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Please recommend a membership site PLUGIN for Wordpress

by writeaway
36 replies
What am I looking for?

1) WP plugin

2) Integrates smoothly into WP admin area

3) Enables me to lock a whole blog off to non-members

4) Must process Paypal payments - RECURRING subscriptions

5) Integrates with Paypal so members who unsubscribed are automatically blocked from access

Care to make any recommendations?

Just so this is fully beneficial, please post the REASONS why you recommend the product and whether it meets the requirements above.

Thanks in advance
#membership #plugin #recommend #site #wordpress
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Originally Posted by writeaway View Post

    What am I looking for?

    1) WP plugin

    2) Integrates smoothly into WP admin area

    3) Enables me to lock a whole blog off to non-members

    4) Must process Paypal payments - RECURRING subscriptions

    5) Integrates with Paypal so members who unsubscribed are automatically blocked from access

    Care to make any recommendations?

    Just so this is fully beneficial, please post the REASONS why you recommend the product and whether it meets the requirements above.

    Thanks in advance


    You've pretty much described every popular Wordpress membership plugin.
    • Block free traffic
    • Unsubscribe
    • Paypal
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    • Profile picture of the author writeaway
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      You've pretty much described every popular Wordpress membership plugin.
      • Block free traffic
      • Unsubscribe
      • Paypal
      That google search link doesn't really help me since I'm looking for people's experiences/REASONS. I need this info to make an informed decision. I've already done Google searches but I need actual flesh and blood feedback.

      Thanks for trying though. Much appreciated.
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by writeaway View Post

        That google search link doesn't really help me since I'm looking for people's experiences/REASONS. I need this info to make an informed decision. I've already done Google searches but I need actual flesh and blood feedback.

        Thanks for trying though. Much appreciated.


        Ok but you're entire list is every popular plugin.

        You've only described core plugin features.

        I'm not sure what you'll get for feedback of 3 core features. What else is there? Either these 3 things work or they don't.

        Most plugins let you test them.

        What have you tested?
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        • Profile picture of the author writeaway
          Originally Posted by yukon View Post

          Ok but you're entire list is every popular plugin.

          You've only described core plugin features.

          I'm not sure what you'll get for feedback of 3 core features. What else is there? Either these 3 things work or they don't.

          Most plugins let you test them.

          What have you tested?
          I've tried optimizedpress and am not exactly happy with it.

          It seems to have too many bells and whistles. I'd rather have something that's just focused primarily on keeping a member 'door' on the main piece of content I'd like to charge members to access.

          The content is updated frequently (day to day or week to week)

          I am looking for other options.

          Please share your experiences with 'stripped down' or simpler solutions.

          I'm not really looking for a FREE solution. Paid is fine. I just want to make sure it will be something I'll be using for an extended period of time.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mark Singletary
    OptimizePress is the same thing as S2Member Pro. The S2M team has recently admitted they are working on other things and so features and bug fixes are going to be on the backburner. It was last updated a year ago.

    Membersonic Pro sounds like something that would work for you. It does all you need and more. The one big problem with them is they don't handle teaser articles well.

    For example, I click on an introduction and because I'm not logged in I get a message to sign in or pay. With either option after signing in or paying, I go back to the member's private home page instead of the rest of the article. If you don't need teaser articles, this won't be an issue.

    I pay $17 a month to get ongoing support and all their other plugins and training. Their support is responsive and they are constantly improving their products.

    Mark
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  • Profile picture of the author Charles Goodnight
    I installed Restrict Content Pro a few months ago, and I am extremely happy with it. It runs great in a multisite environment and once signed up on one of my subdomains, their registration is done on all of my other sites. There are a lot of add-ons and integrations that help me give my members great benefits and provide me with packages to upsell.

    The one thing I would love to be able to have added is an article restriction such as some of the major news websites have. I have nearly 6,000 articles on my site that are all free to read, but I would like to give unregistered visitors 10 free articles a month. If they wanted more access they would have to register for at least our Free membership plan. Right now, I can either pick and choose what articles are free to read, and which are restricted, or leave them all free or all restricted. I contacted the deves and they told me they are considering this type of update, but until then, this is not an option.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jason Hodgins
    https://member.wishlistproducts.com/ Best plugin I've ever used...just my opinion though.

    Guess I should have been a little more clear. See reply in thread below.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jason Hodgins
    Sorry I forgot to subscribe to this thread in case I needed to reply.

    TBH, most of the best features of the plugin are right on the tin to read for yourself, however...

    I invested in this plugin a long time ago and have been out of the game for health reasons for quite a while.

    This was oh, about 2009-10...something like that.

    I had several niche membership sites at the time and what I can say details wise is that the plugin allows fine granular control over pretty much everything while still maintaining a pretty normal blog, at least the way I used it. Also, the integrations are fantastic, I had ZERO problems with autoresponder or payment integrations.

    I plan on using the plugin in a similar capacity again as soon as I ramp back up to producing income sites.

    Hope that helps.

    ~Jay

    edit: There is also a matching protection/security plugin for Wishlist but I believe it is an additional cost.
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Meaney
    In 2015 Chris Lema did a comparison of the best WP membership plugins.

    In 2016 he took a second look at the top 3.

    Personally I've given up on trying to get membership plugins to work smoothly with WP, there's too much that can go wrong.

    I'll give you an example... after going through most of the membership plugins on Lema's list, I settled on...

    Using DAP for a couple of years, but a serious vulnerability is discovered. I investigate and see horror stories about payments being hijacked.

    I'd like to believe that the developers (who are seriously the best people in the business) would have fixed it by now, but once bitten twice shy.

    Then I switched to MemberMouse for months before I realised it wasn't triggering payments - the developers couldn't figure out exactly why, and said it was a conflict with another plugin.

    So I moved over to MemberSonic, new domain with no other plugins and almost straight away my students couldn't access the content. Even when I temporarily unlocked the content the plugin still restricted access. The developers couldn't figure out why.

    Now I'm using cloud-hosted membership sites; Teachable and Kartra and it's a whole lot less hassle.
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  • Profile picture of the author Successtoyou
    I was searching for my best membership plugin for a very long time. After searching a lot, I stopped my choice on Ultimate member and Buddypress. Ultimate Member is a very nice plugin, very flexible with complete integration with Wordpress. Lots of handy shortcodes you can use, many member roles, fully customizable login, register and profile forms. BUT.. I had to move to buddypress, which is heavier, less flexible, you have to search and modify codes, you don't have a straight link to your profile, you don't have ready shortcodes.. It is more difficult to reach your goals with Buddypress, but, after hard work you can have nice profiles, media library, status updates, groups and everything a social media network should have. With Ultimate member all the features you listed are additional addons and you should pay for them.
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  • Profile picture of the author misterme
    Simple WordPress Membership. Has all those features and it's simple to set up and understand.
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  • Profile picture of the author fone ai
    The best plugin that I will promote you is Wishlist member dashboard. It sees your current status and manages your license in inside wishlist dashboard.
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  • Profile picture of the author faisalmaximus
    I suggest you to select any one from the following to get the best experience :

    1. MemberPress
    Pricing: Business Edition $99/Year, Developer Edition $199/Year

    2. Paid Memberships Pro
    Pricing: Basic Free, PMPro Plus $297/year, Unlimited $597/year.

    3. Restrict Content Pro
    Pricing: $99 with 12 addons and single site license, $149 for 5 sites, and $249 for all addons and unlimited sites. There is also a $499 lifetime plan.

    4. LearnDash
    Pricing: Starting from $159 for a single site license with 1 year of support and updates.

    5. S2Member
    Pricing: The base plugin is free, then Pro version for a single site license costs $89 USD. For unlimited sites pro version costs $189 USD.
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  • Profile picture of the author telsave
    There are so many it is difficult to sort the good from the bad I can only give you my user experience and this is my only link with them, I am not an affiliate. I run a member register for a European Counselling Association with members across Europe, and I use Participants Database by Roland Barker 255 reviews 5-star rating. Roland is very helpful and the service is fast which is what numpties like me need. The Plugin is always up to date with the latest update only 3 days ago. and easy to set up and maintain.
    He has a DEMO page here https://xnau.com/work/wordpress-plug...-participants/
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  • Profile picture of the author affmarketer101
    Is there anyway to do with Woocommerce?
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  • Profile picture of the author seosoldier
    Do any or all of these plug ins and web based solutions for member sites recommended above work well for video?
    I have about 15 videos on a particular subject I want to make available. My main concern is whether people will be able to download the videos and share them which I do NOT want even a decent hacker to be able to do.
    I want to offer streaming the vids as a member benefit but then an upsell would be allowiing them to be downloaded for $.
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  • Profile picture of the author jazbo
    DAP


    Regular updates, new features, incredibly powerful.


    Don't consider anything else.
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  • Profile picture of the author ctpalmer2
    You should check out amember pro. It can do all of the things your asking for plus way more.
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  • Profile picture of the author Steve B
    Many marketers recommend Wishlist Member. I have not used it personally as a vendor, but I am in two memberships myself that use the platform and (as a member) I've never had any difficulties with it. It's quite user friendly.



    Good luck to you,


    Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author srhudson
    I use Thrive Apprentice. It does all of the things you are asking and the tutorials and community are extremely helpful. You can do a quick search on YouTube and see some decent reviews. I am also an affiliate but I don't need to post my link. I highly recommend Thrive!
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    • Profile picture of the author dajreamdigital
      Originally Posted by srhudson View Post

      I use Thrive Apprentice. It does all of the things you are asking and the tutorials and community are extremely helpful. You can do a quick search on YouTube and see some decent reviews. I am also an affiliate but I don't need to post my link. I highly recommend Thrive!
      Hey SRHudson, How are you using Thrive Apprentice? Aren't you still required to connect it with a membership management plugin?

      Thanks in advance for your advice.
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  • Profile picture of the author RoyChan
    Try Andrew Hunter's Membership plugin. It's user-friendly and friendly to your pocket.

    Andrew is a honest guy who does not charge you an arm and a leg for unnecessary add-on.

    But if you were to ask me, I would not use Wordpress to build a membership site.

    Wordpress was not meant to be a membership platform. Marketers just tweaked it to become a membership platform, but fundamentally it's still a Blog...

    Can you make a car to fly? Yes, you can, but not as efficient as a plane which was designed to fly from the get-go.

    Just my personal opinion. You may disagree.
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  • Profile picture of the author JohnVianny
    DO NOT USE WP PLUGIN for MEMBERSHIP SITE.

    unless you wanna end up in a mess of trouble.

    The only good solution nowadays is Kajabi
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    • Profile picture of the author zefriks
      I use S2Membership Plugin to handle membership on my WordPress.

      @JohnVianny lol what bad experience you get?

      Originally Posted by JohnVianny View Post

      DO NOT USE WP PLUGIN for MEMBERSHIP SITE.

      unless you wanna end up in a mess of trouble.

      The only good solution nowadays is Kajabi
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    • Profile picture of the author writeaway
      Originally Posted by JohnVianny View Post

      DO NOT USE WP PLUGIN for MEMBERSHIP SITE.

      unless you wanna end up in a mess of trouble.

      The only good solution nowadays is Kajabi
      What makes Kajabi better than a WP plugin?
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  • Profile picture of the author Jen Eick
    I like Wishlist Member. It's fairly simple to set up and use. I used DAP (Digital Access Pass) for a while; I liked it even more due to all the bells and whistles, and you get some cool perks with using it (f you're using the unlimited sites protection for one monthly fee option; which I was). Wishlist Member was a little easier to set up; DAP felt more secure to me (but that was my personal opinion, others may disagree), The upside to Wishlist member is it's pretty cost effective to purchase and update yearly. But I love DAP too - they had some pretty sweet benefits to being a monthly paying member that don't protect your site but definitely added value. You could (theoretically) justify the price by using it as an all-in-one business solution and being able to get rid of your autoresponder, since one is included in the price.
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  • Profile picture of the author troy23
    I tried a few & find them all flaky.
    I switched to Membersonic, but all they did was send out their offers & never replied to some support questions,.
    Now I use a course platform.....takes care of everything for me, hosting, delivery etc and great support.
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  • Profile picture of the author Paisajeeto101
    The best plugin I would recommend is Wishlist. Simple to set up and easy to use.
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  • Profile picture of the author Obermair
    Built the first site from scratch but now considering a platform to integrate sales pipeline management, auto responding and the site content. Looking at ClickFunnels, Kartra, and Builderall. Any thoughts on the integrated platforms outside of the cost difference?
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  • Profile picture of the author Steve L
    Yea, I really like Teachable's UI and hey I don't have to use Wordpress? Awesome!
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  • Profile picture of the author adi2010
    I look around for membership plugin. I used DAP but ditched it and after a year they even don`t allow me to access to DAP admin page. I wonder if they kicked me out for not upgrading.

    I have Membersonic, but...hmmm...Now I look at Memberpress. So many good feedbacks they have. What do you think guys? Anyone? I don`t look for teaching membership
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  • Profile picture of the author azsno
    I'm with Michael Meaney on this one, I've built well over 1,500 WordPress Membership Websites, and they all had issues with plugin updates, many didn't work with Paypal IPN, and they're a Major PITA...

    If you Don't Have Decent Security for WordPress, then expect to get hacked, the Hacker Bot Traffic alone makes WordPress a non-starter for me these days...PLUS, the bounce rate of the Hacker "Bots" will affect your SEO from Google (if you're looking for organic traffic)...



    I worked for Genesis Digtal as a Concierge agent for WebinarJam/EverWebinar/Kartra and I can tell you from Experience "Kartra" is the BEST Cloud Based solution out there...

    I use it in my Own Business and it's been flawless (and I'm not saying that because I worked for them)...

    Kartra beats Clickfunnels every time...IMHO...

    Hope this Helps,

    ~AzSno...
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  • Profile picture of the author devlob
    Wordpress Membership Plugin I have found it best i used it many times.
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  • Profile picture of the author Highest And Best
    Here is a suggestion that I have used successfully...

    It's called WP-Members.
    It was easy to set up, and works very well. It has (had?) one limitation, and that is that it can handle only one product/price level. It was perfect for what I needed. Chad, the developer, is easy to work with and he even implemented some of my suggestions.

    Also, it's free. I did, however, pay for a year of access to pre-written hooks. It was well worth it.

    It's a great plugin and does everything you are asking for. It even sends out email to remind people to renew (if you do not choose recurring). If an expired account tries to log in, it allows them to renew (pay) for instant access.

    -Scott
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  • Profile picture of the author Ray Boller
    Well, Jo! that was a very thorough review. I was surprised not to see UserPlace Membership plugin
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