MemberPress is a popular membership plugin among WordPress users who run a membership site. And rightfully so: With its quick and easy setup, unlimited membership levels, and seamless payment gateway integration, this plugin includes everything WordPress users need to create a successful membership site.
A COMPLETE STEP-BY-STEP CHEATSHEET
TO CREATING, LAUNCHING & GROWING A SUCCESSFUL MEMBERSHIP WEBSITE
In this article, we’ll review MemberPress so you can decide if it’s the right plugin for your membership site. We’ll review:
- Setting Up MemberPress
- Controlling Access to Your Content
- Customizing Your Membership Site
- Integrating Payment Gateways
- Integrating Third-Party Services
- Purchasing MemberPress
Setting Up MemberPress
One of the main reasons MemberPress is such a popular membership plugin among WordPress users is because it’s easy to set up.
It starts with the installation: the plugin uses a standard installation – just upload the MemberPress zip file to your WordPress dashboard, just as you would with most plugins.
But installing the plugin is only half the battle: a common obstacle for many WordPress users is taking care of the prerequisites to creating a membership site, such as creating pricing and login pages.
The plugin automatically sets up your pricing, login, account, and thank you pages for your users, which means you can spend less time setting up your membership site and more time selling your content.
Controlling Access to Your Content
The most important aspect of a membership site is the ability to control access to your content. It’s how you make your money: visitors cannot view certain content until they purchase a membership.
MemberPress uses advanced access rules to ensure only registered members can access your content. The access tools allow you to protect pages, posts, children of pages, posts that are
categorized or tagged in a certain way, feeds, custom post types, and standalone files anywhere in your WordPress folder.
As your membership site gets more sophisticated, the plugin will ensure your access rules are equally sophisticated.
Customizing Your Membership Site
We all have different goals for our content, thus, need a WordPress plugin that allows us to customize our sites.
MemberPress works well out of the box: As we mentioned earlier, your essential pages, such as your thank you, login, and account pages, are automatically generated. And, as needed, you have access to many actions and filters, which increase the functionality of your membership site.
For advanced users, this WordPress membership plugin can be highly customizable. For example, with a certain understanding of programming, you can allow your members to purchase coupons and gift them to other members (a feature not included in this plugin by default).
If you create membership sites for clients, the customizability of MemberPress can be especially appealing because you can provide solutions that are not included in MemberPress by default.
Integrating Payment Gateways
MemberPress integrates with the three most popular payment gateways:
The plugin reserves its payment gateways to a minimum, only choosing the one’s that allow for a much more secure and PCI compliant ability to charge credit cards and provide a mechanism for issuing automatic recurring payments – a must-have for your membership site.
However, this lack of payment gateway options is a deal-breaker for WordPress users who live in countries not supported by these payment gateways.
Integrating Third-Party Services
MemberPress integrates with several popular third-party services, especially in email marketing. Integrating your membership site with an email marketing service allows you to add members to your email lists – a great way to stay connected with members.
Many WordPress users also look for membership plugins that integrate with podcast hosting services. This plugin integrates with Blueberry: a podcast hosting service that allows you to streamline your podcast publishing workflow and keep your podcast on your platform.
Purchasing MemberPress
MemberPress offers three pricing plans:
- Basic ($129/year)
- Plus ($249/year)
- Pro ($369/year)
The most popular plan is Plus, which MemberPress says is great for entrepreneurs, freelancers, and advanced membership site builders. It allows you to use the plugin on up to 10 sites, plus includes many add-ons and integrations.
If you are ready to refine an existing membership site, the Plus or Pro plans are good choices. However, if you’re creating your first membership site, the Basic plan will work well for you.
You now have a good understanding of why MemberPress is one of the most popular membership plugins among WordPress users: With easy on-boarding and strong integrations, MemberPress is a great plugin for your WordPress site.
But, as always, you know your content goals best: take time to review any membership plugin that interests you, then build your membership site with confidence.
