20+ WordPress Plugins for your Membership Site
Do you want your own membership site?
Here are some WordPress Plugins that I found that might be useful if you are setting up your own community/directory/membership site or just want to have some protected pages/posts for special users.
MemberWing
The new free wordpress membership plugin – MemberWing allows to convert your existing blog into membership site without any changes or re-designs.
By inserting small text marker "{+++}" inside any article (old or new) – the content of it will become "protected" and available only to registered premium members. Simply put – anything that was before the marker – is visible for everyone – so put your teasers here. Anything after the "{+++}" marker will only be visible to users who are "Gold" or "Platinum" members. This is great feature that allows search engines to index and rank free text "teasers" part of your blog/website.
Once activated, plugin created 4 separate group members – Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum. So you may (if wanted to) have 4 classes of contents and charge fees accordingly to access each class of contents. The way you mark contents of your articles for each group is the same simple one – via markers that separate free teasers from premium "juicy" part. {+} – Bronze members, {++} – Bronze and Silver members, {+++} – Bronze, Silver and Gold members, etc..
Membership plugin MemberWing supports latest version of self-hosted WordPress 2.6+ and works on any hosted account that allows wordpress installations.
EasyPayPal
EasyPayPal allows you to make money from your WordPress site by collecting a subscription payment from your users.
1) Hide text from non-subscribers with [pay][/pay] tags. Use “teasers” in your posts.
2) Create instant PayPal buttons in any post with simple [paybutton] tags.
3) Charge fees for content authoring, triggered from the post editor page. Perfect for job boards.
4) Create custom subscription pages with multiple subscription options.
5) Create pay-per-view post text. Hide text and links behind ‘Buy Now’ buttons.
WP Members
WP-Members is a plugin to restrict WP content to be viewable by registered site members. It is designed to work “out-of-the-box” with no modifications to your theme, but also to be scalable for those that want to customize the look and feel, or want to restrict only some content. The plugin adds fields to the registration process to include name, address, phone, and email.
Amember.com
This is the membership plugin (also a system) that Michel Fortin uses on his blog after his readers recommended it to him when he was looking.
It’s $179.95, and it works with nearly every CMS & forum software out there, including WordPress, Drupal, e107, Joomla, Moodle, Phpfox, Xoops, etc, and can integrate all the popular autoresponder systems. You can download a 30 day trial here.
More Info
Article Directory
The primary task of this plugin is deduce on the main page (or any another) the structured list of categories, which can be easily customized with CSS, how it’s made now on Articlesss.com web-site. In addition, with the plugin implemented several changes in the administrative interface that using it was more rational and convenient for both authors and for the administrator.
Business Directory
The Business Directory plugin for WordPress is an easy way to host a free directory page for your readers, affiliates, advertisers, community or club members. Invite them to submit a simple advertisement listing for themselves on your blog.
Listings include company name, a short description, and contact information including a live URL. The plugin includes an admin tab that allows you to approve of listings before they appear live on the site. You can also edit and delete listings.
Suma
WordPress Subscription Management and Billing plugin (Suma)
Suma is plug-in component for the WordPress publishing system. It provides Subscription Management and Billing functionality which transforms WordPress into a pay-to-view, subscription-based content publishing platform.
With Suma, an administrator can restrict access to a WordPress website’s pages, posts and comments to paid subscribers only. Non-subscribers see only the title, or excerpt of the post depending on the administrator’s preference.
It is $199 and provides a free 14 day trial.
TDO Mini Forms
This plugin allows you to add a form to your website that allows your readers (including non-registered) to submit posts.
TDO Mini Forms has been used to turn WordPress into a Forum and a Contact Manager. This plugin allows you to add a form to your website that allows non-registered users and/or subscribers (configurable) to submit posts. The posts are kept in “draft” until an admin can publish them (also configurable).
The plugin provides an extensive moderation view so administrators and editors can see posts awaiting approval and publish or delete them. Administrators can also ban specific users and IPs from using the form. Administrators can also “Trust” specific users. This means that when they use the form, their posts are automatically published. This does not give them any other rights or permissions using the WordPress software, it only affects usage of the form. This applies to user and IP bans as well. There is even an option to automatically trust users after so many approved submissions. (It should be noted that submissions from users that can already publish using the normal WordPress UI, will be automatically published.)
Members Only
Members Only is a WordPress plugin that allows you to make your blog only viewable to visitors that are logged in. If a visitor is not logged in, they will be redirected either to the WordPress login page or a page of your choice. Once logged in they can be redirected back to the page that they originally requested. You can also protect your feeds whilst allowing registered user access to them by using Feed Keys.
Feed Key
Feed Key adds a 32bit (or 40bit) key for each of your users, creating a unique feed url for every registered on user the site. This allows you to restrict you feeds to registered users only. Works with the above Members Only Plugin.
Your Members
Your Members is a feature packed Membership Management Plugin allowing anyone to turn a WordPress Blog into a fully functioning members site which can accept payments through Paypal. It costs $50.
Profiler
Profiler is a plugin for generating and displaying profiles for the registered users on a WordPress site. It is intended to be a "set it and forget it" plugin. You do not have to have any programming knowledge to use this plugin.
Whisper
Whisper is a unique WordPress plugin that allows your blog’s registered users to leave “whisper”-type comments to Admin or other registered users. Only the intended person (and Admin) can see the whisper. This plugin is useful for those bloggers who do not wish to leave their email addresses on their blogs but wish to have their readers leave private comments. Whisper is fully customizable via it’s own admin option page.
User Photo
Allows a user to associate a profile photo with their account through their "Your Profile" page. Admins may add a user profile photo by accessing the "Edit User" page. Uploaded images are resized to fit the dimensions specified on the options page; a thumbnail image correspondingly is also generated. User photos may be displayed within a post or a comment to help identify the author.
WP-UserOnline
Shows how many users are online, if they are logged in – it shows their Username. Create a page that also shows the referring url, which page they are browsing, etc. It even shows the bots that are browsing your blog.
Click on my image below to go to my Users Online page and see what information it says about you.
Email Users
A plugin for wordpress which allows you to send an email to the registered blog users. Users can send personal emails to each other. Power users can email groups of users and even notify group of users of posts.
Aleph
Aleph implements profiles, paginated and customizable user lists, and some characteristics of social networks, like friends and sets. It supports localization and pretty permalinks. Suggestions, bug reports and fixes (specially security & bug fixes) are welcomed. PHP 5 is required.
User Lists
Using Aleph, users become a important part of WordPress. If you run a site with WordPress, probably some users are authors, some are contributors, and most of them are only suscribers. With Aleph each user has his own profile, even if there are no public posts by that user.
Also, it is possible to browse in "user lists" (named "User Views" in the plugin). There is one user list included in Aleph: the "all registered users" view. You can easily define other views through the hooks used in the plugin or through view registration. Now it is possible to filter authors (users with at least one public post) and by some meta key.
CHAT Users and Design Integrated (BoWoB)
They have both a WordPress and a Drupal version.
Free Chat for your website, integrated with your system users and design.
- Chat integrated in your website.
- Design theme integrated.
- User accounts integrated.
- Language integrated.
- Public and private communication.
- Administration Panel (kick, ban, …).
WP-Sentry
This is a simple plugin to allow for access-restricted posting, allowing bloggers to discuss sensitive subjects without Google or the world finding the post.
Users may be members of multiple groups. Multiple groups and multiple individual users may be allowed to view each post. Overlaps are ignored — if the user is a member of any group that is allowed to view the post, that user will be able to view it.
WP-Member
Create unlimited membership leves and select which post, page and category can be viewed by each membership level. Select one or multiple membership levels per post, page & category and wp-Member will automatically manage users subscriptions, payments, and access rights. This one costs around $27 per year per site and has a 1 week free trial. Lots of features – too many to list here.
WP Members Site Plugin
This is a brand new WordPress membership plugin (released this month), and costs $47:
* The ability to charge one-time or recurring monthly fees.
* The ability to set your membership price.
* Full integration with the WordPress User management system.
* The ability to tag text to make portions of posts and pages visible to non-paying members as teaser text.
* A payment page that you can redirect user to from teaser pages, the generic registration page, or by sending the actual page link.
Warrior Forum | Download & More Info
See Also:
Drupal
Also, worth checking out, if you plan on creating a very large membership site, then you might want to consider Drupal. A word of warning however.. WordPress is way easier to use, and Drupal requires a steep learning curve, as you’re probably already aware from my many "Bloody Drupal" Twitter posts. See my Drupal site.
Register Plus
Enhance your Registration Page. Add Custom Logo, Password Field, Invitation Codes, Disclaimers, CAPTCHA Validation, Email Validation, User Moderation, Profile Fields and more.
I use this plugin in almost all of my blogs, I love it! It enables you to have a:
- Custom Logo
- Password Field
Allow your users to set their own preferred password during registration instead of WordPress’s impossible-to-remember passwords and it even includes a Password Strength Metre. - Invitation Codes
- Custom Disclaimers
- Captcha Validation
- Custom User Moderation
- Extra Profile Fields
- User Defined Fields
- Duplicate Email Registration
- Customized Admin & User Registration Email
Register for this site to check it out.
OIO Publisher
This plugin (amongst a zillion other things) allows users to "pay" you to write posts on your blog. I use it on many of my blogs – you can also set it to "free" so that users provide content for free on your blog (you moderate). It’s mostly an ad-system, where people can login and pay for ad spots on your blog, but I thought it’s worth mentioning here because of the write-post feature.
These 2 blog posts:
- Developing a Tourist Community Site With WordPress (Amir on Lorelle’s site)
- How to Use WordPress as a Membership Directory (Chris Cagle)
The first, is a new post by Amir who is creating a Tourist Community site with WordPress and has asked for help from fellow web-developers to do it, people have already commented on the post with their suggestions and tips.
The second is a step-by-step by Chris Cagle, who has already setup their blog as a membership site, and includes which plugins he’s used and suggested ways to modify your themes.
Category: Wordpress Plugins
About the Author
I help businesses get more leads via Internet Marketing and real-time marketing such as Social Media marketing (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Wordpress & other online Social Networking platforms). 
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[...] 20+ WordPress Plugins for your Membership or Community Site – A great roundup of plugins useful specifically to membership sites (including paid membership sites). [...]
I’m in a need of a membership plugin which allow users to create their own profile page and restrict their access to some custom URLs.
Can you suggest, which plugin should I go for?
What about just using Buddy-Press or Mingle for this? They are free, and that will sort out the profile pages, groups, forums, etc as far as restricting content, I’d probably still go for a paid membership program but I’m sure there are some free ones now that do the job.. but personally, as I’m considering doing the same thing for my new site, I’m going to be using either BuddyPress or Mingle, alongside of either Wishlist or DAP and will decide based on whichever one doesn’t stress me out the most :)
I think you should remove nr. 11 Profiler – since it’s no longer a functional plugin
I definitely need a new updated version of this post.. it’s over 3 years old now and everything has changed.. the problem is it takes many hours to research it and I am a bit swamped right now
Thank you for posting this, Penny. It was just what I needed, because randomly searching wasn’t effective. I found Suma but don’t know how to compare it to any other options. At least now I have a list to get me started. I appreciate that.
[...] 20+ WordPress Plugins for your Membership or Community Site – A great roundup of plugins useful specifically to membership sites (including paid membership sites). [...]
Just after go through a number of the content on your web site these few days, i absolutely like your personal style of running a blog. I added it to my favorites web-site record and will be looking at back again in the near future.
Hi,
i m new be at WordPress plugins creation, I dont get any idea how to create new page and how to insert control (textbox,text,table etc…) in page at plugin activation.
i want crate online exam portal using wordpress
pls buddy help me i loosing hop over wp….
pont me where to find help,. i tried over wp.com and wp.org but its so big to understand….
jig4physics@gmail.com
Hiya Aryan,
I would love to help you create an online exam portal using wordpress.. hehe, but unfortunately I’m not a developer.. I would definitely be interested in your final work though cos that sounds like something cool that I’d love to try :)
Kind Regards,
Penny
[...] 20+ WordPress Plugins for your Membership or Community Site – A great roundup of plugins useful specifically to membership sites (including paid membership sites). [...]
20+ WordPress Plugins for your Membership Site -http://bit.ly/iyql7F
http://tinyurl.com/6cufapv
20+ WordPress Plugins for your Membership or Community Site | Pennys DIY Social Media
RT @wphash: 20+ WordPress Plugins for your Membership or Community Site | WordPress Plugins http://bit.ly/aEukcm #wp
[...] 20+ WordPress Plugins for your Membership or Community Site – A great roundup of plugins useful specifically to membership sites (including paid membership sites). [...]
Great list!
Here’s another plugin that community site developers might find useful, BadPass-WP: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/badpass-wp/
Lots of security breaches occur due to the use of bad passwords so BadPass-WP securely checks the password hash of the logged in user against a list of over 500 commonly used (and hence easy to guess) passwords. If the user is using one of these weak passwords then a warning is displayed suggesting that they change their password.
20+ #Wordpress Plugins for your Membership or Community Site http://t.co/OvFl0rX
RT @wphash: 20+ WordPress Plugins for your Membership or Community Site | WordPress Plugins http://bit.ly/aEukcm #wp #blogging #latism
This is really helpful information. I am working on different websites with different levels of membership and functionality expectations and found good options for each of them on this article. Does anyone know how well these plug-ins integrate with each other? Thanks!
Trial and error :) I’ve been doing that too, seeing if this feature will work with that feature, etc. I found that symposium and mingle forums work pretty much insync with each other, theme-my-login seems to be compatible with a lot of them too but it really is just a case of trial and error. Install, add a new plugin, watch your site do weird stuff – remove, etc.
Unless you are paying someone to completely customize it for you, it’s the only way to do it.
If you are looking at a few plugins in particularly, let me know, if I have them installed on any of my sites, I will be able to tell you in advance if they conflict with each other, but I don’t own all of them so can only tell you about the ones that I do have.
Hi Penny, very informative. I was wondering if you know of any sidebar widgets that will show three thumbnails accross of memebers faces with three line caption showing their name, company name and title. I want to use it for my home page. Thanks.
Not sure, I don’t have many membership sites, I did that post a few years ago when I wanted to set one up. I have bought DAP but am yet to implement it, I bought Wishlist and it’s setup on one of my sites. I also have a few free membership plugins installed, the latest for one of my sites is Mingle which does have extra plugins to enable you to feature members but not pick who shows up. Another plugin that I “gave up on” when I couldn’t get it working with my premium themes without too many hours of editing, was BuddyPress, they have heaps of extra plugins and one of them might be what you are looking for but as I gave up on it, I’m not sure where to direct you, sorry.
Thank you Penny I have just come across this post which will be of great help to me on a membership website project I am working on. Keep up the good work :-)
20+ WordPress Plugins for your Membership Site http://t.co/1e2udfb
ini list plugin membership wordpress: http://bit.ly/hBljAr
bikin wordpress jadi social network/ lebih interaktif: http://bit.ly/ibLq8q , http://bit.ly/gKQL2r , http://bit.ly/gFVxf6
20+ WordPress Plugins for your Membership Site http://t.co/V2DJH0q
RT @AlexKaris 20 WordPress Plugins for your Membership Site http://ht.ly/3if1J
20 WordPress Plugins for your Membership Site http://ht.ly/3if1J
@tophabits vezi si lista asta… poate te ajuta http://bit.ly/hbsIlE
@JillesDOTCOM pick one. http://bit.ly/69vLMf
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Wow, Very overwhelming list. I am looking for a Free WP Plug-in to convert my blog to a membership site.
http://tinyurl.com/2c7wszt
20+ WordPress Plugins for your Membership Site : Pennys Social Media Tidbits
(PENNYBUTLER.COM)
DAP is the one I ended up choosing, I haven’t had time to fully configure it yet – been too busy on other projects that actually pay me (therefore are the priority) but for what I’ve set up so far, I’m liking it, it seems really flexible.. and protects any page on the site, even those not in the wordpress blog, so Im loving what Im seeing so far… maybe I’ll find the same as you when I get down and dirty with it (I really hope not ! lol) :)
I found DAP (DigitialAccessPass) to be very buggy. Does not work with many themes. Does not protect categories without messing up the display. Poor support – takes days to respond and always has excuses. Very displeased and wasted a lot of my time. IMO it is the worst membership script out there. Still looking for a better alternative. Thanks for this list!
The aMember-WordPress method is the best in my opinion. Simply install the WordPress plugin for aMember (which merges the logins so users who sign up to aMember get signed up to the WordPress site) and then protect the posts using HidePost (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/hidepost/) and Roll Out Posts (http://wpplugins.com/plugin/101/roll-out-posts-plugin).
Hasn’t failed yet, and I’ve been setting up membership websites for my clients for over a year now.
Suma is a complete joke and a waste of money. WP-member is much more professional
RT @freelancesquad: 20+ WordPress Plugins for your Membership Site – http://bit.ly/pgXoc (via @happyches)
20+ WordPress Plugins for your Membership Site – http://bit.ly/pgXoc (via @happyches)
RT @ebta: 20+ WordPress Plugins for your Membership Site http://bit.ly/bXQC8S
20+ WordPress Plugins for your Membership Site http://bit.ly/bXQC8S
20+ WordPress Plugins for your Membership or Community Site | WordPress Plugins http://bit.ly/9UtUhv wordpress membership
RT @InternetWizz: 20 really useful WordPress plugins for your membershipsite http://bit.ly/7W1fcL
20 really useful WordPress plugins for your membership site: http://bit.ly/7W1fcL
20 really useful WordPress plugins for your membershipsite http://bit.ly/7W1fcL
@LucioLuci Hmm.. Come un intranet (quasi)? Ci sono alcuni plugin per amministrare una community: http://bit.ly/69vLMf (in inglese)
20+ WordPress Plugins for your Membership Site – http://bit.ly/pgXoc (via @happyches)
20+ WordPress Plugins for your Membership or Community Site | Penny's Social Media Tidbits http://bit.ly/6nZV8C
From Delicious: 20+ WordPress Plugins for your Membership or Community Site | WordPress Plugins http://bit.ly/8GghWr
brilliant! you're such a star, thx.@webmastergeek Hope these help http://bit.ly/2LdmwH, http://bit.ly/2r6g24 :)
Not sure where you can find a pay-per-minute chat system in WordPress, but I would ask all the blackhat forums if they know of a way :) — Try blackhatworld.com and ask in the Blogging section.
Hi Kris.. what’s Bowob chat?
Bowob chat is only free for a while then they start start asking for monthly fees
RT @socialrob: 20+ WordPress Plugins for your Membership or Community Site: http://bit.ly/M5geV
Tooooooooooo Good!!! Fantastic job Man….thanks a lot for the strain you had taken to provide dummies like to gain enough knowledge to make my own world now on my own terms.
Can I ask if there is any way I can have a pay per minute chat system in WordPress?
But still this has been great information. TY
.-= Abbasi´s last blog ..Puri seer demands ban on ‘Kaminey’ =-.
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[...] 20+ WordPress Plugins for your Membership or Community Site | WordPress Plugins Here are some WordPress Plugins that I found that might be useful if you are setting up your own community/directory/membership site or just want to have some protected pages/posts for special users. (tags: membership wordpress plugins community) [...]
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We’ll try EasyPayPal plugins. Thanks to share it here.
Make Money On The InternetZine.co.uk’s last blog post..Make Money Online with CPA Cash Network
MEMBERWING PLUGIN does not do what they promise!
Seriously, If youre looking to buy a plugin for membership blogs this plugin does only the half of what they say on their site.
I purchased this plugin at $99 a few days ago, and here is what I discovered. I needed a plugin for membership blog and like everyone else I was blind sighted by the promises that I saw on this plugin website about USER SUBSCRIPTION AUTOMATION. Now they are dependent on PayPal for this feature. So, here is what they replied to me on my request:
I choose the 3rd option and did everything by books but heres what I found when testing it! When users Subscribe and checkout on PayPal its MANDATORY that they create a PayPal account unless they have one, fair enough and understood because PayPal is responsible for managing user subscriptions so it needs to keep a record of user information their subscription date etc. Seriously No offense, but I think this process should have been integrated into the plugin itself, which is not the case and here’s what I get in another reply from my support request:
Pretty comforting thought, now I have client who needs this system up and running before this guy pulls off his sleeves and finishes up with the 2checkout.com integration. Screw them! I can’t wait for that long and neither does my client, so here’s what I did I purchased another plugin hopefully which has all the promises they make!
IF YOU ARE LOOKING TO BUY THIS ILL-COOKED PLUGIN THEN DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT. STAY AWAY AND TRY ANOTHER PLUGIN. THESE GUYS ARE PROBABLY LAZY AND NAIVE SINCE THEY HAVE TO DEPEND ON PAYPAL FOR SUCH FEATURES
Very helpful list. Thanx for creating this resource!
CJ Romberger’s last blog post..My Top 15 SXSW 2009 Interactive Panels
Thank you very much for sharing the great info.
[...] 20+ WordPress Plugins for your Membership or Community Site | WordPress Plugins (tags: wordpress plugins) [...]
Hello, thank you for mentioning our plugin. Please see the affiliate section of wp-member where you can get a free account as well as 25% discount vouchers for your users.
Thanks again
Dave
wp-member.com
wp-member’s last blog post..WordPress Membership Plugin
[...] 20+ WordPress Plugins for your Membership or Community Site | WordPress Plugins [...]
Very nice list u have.. Thanks dude.. Wanna try create one membership wordpress site.
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[...] 20+ WordPress Plugins for your Membership Site [...]
Nice post. Much of the plugins were already installed by me except the paid once. :)
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@Bee Q – Thanks! It took me about 12 hours lol, got a bit carried away :)
Very interesting and helpful list. Thanks a lot, Penny!