Build A WordPress Membership Website

WordPress Membership Plugins

Creating a WordPress membership website is a great way to build a secure site to control what your visitors can access on your website. A membership site can be used for many things such as distance learning, online courses, digital products such as e-books and training videos, or any subscription service like webinars, for example.

There are various WordPress plugins that will enable you to create a membership site quickly. There are premium plugins available, but you can find plenty of great free ones also. The following list contains some of the best membership plugins available. Most of them are self-explanatory and very easy to use, so it doesn't matter which one you choose according to your preferences.

Wishlist Member

This is the first on our list of best membership plugins for WordPress. It's easy to use and offers plenty of features, so it's perfect for beginner users as well as more advanced ones. Besides creating membership sites, the WishList Member plugin can also be used to build a list for product launches and marketing campaigns.

This plugin is based on the Freemium model, so you can use it for free as long as your members can only access public content or purchase products. You can upgrade to the PRO version if you want more features such as restricting content, offering discounts and coupons, displaying Adsense ads freely as well as the ability to manage multiple sites.

WP Pro Membership

This is a very secure plugin as it uses a separate table for user profiles and offers many different restriction options. The free version allows you to create two levels of access – Standard members and Admin-only. You can upgrade to other paid plans according to your needs, so this plugin is perfect for users who want more content restriction options.

Membership 2

The next plugin on our list of best membership plugins for WordPress is Membership 2. This plugin offers two membership levels – Free and Premium, which means you'll get the most basic membership feature for free. If you are selling digital products on your site, then this plugin is perfect for you, as it lets you easily restrict access to them.

Joint Venture Plus

This plugin has been created especially for creating e-commerce sites where you can sell digital products. It's very simple to use and offers additional features like two membership levels (Free user and Administrator), coupons, affiliate tools, payment gateways integration, etc. If you want to create a complete e-commerce site that will offer online courses or subscription-based content, this plugin is what you need.

The free version gives you a lot of features. Still, you can upgrade to Joint Venture PRO or JOINT VENTURE PLATINUM, which offer additional features such as order notifications, unlimited coupon codes, etc.

WP eMember

This plugin uses the Freemium model similar to WishList Member and allows you to use it for free if your members can only access public content or purchase products. Some great features included PayPal integration, affiliate system, coupon codes, multiple membership levels, etc.

As memberships increase in popularity, more and more people are looking to create their membership sites.  

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