Are you choosing between the best free and premium WordPress membership plugins?
I know this can be a challenge.
It’s an important decision for your WordPress website to allow you to grow your business and communicate directly with your customers.
For this reason, we have TESTED 28 free and premium plugins out there and found the best 12 for you.
There are some things you need to consider before choosing a membership plugin.
For example, you should check what features are available, what payment options you can use, whether there is good support, and more.
You may also want to check support for content dripping and multi-level membership/subscription plans.
All these details will determine the overall experience for your customers.
This post covers:
- Best premium WordPress membership plugins
- Best free WordPress membership plugins
- 7 key features of a great WordPress membership plugin
- FAQs about WordPress membership plugins
Use a plugin and create a GROWING members’ area.
THE ULTIMATE 4:
- Best Overall Membership Plugin: Ultimate Membership Pro
- Best Community Plugin: UserPro
- Best Private Content Plugin: PrivateContent
- Best Free Membership Plugin: Members
Best Premium WordPress Membership Plugins
1. Ultimate Membership Pro
The first plguin on our list is one of the most popular membership plugins, Ultimate Membership Pro.
Ultimate Membership Pro is the most powerful we have tested. It offers numerous features such as private content, access restrictions, various payment gateways, and more.
You can also view user activity and current subscriptions in a dashboard and export specific lists using advanced filters.
The best part is distributing your content according to a predefined schedule. In a few words, this plugin easily fits any business.
We have already used it for 9 clients, and it works butter smoothly.
Ultimate Membership Pro features:
- 38,100+ sales
- 4.5/5 ratings
- Easy setup
- Email verification
- Price: $59 (may vary)
2. UserPro
UserPro makes it easy to set up a social network on your website.
It is a straightforward membership plugin with many features to help you engage with your website visitors.
You can interact with your customers in creative and fun ways with this WordPress membership plugin.
You can even assign roles to users and give them badges or create profile cards.
UserPro also allows you to create private or hidden fields that are only visible to members.
Also, you can allow users to hide specific fields from public view. This way, both you and your social network members will always feel protected.
UserPro features:
- 20,700+ sales
- 4.3/5 ratings
- Customizable registration forms
- WordPress Multilingual support
- Price: $39 (may vary)
3. PrivateContent
PrivateContent, as the name suggests, is all about privacy and protection. With this membership plugin, you can easily restrict any element like categories and menus. In other words, you can hide anything on your website by locking it down.
PrivateContent also tracks what logged-in users visit on your website. This allows you to determine which parts of your website perform best and run targeted marketing campaigns.
We really liked PrivateContent because it helped us choose between numerous pre-made plugin skins or even create one from scratch.
PrivateContent features:
- 11,900+ sales
- 4.4/5 ratings
- 0 coding required
- WordPress user sync system
- Price: $35 (may vary)
4. ARMember
Next in our list is the ARMember. This plugin provides a great way to support your community with a strong focus on user experience.
With this WordPress membership plugin, members can pay per post for specific content. This way, you can control members’ access to your chosen content.
Moreover, with ARMember, your users can choose between multiple membership plans.
Finally, you have access to a drip content feature and can publish content that you have already scheduled.
ARMember features:
- 11,200+ sales
- 4.7/5 ratings
- Set multiple pricing options (you can also use a WordPress pricing table plugin for more options)
- Video tutorials
- Price: $69 (may vary)
5. MemberPress
The MemberPress plugin is a powerful membership plugin that you can master in no time. The development team has created comprehensive courses for this purpose.
The best thing about this premium WordPress membership plugin is that it allows you to integrate your code like a developer easily.
Also, you can take advantage of the coupons that the plugin offers to promote your business. You can create numerous coupons and control when they expire.
Plus, the plugin is fully compatible with any WordPress theme.
MemberPress features:
- 4.7/5 ratings
- Easy-to-use
- Offers LMS features (or use a 3rd-party WordPress LMS plugin)
- Great support
- Price: $179.50+ (may vary)
6. Paid Memberships Pro
The next membership plugin in our selection is an all-in-one asset and one of our favorites. Paid Membership Pro includes all the essentials like page limits and user security.
You have many membership management options, and the best part is that it offers an organizational membership option with child accounts linked to a parent account.
This awesome membership plugin also includes many customizable levels. You can create a new, fully customizable role and define its capabilities.
Note: You can start for free!
Paid Memberships Pro features:
- 4.8/5 ratings
- Unlimited membership levels
- Supports WordPress Multisite installs
- Member dashboards
- Price: Free or $247+ (may vary)
7. Restrict Content Pro
Restrict Content Pro is a flexible and customizable membership plugin that allows you to build your community easily and with the right help.
You can export any type of data, even payment data, in a snap by creating a CSV file of active members, regardless of what subscription level they use.
Moreover, Restrict Content Pro provides you with numerous action hooks and filters that you can customize according to your needs. If you need any help, you do not need to worry.
This is because you will find instructions and information about each feature. (Plus, excellent support team!)
We can safely say that this plugin focuses on your experience as a community administrator.
Restrict Content Pro features:
- 4.6/5 ratings
- Many payment plans
- Easy plugin integration
- Free plan
- Price: $99+ (may vary)
8. MemberMouse
MemberMouse is a very well-organized membership plugin that covers all the essential aspects of building a community.
From content protection and security to member management, it offers numerous features for you to use.
One of the best things about this WordPress membership plugin is the numerous features for selling your products.
You can set things up exclusively for your business without doing any hard work.
Lastly, you can connect with your customers through personalized SmartTags and customizable coupon codes.
The online experience will be more interactive between you and your customers than ever.
MemberMouse features:
- 4.8/5 ratings
- Fully protected content
- Push notifications available
- Upgrade or downgrade anytime
- Price: $199.5+ (may vary)
Best Free WordPress Membership Plugins
9. Members
Members is one of the biggest and greatest plugins available for free.
It gives you all the necessary tools to fully manipulate your website’s membership section.
This is one of the best plugins to provide website owners with all the tools to set up paid memberships.
This is a must-try plugin if you need unlimited features for managing your website’s members. We love using it a lot!
Members features:
- 200,000+ active installations
- 4.8/5 ratings
- Simple user interface
- Use of WP shortcodes
- Multiple add-ons
10. Ultimate Member
The Ultimate Member is a user-friendly membership plugin with an interface that you can easily manipulate.
One of the best features of this plugin is that you and your members can easily create public or private notes that appear on your profile.
You can save them as drafts and edit them whenever you want. (You can even share them with other members.)
Also, users can create posts and publish them on their walls. These posts can, of course, contain different content types. Comments and likes are also available.
In short, if you want your website members to interact intensively with your website, Ultimate Member is the right plugin for you.
Ultimate Member features:
- 200,000+ active installations
- 4.4/5 ratings
- Lightweight plugin
- Editable form
- Works with any WordPress theme
11. Paid Memberships Pro – Free Version
We have already analysed the features of the Paid Memberships Pro paid version. However, we also needed to add the free version.
This WordPress membership plugin provides you with the essential tools to fully customize your website’s members’ area in its free version.
You can create unlimited membership levels with free and premium subscriptions, trials, and more.
During our testing, this plugin proved to be a fantastic way to edit profiles from the front-end.
Even though the free version lacks some advanced features, you should definitely give it a shot before upgrading to the plugin’s premium plan.
Our recommendation: Start for free and upgrade when necessary.
Paid Memberships Pro Features:
- 90,000+ active installations
- 4.3/5 ratings
- Works for members-only events (WordPress event registration plugins give you extra options)
- WooCommerce integration
- Works with Beaver Builder, Elementor, etc.
12. Simple Membership
Last in our list of free WordPress membership plugins is the Simple Membership plugin.
This is a flexible and user-friendly plugin that your customers will love. In our testing, Simple Membership had one of the most accessible user interfaces.
With this free plugin, you can choose between free and paid memberships and customize them to fit your website’s needs.
For the free memberships, you can also enable email confirmation. This is a smart way to use email marketing for your website.
Simple Membership features:
- 50,000+ active installations
- 4.5/5 ratings
- Unlimited membership access levels
- Great search function
- Teaser content
7 Key Features Of A Great WordPress Membership Plugin
Please understand that every plugin is unique and offers a variety of great features.
Thus, not every plugin is for everyone, but all the free and premium ones that we added here ARE for everyone.
Does this make sense?
Okay, let’s check the seven greatest features of a membership plugin that you can use on your WordPress website.
1. User login & registration
You want to use a plugin to cover as many areas of your membership program as possible, including user login and registration forms/pages.
Luckily, that’s what you don’t have to worry about when working with these plugins.
Also, logins and registrations are very easy to edit and configure to your needs.
But more often than not, you’ll save extra time by going with the out-of-the-box versions.
Why? Because they’re already very well executed (read great designs and perfect field structure).
2. Gated content
A plugin needs to allow you to lock particular parts, pages and posts of your website.
You can then offer your users to unlock these sections either by paying a fee or submitting their email, which gives them free access, but you collect leads for future promotions.
3. Payment options
The more payment options you offer your users, the better.
This instantly increases the conversion rates because not everyone has Paypal, and not everyone is comfortable paying with a credit card.
Sometimes, the membership plugin doesn’t have multiple payment gateway options by default, but it offers add-ons with which you can expand its functionality.
4. Multi-level memberships
This is a big one for me.
While you can simplify everything by having just one membership level for all your users, you can step things up with multi-level subscriptions.
Does this mean more work?
NO!
You can set different levels with the right plugin during your initial configuration and forget it.
You can even set a free members area and a premium members area.
The options you have are many but don’t overcomplicate things and confuse your members with TOO many plans.
It’s like going to a pizzeria with 45 pizzas on the menu. Yup, it’s a challenge picking the right one, compared to a pizzeria with 8 epic pizzas.
5. Customizations
A plugin with multiple customizations gives you more freedom when setting it up for your unique business.
Luckily, all these WordPress membership plugins are packed with great functionality for everyone.
But too many customizations can sometimes mean a struggle for inexperienced users.
Nothing to worry about because we made sure each tool offers:
6. Ease of use
Whether you’re building your first membership site or your 10th, you’ll master each plugin with EASE.
They are very intuitive and user-friendly, so you can comfortably learn everything on the fly.
But you can also flip through the documentation in case you’re not sure about a particular thing.
Or contact:
7. Support
I will always say that a great plugin with poor support doesn’t exist.
Not just that, but I’ll also say that a slightly less feature-dense plugin with superb support beats the greater one.
You need a plugin with reliable support that can answer all your questions in the shortest amount of time.
Because when you’re in a hurry and it takes the support days to get back to you – WELL, that’s a BIG NO!
FAQs About WordPress Membership Plugins
Is there a membership plugin for WordPress?
Yes, there are many great free and premium membership plugins for WordPress. We highly recommend either Ultimate Membership Pro (premium) or Members (free).
How do I use WordPress membership plugins?
You first install and activate the WordPress membership plugin you like and then configure it from your admin panel. It equips you with all the necessary features and a code-free experience, so it’s great for all beginners and experts.
What is a subscription plugin?
A subscription plugin allows you to gate specific parts and content of your website. You can then offer it for free (a great way to collect leads) or for a fee.
How do I create a membership site on WordPress?
The easiest and quickest way to create a WordPress membership site is with a plugin. You can create a free one if you need more basic functionality or a paid version that unlocks you complete creative freedom.
How do I sell my WordPress subscription?
You sell subscriptions on WordPress by using a plugin. After you install the WordPress plugin and activate it, you then configure the pricing and set multi-level memberships (optional), which gives you a chance to set multiple pricing.
Can I create multiple membership levels with these plugins?
Yes, most WordPress membership plugins allow you to create multiple membership levels with different access rights and pricing. This flexibility lets you offer a range of options to your users, from free memberships to premium tiers with exclusive content or benefits.
Do membership plugins support recurring payments?
Many WordPress membership plugins support recurring payments, allowing you to set up subscription-based pricing models. They typically integrate with popular payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, and others for secure and automated billing processes.
How do membership plugins handle content restriction?
Membership plugins provide various options to restrict content based on membership levels. You can restrict access to entire pages, posts, categories, or even specific parts of content. Some plugins also offer “drip” content features, releasing content to members over time.
Are WordPress membership plugins compatible with eCommerce solutions?
Several WordPress membership plugins are compatible with e-commerce solutions like WooCommerce. This compatibility allows for the integration of membership systems with product sales, providing a seamless experience for users purchasing memberships through an online store.
Do WP membership plugins slow down my site?
It depends on the plugin. Some can be resource-heavy, but using a well-coded plugin and having solid hosting can prevent performance issues.
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Note: This article was originally published on November 2, 2021. But our team regularly reviews it and updates it with necessary improvements for accuracy.
