A study found that 77% of companies believe that an online community significantly improves brand exposure, awareness, and credibility. Online communities present a major opportunity for businesses to engage with their customers.
However, it can be expensive and time-consuming to hire a web developer to build your site.
The good news is that WordPress membership plugins can help you build your own site.
7 Best Membership Plugins for WordPress Sites
You don’t need any coding skills, and most of the features don’t cost anything. Check out these seven membership plugins below.
1. MemberPress
It’s easier than ever to transform your WordPress website into a membership site. With the MemberPress plugin, you can restrict premium content and create custom registration fields for your members to log into your site.
“A membership allows you to build a list of loyal members, create an active email list, and position yourself as a leader in your industry if it gains enough traction,' says Syed Balkhi, CEO of WPForms.
The plugin requires no modifications to your theme, allowing you to seamlessly integrate user logins, registrations, and profiles. Non-technical website owners can use the plugin’s shortcodes to build pages and forms without any coding expertise.
As an admin, you’ll get notified by email when users create a new registration. You also can hold new registrations until you review and approve them. That way, you have complete control over who joins your membership site.
2. Ultimate Member
The Ultimate Member is a user profile and membership plugin for creating advanced online communities with your existing WordPress website. With the plugin’s drag-and-drop builder, you can create custom registration, login, and profile forms for your site.
You can restrict access to your entire website or apply custom access rules on a page or post. There’s also the option to restrict pages and posts, so only logged-in users can see them. Then, you can redirect logged-out users to another page if they try to access the restricted page.
Ultimate Member offers customizable email templates for you to create a personalized experience for your members. You can send a welcome email to new members, a rejection email to denied users, and a password reset email to members who forgot their login credentials.
3. Paid Memberships Pro
Whether you’re starting an online club or building subscription products, you’ll want to try Paid Memberships Pro. This membership subscription plugin is specifically designed to add a new revenue source to your website.
With this membership plugin, you can set up unlimited free or paid membership levels. The subscription option allows members to pay annually, monthly, weekly, or daily. You also can create custom trial periods for users to join your membership site for a limited time period or at an introductory price.
4. Simple Membership
Simple Membership is an easy-to-use WordPress membership plugin for restricting access to your posts and pages. You can choose who sees your content by setting up membership levels. When visitors land on a protected page, they will be prompted to log in or become a member.
You can configure both paid and free memberships. Paid membership payments can be securely accepted via PayPal, Stripe, and Braintree. You also can set up one-time payments or subscription payments depending on your business’s revenue model. Every payment is recorded in the plugin, and you can view them in your WordPress dashboard.
Simple Membership comes with several other features, including the ability to protect photo galleries and attachment pages, customize the content protection message shown to non-members, and restrict the commenting on your site to members only.
5. Membership & Content Restriction
Sometimes, your team needs the complete membership solution, from accepting member payments to managing members to restricting premium content access. The Membership & Content Restriction plugin offers all those features to help you create paid membership subscriptions.
Because this plugin integrates with WooCommerce, you can also create a members-only store and restrict product viewing and purchasing based on subscription plan levels. You can even set membership discounts per product or subscription plan. As a result, your business has full control of your eCommerce shop.
Reporting is one of the few things forgotten when creating a WordPress membership site, yet it’s essential to your business. With this plugin, you can create custom reports to maintain the records of your members’ database. Or you can export your data to another application, like Excel or your email marketing software, to gain more insights.
6. Membership by Supsystic
Membership by Supsystic is an effective WordPress plugin for building your own membership site and online community. You can allow your members to control their content, share pictures, upload videos, and comment on other members’ profiles. Similar to a social network site, members can send private messages to friends through the website.
Giving your members control doesn’t mean your business shouldn’t stay involved in the community. Quite the contrary, you have the chance to really help the community grow. Chris Newton, former Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Influitive, agrees:
'By listening to what your customers are saying, providing them with a community that matches their needs, and applying the feedback they give you, you’ll quickly see increased customer engagement and satisfaction-and your online community will become the valuable asset it was meant to be.'
7. s2Member Framework
s2Member Framework is a perfect tool for non-coders because you can create a membership site using WordPress shortcodes to add complex functionality. You can insert shortcodes to hide content to specific member groups or show content to members who completed a specific action.
This plugin secures your membership site from hackers attempting brute-force attacks. s2Member Framework monitors failed login attempts and detects suspicious IP addresses. You can even implement a temporary ban on specific IP addresses.
The Pro Version of the plugin includes multiple payment gateways, unlimited paid membership levels, and Google’s reCAPTCHA service to protect your site from spambots. If you’re wanting to attract more members, you can use the premium coupon code configuration to offer members flat-rate or percentage-based discounts.
Build Your Membership WordPress Site Today
With the help of plugins, you don’t need a web developer to build a membership site in WordPress. Whatever type of membership site you’re building, you can do it all yourself while bringing people together and earning revenue for your business. Take the time to create your membership site today.
Shayla Price creates and promotes content. She lives at the intersection of digital marketing, technology, and social responsibility. Originally from Louisiana, Shayla champions access to remote work opportunities. Connect with her on Twitter at @shaylaprice.