levels for membership content with flexible payment methods. You can customize the pricing, billing cycle, and terms and conditions as per your choices. There is also a dripping content feature that allows it to restrict certain content for members. It works best when you’re selling courses because it allows your users to unlock the courses only after clearing the existing ones. So, you can create certified courses and other online learning courses with this paid membership Pro plugin.

Even if your content is restricted, it lets you show an excerpt when nonmembers find you through SERP. You can drive more users by showing the inquisitive part of this section. And this has integration with other major email marketing services and major payment gateways which make the payment process easier and faster. If you want to tweak its functionality, then this plugin is ideal for you and you can customize its code as well.

Paid Membership Pro Pricing

• The pricing starts at $297.

Pros

• Easy gateway integration for secure payments.
• Flexible pricing and trial periods.
• Unlimited features and add-ons.

Cons

• You may have to install additional plugins to access some other features.

MemberMouse

MemberMouse helps its users to create a professional feature-rich membership site. The plugin allows you to create levels or bundles as per your requirements. You must have heard about the membership levels from other comparative plugins as well. However, creating bundles is something that will help you to sell individual pages with a one-off amount basis.

The plugin offers special offers to its premium members as well. You can drip out content to hide it from the non-members or even members in some cases. This feature is perfect especially if you want to sell courses online. You can manually change the setting and have a preview of the pages.

The best part of this plugin is that it has a couple of widget features that allows your subscribers to check the content they have access to. Also for restricted content, you can limit your content with posts, custom types, pages, and other categories. Apart from that, it has a couple of tools that require you to optimize your membership site. So, you can have an all-in-one plugin for your WordPress membership site.

MemberMouse Pricing

• The plugin allows its user to opt for a monthly membership plan with $19.95 starting. It goes up to #39.95 per month.

Pros

• Take two minutes to set up your membership site even if you’re a non-tech person.
• It has a built-in password feature to protect your content.
• It has integration with 7 major payment gateways.

Cons

• The price tag is quite hefty as compared to others.

WooCommerce Membership

The WooCommerce membership plugin is a huge bonus for sellers who already have a site integrated with WooCommerce. This is a plugin that will help you to upgrade your site’s functionality. Because of this integration, your members will have a simplified interface to make the purchase. You can either do the selling of your memberships or you can sell standalone products.

Also, you can create a great community by allowing multiple discounts to your users. For example, if a user makes a purchase of one of your products, then you can give him access to the membership site for a certain period of time. This will help you to attract new buyers as well especially when you’re starting out your online shopping channels. Because everyone loves surprises.

It has also featured dripping out content over time. It helps you to restrict the content for certain members after a certain time. The billing feature is also better than most other plugins. Members have full control over their sites.

WooCommerce Membership Pricing

• The plugin comes with an annual price of $199.

Pros

• Unlimited membership levels
• Multiple payment gateways
• Fully supported eCommerce features.

Cons

• You’ll need to purchase the extensions to enhance its functionalities which makes it expensive.

Paid Member Subscriptions

The paid membership plugin is one of the best WordPress membership plugins helping you to set up a full-featured site. The lightweight and flexible plugin allows users to create multiple membership levels for its users. You can sell your courses, or do anything you want with this extraordinary membership site plugin. The best part is that it has plenty of amazing features under its freemium. So anyone who’s just starting out and testing their membership site’s performance, then this could be one of the ideal ones.

Although this freemium version doesn’t allow you to access the content dripping feature where you can block users from accessing the content that is made for paid users. However, the installation and setup process are too easy for even a novice. So, you won’t require a techie brain to start using this plugin.

It has a demo site where you can try out all the features it has. This allows users to understand the functionality of each of these features.

Paid Member Subscriptions Pricing

• The annual pricing comes pretty cheap as compared to other plugins.
• It provides great flexibility under its paid subscription plans.
• It also has integration with major payment gateways which helps users to make secure payments.

Pros

• Helpful integration with major payment gateways
• Content dripping feature.
• Create front-end login forms and member registration.

Cons

• Annual payments may be quite expensive for some users.

iThemes Exchange Membership Add-on

It’s not a standalone plugin, but it’s definitely an add-on that can enhance the performance of your WordPress membership site. You can conduct multiple activities through these add-on features. iThemes exchange membership plugin allows you to set up multiple levels of your membership content. You can create freemium or premium membership content with this.

In fact, the interface allows a swift movement between the two levels. So, anyone who wants to upgrade their freemium membership can easily access it. Also, another great fact is that it allows you to add membership hierarchies, which means that you can set different content for different sets of your target audience. It will allow you to catch a wide group of audience without being constrained to a particular age group.

You can restrict your content by pages or by posts or whatever categories you may want to choose. The plugin has easy integration with payment gateways which makes your users make easy and secure payments. You can sell any one-off or blend digital products, this could be the ideal choice for you.

Pros

• You can create both paid and free membership.
• Integration with major payment platforms
• Content dripping out feature.

Cons

• It might be expensive for some users.

s2Member

S2 is one of the popular and free WordPress membership plugins. You can download it anytime and test its features. Although the freemium versions are limited. You won’t get to access the complete features. However, if you’re just starting out your membership site and looking forward to testing these features, then this could be the ideal one for you to try it out.

It has a dripping content feature that allows you to restrict pages, categories as per your standard. Also, there are pretty helpful tools like custom login welcome pages, email templates, IP restrictions, brute-force protection, etc.

But, for someone who is looking for a fully-featured WordPress membership plugin, you might be disappointed as it has only a limited 4 paid membership levels. This means you can’t create coupon codes or drip content under its freemium membership. So, you’ll be required to opt for the paid version if you’re quite serious about your membership site.

Pros

• It has both freemium and premium features.
• Integration with MailChimp and other major email marketing software.
• Extensive knowledge base available.

Cons

• The fee visions don’t support many of the major payment integrations that accept PayPal.

Teachable

Teachable provides tools and support for a specific type of membership site: one for selling and moderating online courses. It’s a standalone software that does integrate with WordPress for accepting new admissions, making sales, and handling subscriptions. With Teachable, you’re offered a complete membership website with support for unlimited students, instant payouts, and drip content. Some of the third-party integrations include Facebook, Sumo, and MailChimp for advancing your marketing efforts.

Teachable provides the tools and features that anyone needs to get started with their membership site. You can sell your online courses and do much more stuff with its exceptional features. It’s a standalone software that provides all-in-one tools and features to start with a professional membership site. It has third-party integration including Facebook, Mailchimp, Sumo, etc which enhances your marketing efforts.

Teachable Pricing

• Teachable prices start at $29 per month which is pretty affordable for most users and it goes up to $99 per month to eliminate other transaction fees.
• If you want a professional plugin integration then it has a plan for $249 a month which allows you to do much more stuff with your membership site.

Pros

• Multilingual functionalities.
• Zapier integration.
• Payment gateways for domestic and international transactions.

Cons

• Users may find the sign-up process is not very friendly.

The Ultimate Membership Pro WordPress Plugin

The ultimate membership Pro WordPress plugin provides all the tools that you need to get started with your WordPress membership site. Regardless of your site’s niche, you can simply trust this plugin for all your membership related requirements. It’s also marked as the top-selling WordPress membership plugin on CodeCanyon.

It provides multiple levels to help users to choose the right thing for them. Also, it has both free and trial options that help your user to taste whatever they want. It has a Pro dashboard that nicely organizes all the necessary things. It’s an exemplary membership plugin that shows the dedication of the developers.

Pros

• Affordable price setting.
• Future support from experts.
• It provides a little extra than what you pay.

Cons

• It can be intimidating for some users to choose among its tons of features.

AR Member

AR Member is one of the best WordPress membership plugins that allow the demo section to test the features out. You can choose a paid or free version of the plugin. The paid version has all the features that one needs to get started with a membership site. The pricing is a one-time fee. The user can get their password setting, profile, membership information, and transaction history.

Although the free version doesn’t allow you to use PayPal integration. That is the reason why it has 12 add-ons including active campaign integration, Zapier integration, cornerstone integration, affiliate pro-integration, etc.

Pros

• Some of the add-ons come under the freemium version.
• Complete freedom to drip the content.
• Several payment gateways options.

Cons

• If you need support for the entire year, the price goes up.

Conclusion

With the heaps of WordPress membership plugins that are available for users, we’ve listed these best 12 plugins to help you choose the best. With these freemium and premium high-end features, you can simply get started with your membership site.

Whether you want to create premium online courses or build a community, this site will help you to reach your dream within a brief time.

To be honest, there are no one-size-fits-all WordPress membership plugins. Every plugin has its own pros and cons. However, in our expert’s opinion, the ultimate WordPress membership plugin can be an ideal solution for each and every site irrespective of its niche.

However, you can pick the best one after perusing through the details once and understanding the requirements of your own. This will help you land on the best WordPress membership plugin even in 2020 and beyond.