Searching for the best WordPress membership plugins to create a free or paid membership site?
No matter what type of content you want to offer to your members, WordPress membership plugins have you covered. However, it is essential to choose the right WordPress plugin for your site. I mean, you wouldn’t want to pay for features that aren’t even useful to you.
In today’s post, we are going to talk about the top WordPress membership plugins, their key features, pricing, and what makes each one different. By the end of this post, you will be able to pick the right membership plugin for your WordPress site.
Six best WordPress membership plugins
- Paid Membership Pro
- Ultimate Memberships Pro
- LearnDash
- Ultimate Member
- Paid Member Subscriptions
- WooCommerce Memberships
1. Paid Memberships Pro
Paid Memberships Pro is a complete membership solution for all types of membership sites.
You can easily create a one-time membership, or charge a recurring subscription directly from plugin’s dashboard. You’ll also get flexible content restriction options to restrict individual posts or bulk content.
You can also customize how your membership site functions thanks to 64+ premium add-ons and 19+ free add-ons.
Top features ⚙️
- Unlimited membership levels
- Built-in sales/revenue report
- Six payment gateways
- Up to 50 additional paid add-ons (premium plans)
- 33+ free add-ons
- bbPress and BuddyPress compatible
- Open-source, 100% GPL
- Easy content restriction
Price 💰
This WordPress membership plugin can be accessed for free via the WordPress directory. But if you have a serious site, you’d want to opt for paid plans. The Standard plan runs for $247 per year and can be used on one site with an extra 20 premium add-ons. The next level up – the Plus plan – costs $397, and comes with access to 30 premium add-ons. It can be used on up to two sites. If you want to use it for up to five sites, you’ll need to switch to the Builder plan for $697.
What makes it a good fit? 🤔
With its 80+ free and premium add-ons, Paid Memberships Pro is one of the most extensible WordPress membership plugins that you’ll find. You can find add-ons for so many tiny features, which gives you a lot of flexibility for how you set up your membership site.
2. Ultimate Membership Pro
Ultimate Membership Pro has established itself as one of the best WordPress membership plugins for managing multi-level subscriptions. Its target market is those WordPress sites that seek to sell their content via an intricately dynamic membership system, made up of several asymmetrical subscription levels.
What we mean is, this tool doesn’t restrict you to a regular membership structure. It is, instead, comprehensive enough to facilitate all sorts of content subscriptions across a multisite environment with unlimited levels.
You can, for instance, set up a free membership package and then maybe follow it up with several premium options. You’re also free to charge your subscribers a one-time fee, long-term recurring fees, or limited recurring fees.
The content here can be lifted directly from any of your WordPress directories. Ultimate Membership Pro is capable of drawing stuff from blog posts, web pages, custom categories, files, navigation menus, etc.
Content access, on the other hand, is controlled via a wide range of dynamic membership levels. The membership plugin’s versatile framework allows you to set up membership plans with time-restricted access, unrestricted access, periodic access, and date-range access.
Top features ⚙️
- WordPress multisite environment
- Integrates with 10 email marketing services
- Members directory
- Import your users
- Customizable membership badges
- Subscription management
- Different menu links for visitors and registered members
- Drip content
- An unlimited number of subscription packages
- Integrates with WooCommerce
- Multiple content restriction options
- Prebuilt templates for subscription, content restriction, login, and registration pages
- Multiple subscription billing options
- Supports all the major payment services
- Unlimited paid and free membership levels
Price 💰
The Ultimate Membership Pro WordPress plugin is available for a one-off cost of $59.
And while the platform itself comes with 41 free add-ons, you could still purchase an additional set of pro add-ons for $149 per year.
What makes it a good fit? 🤔
Overall, the most outstanding thing about Ultimate Membership Pro is its versatile framework, which is as comprehensive as they come.
This WordPress plugin has the provisions to power whichever membership architecture you might have in mind.
You can link up multiple websites, sell your content in timed drips, offer both free and premium packages, allow members to choose between recurring and one-time payments, customize pages for members and non-subscribers, plus so much more.
3. LearnDash
LearnDash is a WordPress LMS plugin with built-in membership and payment features, which makes it a great option for course-based WordPress membership sites.
You can also include more detailed learning features that other membership plugins don’t offer, like quizzes and course prerequisites.
Top features ⚙️
- Unlimited users
- Built-in payment integrations
- One-time or recurring memberships
- Dynamic forums
- Course content protection
- LearnDash focus mode
- Powerful course builder
- Advanced quizzing
- Drip-feed content
- Flexible prerequisites
- Course completion points
- Email notifications
- Certificates & badges
- GDPR compliant
Price 💰
LearnDash is a premium WordPress membership plugin and offers three different plans. All prices are on annual basis and come with a 15-day money back guarantee.
- Basic – $199 (1 site)
- Plus – $399 (up to 10 sites)
- Pro – $799 (unlimited sites)
What makes it a good fit? 🤔
LearnDash is a good choice if your membership site is focused on delivering online course content. Think of it as a hybrid between an LMS plugin and a membership plugin. However, it’s not quite as flexible as the other plugins on this list because it focuses on online course creation.
4. Ultimate Member
Ultimate Member is a free WordPress plugin that you can use for creating social membership communities where users can sign up with ease. This membership plugin is also highly extensible. By that, I mean, you can take the functionality into any direction using paid add-ons.
Top features ⚙️
- User registration
- User email
- Front-end user signup
- bbPress and Mailchimp compatible
- Custom form fields
- Drag-and-drop form builder
- Content restriction
- Conditional navigation menus
Price 💰
Ultimate Member is available for free on the WordPress directory.
You can extend the core plugin by purchasing individual extensions or buying a bundle of all extensions for $249 per year.
What makes it a good fit? 🤔
While many of the other membership plugins are focused on creating paid membership sites, Ultimate Member is more focused on helping you create a social community.
For example, users get detailed profiles and you can use premium extensions to add features like private messaging and social followers.
However, while you can restrict content, there’s no easy way to accept payments, which doesn’t make it a good option for paid membership sites.
5. Paid Member Subscriptions
Paid Member Subscriptions is a flexible WordPress membership plugin that comes with a generous free version at WordPress.org, as well as affordable premium versions.
You can restrict content and offer recurring, one-time payment, or free membership access. You’ll also find integrations with popular plugins, like Elementor, WooCommerce, and bbPress.
Top features ⚙️
- Front-end account management
- Content dripping
- Flexible content restriction
- Basic reporting
- WooCommerce compatible to restrict purchasing or offer special discounts
- Flexible billing, like free trials or one-time signup fees
- Elementor integration to restrict widgets
- Export member data
- Prevent account sharing
- bbPress integration
Price 💰
The core Paid Member Subscriptions plugin is available for free at WordPress.org. For more sophisticated integrations and advanced functionality, you need to go premium. You can opt for one of two plans that update annually, or pay a one-time fee and never have to pay anything again after that:
- Hobbyist – €69 per year
- Pro – €149 per year
- Unlimited – €449.00 one-time fee
What makes it a good fit? 🤔
Overall, Paid Member Subscriptions is just generally a solid membership plugin with all the features that most sites will need. It also offers a unique Elementor integration that lets you restrict Elementor content, which is great if you’re using Elementor.
For the features that it offers, Paid Member Subscriptions is also more affordable than most other membership plugins, which makes it a good option if you’re on a budget.
6. WooCommerce Memberships
While it uses WooCommerce as its base, WooCommerce Memberships can help you create both a “traditional” membership site as well as a members-only ecommerce store, so don’t let the name fool you.
Top features ⚙️
- Integrated with WooCommerce which lets you use the many WooCommerce extensions
- Content dripping
- Bulk or individual content restriction
- Link membership plans to WooCommerce products
- Integrates with WooCommerce Subscriptions for recurring payments
- Detailed ecommerce integrations, like offering special shipping options for members
- Group membership purchases (with a separate add-on)
Price 💰
WooCommerce Memberships costs $199.
You’ll likely also need to pair it with other WooCommerce plugins. For example, if you want to sell recurring memberships, you’ll also need the $199 WooCommerce Subscriptions plugin.
What makes it a good fit? 🤔
The unique thing about WooCommerce Memberships is the fact that it’s based on WooCommerce. Again, you aren’t limited to using it only on an ecommerce store, though.
This WooCommerce-based approach gives you a lot of flexibility because of how many WooCommerce extensions there are. You’ll also be able to integrate with more payment gateways than most other membership plugins offer.
Which WordPress membership plugin is right for you?
Still struggling to pick the right plugin for your specific situation?
To help you choose one, below is a quick summary of the six best WordPress membership plugins we covered in this post:
- Paid Memberships Pro – flexible thanks to a huge collection of add-ons.
- Ultimate Membership Pro – the best WordPress membership plugin for building and managing multi-level subscriptions.
- LearnDash – great for online courses.
- Ultimate Member – a good option for social membership communities, but not paid membership sites.
- Paid Member Subscriptions – an affordable option with all the features most membership sites need.
- WooCommerce Memberships – the WooCommerce-based approach gives you a lot of flexibility and also makes a great option for ecommerce stores.
If you want to get started, we have a tutorial on how to create a WordPress membership site using Paid Memberships Pro.
Do you have any questions about choosing from these best WordPress membership plugins? Ask away in the comments section!
Hi, Themeisle team. Consider adding the ProfilePress plugin to your list of membership plugins.
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