The Best WordPress Membership Plugins in 2023

Membership sites are growing in popularity — so if you want to build yours, you are probably looking for the best WordPress membership plugins.

However, finding the one can be daunting, considering how many plugin options you have for your membership site. So we delved into this topic and gathered a list of the best WordPress membership plugins you could use.

What to Look for When Choosing a Membership Plugin

If the range of WordPress membership plugins confuses you, we understand. There’s hundreds of them out there, and you want to choose one that will be “just right” from the get-go (as opposed to having to switch to a different one down the line.)

Here are some criteria you could consider when looking for a WordPress membership plugin:

• Features (e.g., if it enables automated translations, user manuals, and so on)
• How much content you can restrict (and how)
• What add-ons you can get for it (and at what price)
• Email software integrations (to market your content)
• Payment processor options (to accept payments from your members)
• Customization (to make your membership site really yours)
• User-friendliness (both for you and your members)
• Customer Support (just in case you need a helping hand on the way)
• Price (look for a good quality-to-price ratio and make sure you get the bang for your buck)

Top 9 Best WordPress Membership Plugins

Alright, now that we’ve listed down some of the most important criteria to consider when choosing a WordPress membership plugin, let’s take a look at some of the most popular ones.

Ultimate Membership Pro

This is not to brag, but Ultimate Membership Pro offers the best quality-features-pricing ratio. Our plugin is one of the best WordPress membership plugins not because we say so, but because we:

• Allow for a virtually unlimited level of customization
• Provide our users with more than 40 add-ons (included in the price of the plugin)
• Allow you to connect your membership site with 10 payment gateways
• …And send emails via one of the 10 email tools we’re integrated with
• Enable our users to do anything they want with their membership site, from allowing users to login with their socials to building mini social media networks within the community.

To top it off, our plugin is speed-optimized, so your membership site can be accessed on the go, on mobile devices of any kind. As for the interface, you can bid farewell to old-school UX that doesn’t make sense, Ultimate Membership Pro has a modern, user-friendly design that makes everything more intuitive.

All of these features come at very affordable prices. The basic plugin costs $59 (as a one time payment that includes six months of Customer Care) and you can buy an add-on bundle for 46 extra add-ons for less than $150/ year.

MemberPress

MemberPress is one of the most popular membership site plugins for WordPress — and not necessarily without reason. The tool is easy to use, easy to set up, and provides you with a very wide range of content level restrictions, which makes it a great plugin for online course-based businesses, communities, and so on.

On the flip side, MemberPress only integrates with 5 main payment gateways, and it comes at a pretty hefty price (starts at $179.5/ year, according to their latest offer, and can get as high as $399.5/ year.)

MemberMouse

MemberMouse is a very popular WordPress membership plugin, frequently compared to MemberPress. They offer dynamic content protection, free and paid memberships, push notifications, as well as a plethora of basic membership site plugin features. They are integrated with 7 payment processors, but some of them are only available on the higher-tiered pricing plans.

Pricing for MemberMouse starts at $199.5/ year and goes through four pricing tiers, with the highest one at $1,195.5/ year.

LearnDash

LearnDash is one of the most well-known learning management systems (LMS.) Like Thrive Apprentice, LearnDash is more focused on delivering courses and other educational material, but it can be used as a membership site plugin as well. The main difference between a LMS and a membership site plugin is that an LMS will usually have more educational and learning-related features, such as course creation tools, quizzes, etc., whereas a membership plugin will focus on content restriction, membership management, and so on.

Pricing for the LearnDash LMS for WordPress starts at $199/ year, and if you want to get hosting (for, say, course videos), it will cost you an additional $24/ month. Plus, they have a series of add-ons you can choose from if you need reporting tools, group management features, and others.

Wishlist Member

Wishlist Member is another popular WordPress membership plugin. It offers content restriction, drip feed functionality, trigger level actions, partial content display, and other features typical of content restriction and membership site plugins. It also integrates with a lot of payment gateways and email marketing tools, which means it can be a viable tool if you want to focus on your membership site growth.

Pricing for Wishlist Member starts at $149/ year (for 1 site), and they have another pricing tier version for $249/ month (for up to 10 sites.)

Restrict Content Pro

Restrict Content Pro is frequently considered among the best WordPress Membership plugins, and this is largely due to its ease of use. The features it provides cover most basic needs for community and membership site owners: content restriction, membership access and management, Stripe payments, and even basic email automation.

For the “Pro” version (paid), you will pay $99/ year (for 1 site), $149/ year (for 5 sites), and $249/ year (unlimited sites.) This will give you access to more advanced tools and add-ons, so you can better manage (and market) your membership site.

MagicMembers

MagicMembers is an easy to use WordPress plugin for membership sites. This plugin covers basic membership site needs (e.g., member management, some — limited — content restriction, accepting payments, and so on.) However, it can be a good option for someone who is absolutely certain they will always keep it very simple with their membership site.

Pricing for MagicMembers starts at $97 (as a one-time payment for one website) and can go as high as $207 (also as a one-time payment, for unlimited sites.)

Simple Membership

Simple Membership is another popular option for membership sites on WordPress. As the name suggests, the plugin allows you to build simple membership sites that cover all the basics: member management, content protection, payments, and so on.

Simple Membership is free of charge, but you might need special add ons, which are paid individually. For instance, if you want to build forms on your site, you will have to pay $47 for the add-on. Likewise, if you want to integrate your membership site with AWeber (provided that’s your email marketing tool,) you will have to pay $39.95.

Thrive Apprentice

Thrive Apprentice is another popular membership plugin for WordPress (frequently touted among the best ones, actually.) It is worth mentioning, however, that Thrive Apprentice is primarily built to be a Learning Management System plugin, and although it can support other membership site functionalities, it’s not fully fledged.

Pricing for Thrive Apprentice starts at $299/ year or $149/ quarter, and for the money, you get access to all the nine plugins developed by Thrive (Apprentice, Quiz Builder, Architect, Ultimatum, Ovation, and so on.) If you need all of them, it can be a good deal. If, however, you’d much rather focus on the functionalities strictly related to your membership site, you might want to reconsider.

Best WordPress Membership Plugins – Price Comparison

Conclusion

Ultimately, the decision of which is the best WordPress membership plugin belongs to you. Think things through and decide which of these plugins fits your budget and needs the best. There’s no wrong answer, it all depends on you, your project and its specifics.

If you want a simple membership site (and you’re sure you’ll always keep it this way,) then MagicMembers or Simple Membership might be the best options for you. If, however, you want something more complex and with plenty of features that can be integrated easily, Ultimate Membership Pro is your go-to solution, along with MemberMouse, MemberPress, and Restrict Content Pro (all very viable options, but not as good in terms of getting the most bang for your buck.