Recurring revenue, we all want that, I bet you now have a resource, a skill, or valuable possession that you want your users to charge monthly for, be it a private community or something. Here are the Top 5 Best Membership Plugins for WordPress.
Charging people a small monthly fee can be a really great monetization strategy, especially if you have many visitors coming to your website. If you are interested in other ways to monetize your website or blog, read this article.
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1. MemberPress
No question it’s #1 on the list. The name of the plugin screams WordPress Memberships, you gotta appreciate the plugin. It was built specifically for this and you can take a wild guess on the features this plugin provides. we gonna list them anyway and let you know what power(features) you will hold on your hands.
Pros of MemberPress WordPress Plugin
- Easy to Setup – You don’t need to know how to turn on a computer to set up MemberPress, the plugin is very easy and straightforward to use. And this is the first feature on the list because some of these other membership plugins can be complicated. It does a lot of the heavy lifting for you, it automates some tasks for you, so you don’t have to worry about using this plugin
- Integrations – MemberPress is the jack of all threads in the integration category. You can integrate it with a lot of other useful tools like AWeber, Mailchimp, etc
- Content Dripping – Now what this feature does is allow you to display restricted content after a certain trigger or certain period of time. It allows you to manage content restriction if you have multiple membership types.
- Payment Gateways – PayPal, Stripe your choice, MemberPress got you covered, this WordPress Membership plugin allows you to accept payments using a platform of your choice.
- Sell Courses – MemberPress allows you to create and sell online courses using subscriptions. You don’t need an additional LMS plugin if you intend to sell courses for a living. It offers an engaging learning experience for students.
- Digital Downloads – Want to make users subscribe to access ebooks, cheatsheets you publish on your website, this is it, this is the plugin for it.
Cons of MemberPress WordPress Plugin
- Limited Integrations – Its not all perfect, this plugin has limited integrations with other products (which you most probably don’t care about).
- Limited Payment Options – This won’t be a valid con as time passes by, I know the guys will keep updating this plugin so that it can accept even bitcoin.
Pricing
Starting from $129 / year for the Basic plan and $249 / year for the Plus plan.
- Basic Plan – $179.50 per year on a discount, normally $359
- Plus Plan – $269.55 per year on a discount, normally $599
- Pro Plan – $319.60per year on a discount, normally $799
2. Restrict Content Pro
Created by the same team over at Easy Digital Downloads and AffiliateWP plugins. You can probably guess that these dudes ain’t messing around when creating a plugin. This plugin is best suitable when you have a shit ton of subscribers and you want some easy managing tools to take care of things for you.
This plugin also comes with features to add subscribers manually, also change their tier manually, you know to keep things professional. This is the Best Membership Plugin for WordPress tailored to sites with larger audiences.
Pros of Restrict Content Pro WordPress Plugin
- Data Exports and Analytics – Ideal especially dealing with a large audience. You will be able to export your metrics and visualize your data in charts. The plugin got best analytics insights.
- Integrations – Restrict Content Pro comes with built-in integrations that most of the plugins ship as paid extras.
- Payment Gateways – You get Stripe, PayPal, and Braintree for free. Other supported payment gateways include 2Checkout and many more.
- Integrates with Easy Digital Downloads – If you have installed Easy Digital Downloads then Restrict Content Pro is the perfect companion for that. You can guess they made these work together very well.
- Excellent Support – This plugin has good documentation available to everyone. Want to speak to someone, they got a responsive team to help you troubleshoot your errors.
Cons of Restricted Content Pro
- Add-ons not in one place – This plugin is good and all but you have to install a different plugin to implement digital downloads if only all the add-ons were on one plugin.
Pricing
- 1 Site – 99/year
- 5 Sites – 149/year
- Unlimited – 249/year
3. S2Member WordPress Plugin
Yeaaah, I feel it, I feel it. Are you excited by the bitcoin icon there? S2Member is another popular Membership plugin for WordPress. It’s been here for a while now, nevermind the funky website, they wanna keep it that way. The S2Member WordPress plugin has over 1 million downloads on WordPress and those numbers are only growing.
Pros of S2Member Membership Plugin for WordPress
- Content Drip – Comes with the Rich flair Drip song, obviously, the plugin comes with a drip content functionality just like MemberPress
- Integrations – Works well with many other plugins like bbPress, and so on.
- Payment Gateways – The best in the game, you can even accept bitcoin payment, a huge pro for those with hacker websites, shout out to those who belong to the Matrix.
- Documentation – No need for expansion on this one, the plugin has got some well-maintained documentation to help you unlock the plugin’s potential.
- Affiliate Marketing Integration – what did you think the ClickBank button was for in the picture above?
Cons of S2Member WordPress Plugin
- Free Version Limitations – If you’re gonna stick to the free version, then you gonna try out some other plugin. With the free version, you won’t even get content drip on this one.
Pricing
The base plugin is free, the Pro version for a single site license costs $89 USD. For unlimited sites pro version costs $189 USD.
4. Paid Memberships Pro
So, you want flexibility, and immense customizations? This membership plugin for WordPress will make you forget all the other plugins in the list. Also, this plugin comes with insane integrations, one of the best on the list.
Pros of Paid Memberships Pro Plugin
- Content Dripping – The usual
- Offline Memberships – Sounds insane but Paid Memberships Pro has it
- Integration – let’s address the elephant in the room here. Now, this plugin is the best membership plugin for WordPress when it comes to Integrations.
- Custom Renewal Dates – This is crazy you have a membership where users pay every 2 days, it’s your site, it’s the Matrix, and we’re on Zootopia. Seems here any plugin can be anything.
Pros of Paid Memberships Pro WordPress Plugins
- Doesn’t Have unlimited Sites license – If you’re an agency then you will be paying $679/year for every new 5 websites. A bad deal eyy! As for the rest of you ladies and gentlemen, this is it, this is the plugin.
Pricing
- Core Plugin – Free
- Standard – $247/year
- Plus – $397/year
- Builder – $697/year
5. LearnDash
Well if you want to entirely focus on creating courses, then you are gonna need to load all the ammunition, all the help you can get. For that you gonna need Learn Dash, it’s a course builder and a membership plugin at the same time. This plugin will have all of your tools in one place, no need to download extras.
Pros of Learn Dash WordPress Plugin
- In-built Course builder – Create quizzes, lessons, tests, and all other things students hate and teachers love.
- Certificate builder – Give your students a certificate of completion when they, you guessed it.
- Memberships – Make a skillshare clone, in a few clicks.
- Integration – LearnDash has a lot of Integrations with the top plugins and software on the market.
Cons of Learn Dash WordPress Plugin
- Only for the course creators – otherwise, consider other options
Pricing
- 1 site – $199/year
- 10 sites – $399/year
- Unlimited sites – $799/year
Conclusion
So here’s a quick summary of the best membership plugins for WordPress
- MemberPress – Best All in One Membership plugin for WordPress
- Restrict Content Pro – Best for large audience membership management
- S2Member – Best Free Membership plugin for WordPress
- Paid Memberships Pro – Best for customization and Integrations
- LearnDash – For all you tutors
You won’t go wrong with any of these plugins. Your website will run just fine, and they all have cool little features necessary to run your membership website.
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