2022 Latest Edition! A thorough investigation of membership site building WordPress plugins

This is misa from HanamiWEB.
I looked into plugins that can be used when building a membership site with WordPress! More and more people are wanting to distribute content exclusively to members, such as online salons.

Depending on what you want to implement, the membership site building plugin you use will differ, so I'd like to actually install the plugins and compare them!

The goal this time is to find a membership plugin that will allow me to limit the blog posts that each member can view.

I've always used the Simple Membership plugin, but I suddenly wondered if there were other good plugins out there? So I did some research!

First

WP-Members Membership Plugin

I went to Appearance → Plugins → Add New and searched for [WP-Members Membership Plugin].

Be careful as there are other plugins with the same name.

The WP-Members Membership plugin on the right is the one we will introduce this time!

How to use

A new item called [WP-Members] will appear on the dashboard, so you can perform the initial settings for the membership plugin from here.

Login page, registration page, and profile page are required.

You will need to create and set up your own login page, registration page, and profile page by going to Static Pages > Create New.

The content is an automatically output page using a shortcode.

Select the pages you want to make members-only content

Select the content you want to block: a blog post or a static page.

It seems that it is not possible to make detailed settings for each article.

Customizable registration form

The registration form can be customized as shown in the image below. The following settings can be configured:

summary

• Easily set up member-only content
• Set whether to make all blog posts members-only or all static pages members-only
• Permissions cannot be set individually for each article.
• No payment function
• Registration form fields can be customized

Setup is easy as there are few settings to configure.
This plugin is recommended for those who do not require detailed settings, such as those who want to turn their entire site into a membership site.

Simple Membership

I use the WP-Members Membership Plugin many times when building a membership site with WordPress.

The great thing about this plugin is thatA place where you can build a membership site with a Paypal/Stripe subscription model for free!

I have previously looked into this plugin in detail, so please refer to the following article:

Table of Contents of the Simple Membership Plugin that allows you to easily create an online membership site/online salon with WordPress

I will also try some plugins that came up in an online search using the keyword "membership plugin."

Groups

I went to Plugins > Add New, searched for [Groups], and installed and enabled it.

Rather than being a membership plugin, it seems more like an extension plugin that allows you to set the permissions for users when they register for WordPress, and allows you to set those permissions in more detail.

How to use

Once activation is complete, a Groups item will be added to the left sidebar. This is where you can start setting up the membership plugin Groups.

You can set detailed permissions for plugins, etc.

It's unfortunate that it wasn't translated into Japanese, but on the screen for creating a group there is a section called [Capabilities], and when you expand it there are many items.

What are these many items? If you look at [aiosro_about_us_page], you will see that it is the about us page of the All in one SEO plugin.

In this way, it seems to be a plugin that allows you to fine-tune the permissions to access settings such as plugins.

Assign permissions to users

If you look at the user list page on the dashboard, you will see that a new item called Group has been added.

Here you can get extremely granular with respect to what permissions each user has.

summary

• A plugin that can be used to manage WordPress with multiple users
• The permissions that users can edit and set in detail on the plugin management screen

It wasn't the function I was looking for this time, which was to restrict content such as blog articles.

I'll try one more challenge.

Ultimate Member

I searched for [Ultimate Member] under Plugins > Add New. I will install and activate it.

How to use

An item called [Ultimate Member] was added to the dashboard.

This membership plugin is available in Japanese!

Create multiple static pages

As with Groups, you will need to create multiple static pages yourself. For beginners, it may be more reassuring to create them yourself rather than letting the automatic output increase the number of static pages.

・User page
・Login page
・New registration page
・Member page
・Logout page
・Account page
・Password reset page

Membership privilege settings

There are no restrictions on the type of membership, but it appears to be a plugin that controls each user's editing privileges on the dashboard, rather than a membership site building plugin to control page viewing.

summary

• It is not a membership plugin that controls blog posts etc.
• There are many types of memberships
• Plugin for controlling actions on the admin screen

It wasn't the function I was looking for this time, which was to restrict content such as blog articles.

[Recommended] PaidMembership Pro

I was looking into starting a HanamiWEB e-learning school in 2022 and found Paid Membership Pro, a membership site building plugin. Although it's called Pro, the free version has plenty of functionality.

The functions are similar to Simple Membership. The main differences are:Paid Membership Pro has a more comprehensive member pageThat's it.

With Simple Membership, it was difficult for users to cancel, change their credit card information, and manage their payment history, but with Paid Membership Pro, these functions are implemented as a user's personal page.

Setup is also easier than Simple Membership, and changing your membership plan can be done easily from within your user page.

Of course, payment can be linked to Stripe or Paypal for free.

I wrote a blog explaining how to set up Paid Membership Pro!

Essential for online salons! How to create a membership site using WordPress. Explaining the Paid Mambership Pro plugin

So, which membership plugin is best for an online salon?

As expected, HanamiWEB's recommendation is the [Paid Membership Pro] plugin!!

▼Settings explanation article▼

Essential for online salons! How to create a membership site using WordPress. Explaining the Paid Mambership Pro plugin

It allows you to accept payments via PayPal or Stripe (credit card) for free, allows you to create multiple types of membership, and has a comprehensive member page, making it an easy-to-use plugin for users.

If you know any recommended membership plugins, please let me know!

[Extra Edition] For those who want to upgrade their membership site

The membership site building plugin introduced here is a very simple membership site building plugin that controls whether blog articles and static page articles can be viewed depending on the type of member.

The membership site I'm actually building is an e-learning type. When users become members, they can learn course-based content, which is a system that allows us to provide a higher level of service than regular membership sites. It is possible to have users submit assignments and answer quizzes to measure their level of proficiency.

This type of system is called a Learning Management System (LMS), and is especially recommended if you are focusing on learning, as it lists the content to be learned in a sidebar, as shown in the screenshot below.

There are free courses available on the HanamiWEB e-learning school that can be viewed without registering as a user, so you can see the actual site. If you are interested, please visit the HanamiWEB e-learning school.

We also publish articles explaining how to build e-learning sites!

▼LifterLMS allows you to build a site without the online payment function even with the free version▼

[How to create an e-learning/LMS site like Teachable] Explaining how to use the LifterLMS plugin!

▼The plugin we actually implemented is LearnDash (paid plugin)▼

[How to create an e-learning/LMS site like Teachable] Table of contents for instructions on how to use LearnDash, a paid LMS plugin