Best Membership Plugins For 2025
Discover the best membership plugins for 2025. Boost engagement, revenue, and loyalty with our top picks. Click now to find your perfect solution.
Discover the top membership plugins set to dominate in 2025! In this video, we dive deep into each plugin’s features, pricing, and unique benefits, helping you choose the perfect solution for your website. Whether you’re running a small blog or a large online community, we’ve got you covered. Don’t miss out on finding the ideal tool for your membership needs—watch the video now.
This Week’s Sponsors
LifterLMS: LifterLMS
Convesio: Convesio
Omnisend: Omnisend
The Show’s Main Transcript
[00:00:01.220] – Jonathan Denwood
All right. Welcome back, tribe. Hopefully, you might get somebody joining us. You never know. So do my countdown. I’m going to go straight into it. So three, two, one. Welcome back, folks, to the Membership Machine Show. This is episode 118. In this episode, we will discuss the best membership plugins for 2025. If you’re looking to build your membership community website on WordPress, Kurt, my co-host, thinks you should consider building your membership website on WordPress. We’re passionate about it. We will go into some of the significant questions you should ask yourself, plus some of the best solutions in 2025 to allow you to build a successful membership website. First of all, I’m going to introduce my co-host, Kurt. Kurt, would you like to introduce yourself to the new listeners and viewers?
[00:01:06.680] – Kurt von Ahnen
Sure thing, Jonathan. My name is Kurt von Ahnen. I run an agency called Manana Nomas. I also work directly with WP Tonic and the folks at Lifter LMS.
[00:01:15.750] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s fantastic. And before we go into the meat and potatoes of this great show, I’ve got a message from one of the show’s major sponsors. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. Before we go into the first half, I want to point out we’ve got some great special deals from the sponsors. We offer a great, inexpensive course that shows you how to build your membership website on WordPress from beginning to end. You can get this course plus, like I say, some special offers from the sponsors and a load of other goodies. You can get all this by going over to wp-tonic. Com/deals, wp-tonic. Com/deals, and you find the course and everything else there. So let’s go straight into it, Kurt. So, the introduction, I think the big initial question is, should you use a learning management or membership plugin? Because there’s a lot of confusion there. How do you rationalize it and then try to explain that particular question to somebody when they come and ask for some advice from you, Kurt?
[00:02:44.360] – Kurt von Ahnen
It is a tricky question because it’s almost like a trick question. Many of the customers that come our way may have ideas that lead one way or another. For me, what’s better, an LMS or a membership plugin? I go to Lifter LMS because it includes both, whereas other LMS plugins generally require a membership add-on or third-party plugin to activate membership. It’s a toss-up. If I weren’t going to have courses and had no intention of ever creating courses, I would go the membership route and keep things simple and as easy as possible. But if there’s any inkling that you’ll ever have any eLearning or courseware inside your website, I recommend just going with the LMS set up from the beginning.
[00:03:36.030] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I think that’s fantastic. First, you need to check your mic because I don’t think it’s going through your regular mic. But yeah, I agree with you. It is a confusing situation, folks. The main thing is we’re big fans of Lifter LMS, to be upfront. Kirk partially works for Lifter LMS, but I’ve been a big fan of it for a long time, and one of the cofounders is a friend of mine. They do, even with the free plan, with the add-on of a Stripe add-on that costs you about $130-$150. They come with an engine that allows you to make subscriptions and everything. Like Kirk said, the other learning management plugins. Well, I say with LearnDash, you’re supposed to be able to do courses without the add-on, but I don’t think you can do the subscriptions. Am I right? Do you know if I’m right about that?
[00:04:49.690] – Kurt von Ahnen
First off, is the sound better?
[00:04:52.680] – Jonathan Denwood
Lovely.
[00:04:53.670] – Kurt von Ahnen
Perfect. Secondly, the LearnDash experience has gotten complicated over the last few seasons. They do have a member dashboard now, and they’ve got some things you think of in terms of membership.
[00:05:08.410] – Jonathan Denwood
I mean, the native, the plugin, the learn deck.
[00:05:12.140] – Kurt von Ahnen
You can sell the courses, And you can do recurring payments on courses, but you’re not getting membership tools with selling courses. See, that’s the confusion for people that are coming into this marketplace, especially if they’re coming in green, because what’s going to happen is they’re going to sell the course and then they’re going to put out blog posts or content that they want to restrict only for people that bought the course. And if they don’t have a membership tool with content restriction built in, they’re not going to be able to do that without additional third-party tools. It gets muddy.
[00:05:51.470] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s why at WP Tonic, folks, if you’re serious about building a membership website or a membership/community website, or a membership/community website. If you’re really serious about it, we recommend Lifter LMS because it’s just the easiest route to go. It’s fully featured, and you just don’t have these insane conversations that you’ve just sampled between me and Kirk. It avoids it. The only proviso is the community to decide if you’re going to go down the buddy boss route. I probably would recommend learn-dash with a membership or wu-commerce. But that’s a very specific route. And we think now with community, we go the fluent community, which we discussed last week. And if you want to learn about that, I would highly recommend that you listen to last week’s episode. So if you’re really going to spend a lot of time trying to build this membership business and really market it and really have a go at it, I would highly suggest that you look at Lifter LMS and not a membership plugin. There’s nothing wrong with the other two learning management solutions out there. Like LearnDash and the third, I would say is to to LMS. They’re both fantastic solutions as well.
[00:07:41.750] – Jonathan Denwood
But if you want the most easiest route and you’re really serious about building a membership website, I would look at Lifter LMS. What do you reckon about what I’ve just said, Kurt?
[00:07:54.460] – Kurt von Ahnen
We’re having that circular conversation that’s based around use case. And This is where the course creator or the membership founder needs to really understand what their goals are going to be with this business. If you knew you were just using a course as a lead magnet and you just wanted to offer a course, then sure, like LearnDash, Tudor LMS, those are great, great, just like Jonathan said, great examples. But if your model is going to change or morph over time and you know you’re going to want those membership controls and things to integrate really well and simply, then I have to really be strong in my push for Lifter LMS.
[00:08:37.430] – Jonathan Denwood
What are some of the key things that people really need to understand around choosing a LMS or choosing a membership plugin? What are some of the key things when they’re looking at the various offerings in the WordPress system platform that you think people need to understand based… Because Kurt, with his linkage with… I’ve got a number of years, but Kurt, in hours, probably has more hours of experience advising people than I do. So what are some of the key things come in your memory banks that causes the most confusion that people really got to know about connected to making the right decision, Kurt?
[00:09:33.480] – Kurt von Ahnen
I don’t know if it is artificial intelligence that has caused this, or if it’s just innate human curiosity. But people have made a lot of assumptions that platforms will automatically do certain things that platforms don’t automatically do. And so when you are consulting with someone like myself or Jonathan, or you’re doing the research on your own, you want to make sure that you really understand what you want the user experience to be. Some people have a membership idea, and it’s based just on community. It’s not even based on a revenue model. And so then maybe payment gateways and recurring billing and all those things aren’t priorities for you. But if your membership idea is based on revenue and return on investment and time to return on ad spend concepts, then you definitely need to really put as a priority, what’s my payment gateway structure look like? How much do I have to pay for recurring billing if that’s an issue? And how do I want my people to interact with the final product?
[00:10:43.900] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I think one of the In the trampss of all the solutions that we’re going to be talking about, there is one membership plugin that we’re going to be talking about in the second half. That’s one of the leaders, and I cannot recommend it. I can’t recommend it because if you stop paying for the plugin, you lose total access to the data, which I’ve never heard of before in the WordPress platform. I’ve never known any plugin, to ever do this. For that sole reason, I would highly recommend that people don’t use it. The other thing is the great thing about almost all these solutions, folks, is unlike the sas is, there is no transactional extra charge on top of Stripe. There’s none of this 1% set fee or a percentage which you find on the majority of sas solutions out there that can add from one to two to 3 to 5, 5 plus. I think Learnworld It’s like nine % or something, I’m not sure. But the majority have some form of added fee on top. And like SCOR, the so-called up and coming Community Stroke membership platform, they charge some mega fees. So there’s none of that in any of the solutions we’re going to be talking about.
[00:12:29.680] – Jonathan Denwood
The other factor, I just want to see what you think about this, is how it integrates with other key platforms, plugins that you’re going to need, because you’re going to need… Well, in my opinion, you’re going to need a modern page builder Obviously, when it comes to lift LMS, it’s a little bit cloudy, but I personally think you need to use a page builder. I don’t expect you to say yes or no, because you might get in a little bit of trouble? I don’t know, Kurt. There’s no trouble. But I just think you need a page builder. I think all three of these, and the membership, to be honest, the membership plugins we’re going to talking about. I think that, and also how they fit in to the leading three or four marketing optimizations, because you’re going to need, in my opinion, a page builder, a form builder, and you’re going to need some marketing optimization thrown in. If you’re going to have a modern membership set up on WordPress. What do you think?
[00:14:01.280] – Kurt von Ahnen
If this membership/learning site is one of those internet concepts where it’s for corporate learning and the audience is plumbed in, then all of that’s out the window. You just choose the tool you want. But if you are a creator and you’re trying to sell access to an audience, you can do some great things with Cadence as a theme, and you don’t necessarily need the page builder. But most of these now, I’m not too sure about Tudor, so I have to take myself off the plate on that one. But both LearnDash and Lifter LMS integrate really well with the other-I think Tudor LMS works pretty well with most of the leading page builders as well. Yeah, I’m not sure about Bricks and Tudor, but I know that LearnDash and Lifter LMS play very well with Bricks.
[00:14:56.880] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. Well, I think for the people that listen to I think Bricks is not really a suitable tool. Folks, that is a fantastic tool, but it’s really aimed at the WordPress professional web designer, stroke developer. Cadence, W WP, Generate Press, is more than Cadence WP, more marketed to the WordPress professional, but it could still be used by a non-professional. But Cadence, Elementor, are the two that I would suggest. You will get speed benefits by using Cadence rather than Elementor. Or Breakdance. Breakdance is another one aimed at the DIY individual. Those three, I would not recommend Divi. I’m sorry, I just cannot recommend it. If you’re trying to build For the real business, I would use a learning management plugin with a page builder. You need about four plugins to give you a modern, and it’s still going to be much, much better value than the leading sasses. I don’t know how to move this on, really, a bit. Are there any things that come to mind, any tips or insights that you think people really got to know about when they’re starting on their journey building their membership website on WordPress?
[00:16:43.970] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, I’m going to sound like a commercial, and I really can’t help this situation because we didn’t really go into the pricing of these tools yet. But Lifter LMS offers a freemium example that’s really well-powered. And so for For people that are new to this marketplace, it’s a tool where you could download it free off the repository. You could start to build your memberships, you could build your payment gateways out, not payment gateways, but your access plans, like your plan on what you would charge for selling courses. You can get all that structured, and you’re not out of pocket for anything yet.
[00:17:21.150] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, but you are. How much is the Stripe add on there?
[00:17:25.170] – Kurt von Ahnen
You’re going to catch me off guard. I thought it was $125. It might be $199 now.
[00:17:31.360] – Jonathan Denwood
No, I think it’s around $150. Can you be checking that? With the Lifter LMS free core product, folks, it’s a tremendous value You just need to add one add-on that comes from Lifter LMS, and that’s the Stripe integration. And that’s all you need. You can buy an additional add-on for PayPal, but I would just go with Stripe at 2. 9 %. When you’re talking about LearnDash and Tuta LMS, you’re going to have to buy an add-on. With LearnDash, there’s a number of membership plugins that we’re going to be talking about. But with Tuta, it’s really aimed at working with Woocommers, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But you will have to buy the the WU Common Subscription plugin, and that’s around 2,2250, something. Could have gone up. Could be now 2,99. 2,99 for the-It’s 2,99. Their prices have gone up. With the Lifter, what is the price of the Stripe add on?
[00:18:50.080] – Kurt von Ahnen
- I just looked it up.
[00:18:51.740] – Jonathan Denwood
I thought it was just under 150. If you look at LearnDash, you got to pay $199 89 for LearnDash. Then you’ll be looking at a couple of hundred dollars or a hundred dollars or more. The prices for these membership plugins are diverse. And like I say, with Tuta, the Wooo commerce is free, but the subscription add-on is going to cost you about 300. So really, Lifter is really a bargain, really. Getting Lifter, what would you say are one of the two biggest things people get confused about when they’re setting up Lifter NMS that you come across almost every week, every month?
[00:19:45.020] – Kurt von Ahnen
The number one question that gets me is when people say, I bought the plugin, but it doesn’t do anything, and then you find out they don’t have WordPress. Wordpress is a great platform, Jonathan, but as you know, there’s a certain curve to So that’s probably the biggest thing is just not being aware of what they actually bought. Now, beyond that, if someone installs Lifter LMS and they bypass the installation Wizard, they will get confused because the installation Wizard puts together the… It automatically adds the required pages. It puts in the course page, the membership page, and things like that. And so in the dashboard, if you skip the installation Wizard, you will be confused if you’re new to the platform.
[00:20:34.200] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, it’s a great insight. You can run it any time. It will overwrite if you’re… But it comes with a Wizard, folks. If you set up your WordPress, comes whatever host. I think you should host with WP tonic. I really do. We offer amazing value. But then you should really run this Wizard Wizard. We do it for people. We get everything set up for them. But if you’re not with WP tonic, you just need to run this Wizard, and people tend not to do it, and that’s why they get a bit confused. And the Wizard’s a great thing with Lifter LMS, isn’t it?
[00:21:22.130] – Kurt von Ahnen
What was that?
[00:21:22.880] – Jonathan Denwood
And the Wizard is a great thing that comes with Lifter LMS, isn’t it?
[00:21:26.870] – Kurt von Ahnen
The Wizard works great because it also gives you the option of adding in sample content. So if you’re curious on how to break apart your material for what’s a good lesson structure or something like that, there’s samples that you can run off of. But as you were talking, the one thing that hit me just real quickly was During the set up, something that doesn’t come up is permalinks. If your website is not set up on the correct permalink structure, you might not see the content on the front end of the website the way you expect to. And so you They don’t want to go in and flush permalinks, but they have all those resources right on Lifter that tell you how to do all that stuff. But those are the two main things. People that skip the process or people that have the wrong permalink structure on their website will see some things they’re not expecting. Other than that, smooth sailing.
[00:22:18.690] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, you need to host in. You need to install a page builder. Like I say, I would go with Cadence WP. Select a starter template. At WP tonic, we offer a library of design starter templates, build on Cadence technology. But Cadence itself, if you pay the pro version, comes with more templates, and they do have some that are designed for membership. And then you set that up and then you press, you install Lyfter LMS and you click the Wizard and you’re almost I wouldn’t say 50% of the way, but getting close. It just depends what you want to get up to out on the races. I think it’s time for us to go for our middle break. In the second half, we’re going to be looking at the membership plugins, and then we’re going to wrap everything up with some final thoughts. Hopefully you found this useful. We haven’t confused you too much. If you’ve got any questions, you can always go with Go to the WPTonic YouTube channel and find the video version and leave any questions there. We got another resource that I’ll be talking about in the second half as well. Like I said, we’re going for a break, folks.
[00:23:44.870] – Jonathan Denwood
We’ll be back in a few moments. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. We’ve had a feast, a feast about what’s the best solution for you. We’ve come to the conclusion, it’s lift at LMS. But that’s only if you’re really looking to build a multi-course website and really go for this, which I think you should do. I think it’s a fabulous, still a growing market, and it’s a market that It’s totally legitimate. You can build a business and still be in your day gig, and you still have enough bandwidth to do this as well. There’s not many legit things in 2025 that you could do as a side hustle. That’s legit, and this is one of the few ones around. Before we go into the second half, I just want to mention that we got a great free resource If you got any questions based on all the topics that we cover in the podcast, and that’s the Membership Machine Show Facebook group. It’s a totally free resource where me, Kirk, got any questions, you can leave them there and we will attempt to answer them based on everything we cover in the podcast. Just go to Facebook, put in the Membership Machine Show and join, and we love you to find you there.
[00:25:15.680] – Jonathan Denwood
So let’s look at the membership plugins. Let’s start with the Big Gorilla. I think it really has grown. It is a great solution, but unfortunately, I cannot recommend it. I think it grew because it was the most popular solution for LearnDash. I think it really grew because it was the clear leadings. There were other ones that we’re going to be talking about, but I think it was seen if you join the LearnDash Facebook group. I don’t know what they’ve They’ve got their own plugin now as well, which we’re going to be talking about, so that’s probably changed. But for many years, if you joined the LearnDash Facebook Group and you said, Well, we need a membership plugin, which you did, they would say member press, but I can’t recommend it. What’s your position on this, Kurt?
[00:26:26.940] – Kurt von Ahnen
I’ve talked to a few people that have worked with member press in the past, fully featured, fully functional, great platform. All those things are true. But like you said, for me, that walled garden approach that miss your renewal and you’re shut out of your project, that for me, I just can’t live with that.
[00:26:52.450] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s the bridge too far. End of story.
[00:26:55.500] – Kurt von Ahnen
Most plugins that we work with, the plugin still functions and you have access to your data and all of those things. However, you just don’t get the updates. You don’t get the automatic updates. And then, of course, that’s for you to deal with. But Even the people that I know that worked with member press, I had a great respect for them and great folks and really smart people. But I’ve only had one or two clients really on member press, and each of those clients has fated out of that circle, and I haven’t used it since.
[00:27:32.970] – Jonathan Denwood
The other thing, and people will disagree with me a little bit, is that it’s rule-based. It’s not tag-based. For those that have I’ve even got a lot of experience, rule-based membership plugins are going to be simpler to set up. But in the long term, in the medium and long term, they cause problems. It’s better to utilize a tag-based membership plugin. But a few people are going to disagree with me with that statement, and it’s not black and white. It’s just my honest opinion. With Membership Press, they had a very individual rule-based system, I’m going to put it that way, but it was effective and it’s a mature plugin. The other thing is I’m going to give you the regular pricing here. It’s another element of the company behind Membership Press, Olsson Automotive. Unfortunately, they give an initial… They did something which has become the norm in the plugin industry now to offer a discounted first year price and then a much higher price when it comes to Reno. Because of what this company has done, it’s become the norm in the industry, and I just don’t agree with it myself, but almost a lot of plugins now use this marketing methodology.
[00:29:18.760] – Jonathan Denwood
Their basic starts at 359, the next one up plus is 599, and the pro is 799. Like I say, with Lifter, you could start with their free, with their Stripe add on for 149. They do have packages like they have Earth, Universal, and the final one is Infinity. But you get almost 20 add-ons in the Infinity package. I think these prices pretty steep for what you get, myself. Would you agree with that?
[00:30:06.900] – Kurt von Ahnen
This is where our origin in this side of the world is different. I come from a corporate training background.
[00:30:14.640] – Jonathan Denwood
You think it’s nothing?
[00:30:15.750] – Kurt von Ahnen
And I think in the grand scheme of thing, it’s nothing. I come from a background where people had custom scorm websites that were very narrow in their function and design, and quite honestly, were horrible websites, but they all cost six figures plus to have made. There’s so many that are $80,000 a year just for maintenance and hosting, and it doesn’t even count content management or anything like that. And so for me, this pricing seems like a bargain. The idea that you have the potential to grow a six-figure business out of something like this, it really does make all of these prices almost a non-competent for me. But when a company has a freemium where I can try the core product for free and then just add the add-ons that I need, that’s really attractive for me.
[00:31:07.070] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I totally understand where you’re coming from. Like I say, there’s no right. It’s not black and white. A lot of these things are where you come from, your history, your experience. Let’s talk about SureMember. Suremember, if you don’t want to use… If this take out If you’re using Lifter and you just don’t like the shopping experience that the Lifter system provides, but you don’t want to use Woocommers either, SureMember and then using it with SureCart. Surecart is from the same people as SureMember, but SureCart is a SaaS-based system, but it’s not ridiculously priced. And if If you’re going to use SureMember, especially if you’re looking at using LearnDash, if you’re going to use LearnDash, I would go with SureMember and look at the free product with Sure car, and the next one up will only cost you $99 a year. And like I say, the Sure member is $99. It doesn’t come With all the swings around the bounce on member press and one or two of the other ones we’re going to be talking about. But if you need all those swings around the bounce, I’ll just use Lifter. But if I’m specifically looking at LearnDash, I personally would look at SureMember.
[00:32:53.590] – Jonathan Denwood
How would you respond to what I’ve just said?
[00:32:57.280] – Kurt von Ahnen
If I’m using Lifter LMS, SureMember, SureCart really isn’t even on the table for me because it’s the native tools and lifter that are going to work.
[00:33:05.250] – Jonathan Denwood
And then if you didn’t, you’d probably go to WooCommerce, wouldn’t you?
[00:33:08.570] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. I’ll use SureCart to get around the WooCommerce subscription sometimes because that 300 bucks a year seems dubious at best. But to your point, if I’m on LearnDash, I need some way to manage members, and I need ways to do things. And so especially the content restriction idea, right, that we talked about at the beginning. So I’ve got a few clients on LearnDash. We’ll put in SureMember. That controls the membership, but not just members in like, Hey, you can sign up or I’m selling a membership. But one of the key things with SureMember is you get those content restriction tools that enable you to make certain pages or certain blocks available for certain levels of membership. And that’s when you When you get into a real membership website, that’s where some of the power of it really comes in. You’re managing who sees what pieces of content, and that’s what really makes the site dynamic.
[00:34:12.510] – Jonathan Denwood
If you really don’t want to use a learning management system and you’ve got a more complicated membership set up. I can’t speak. I think he agrees with me, but I shouldn’t I’ll speak for Kurt. We can’t recommend member press, but if you’ve got a membership scenario that is more complicated, the next one up is probably the one I would look at, and that’s paid membership pro. It’s the one that I use because at WP Tonic, we have some courses and we use Lifter LMS, but when I first started it, I didn’t have any courses. I use actually Paid Membership Pro, and I’ve been very happy with it. It’s been around a number of years. It’s not the cheapest solution out there, but the support you get and the people behind it are rock solid. And you know a bit about those people because they’re joint owners of Lifter LMS, aren’t they? But it’s a powerful tool, put it that way, is it not?
[00:35:31.870] – Kurt von Ahnen
To me, and again, this is going to make…
[00:35:35.300] – Jonathan Denwood
Somebody wants you.
[00:35:36.490] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yes, somebody wants me. Hopefully they leave it at the door. For me, paid memberships pro has a free version, which is important to note, right? So it’s that part of that freemium model. But they have an unbelievable library that does all kinds of things. And so whatever you need to do. So here’s the difference. If I have a simple content restriction idea, I’m probably going to lean towards Sure member. But if I have an integrated multifaceted needs requirement, I’m going to go with Paid Membership Pro.
[00:36:07.910] – Jonathan Denwood
If it’s just a reasonably simple membership set up in multiple courses with subscription, I would go with Sure member. But if it’s something a bit more complicated, I definitely look at Paid Membership Pro, definitely. And their prices, they’ve got a free version. The standard is 347, and the plus is 597, but it’s very well-coded. The support is rock solid, and the people behind it are very sincere people. On to another one, which is easy digital downloads. Now, this was Pippin’s old one, wasn’t it? Pippin Williamson?
[00:37:06.460] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, Pippin was the one who got this one started.
[00:37:11.750] – Jonathan Denwood
For people in the WordPress space that are selling premium WordPress plugins, and it had a lot of features, if you didn’t want to deal with woocommas, it did European VAT, this, that, the other. The problem is he sold it. He sold it to the people that have got member press. And for that reason, I cannot recommend it. I wish I could, but I can’t. But I think in the membership eLearning selling, it hasn’t got that following as member press used to have. I think it was in the developer market, and it was really aimed at more e-commerce where people didn’t want to use woocommers. Do you agree with what I’m saying there, Kurt?
[00:38:19.430] – Kurt von Ahnen
My use of easy digital downloads is very simple, and I’m going to say restrictive. I just use it to sell all a white paper, an e-book, a something, and it’s a very simple process. I don’t use any of the listing of features on the pricing page. And when you get into post status and you get into talking to other people that actually develop plugins, they use it to sell plugins and manage recurring sales and subscriptions and all those things. But I’ve never, ever, ever used it that way because of its complexity and where it comes from when I could use something like SureCart or Woocommerce to pull off the same thing.
[00:38:59.180] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, in this selling digital products world where you don’t want to use Woocommerce, it’s strong for it, and it’s a good solution. My problem is the company that owns it now That’s my problem. Memberdash. Now, Memberdash is developed by the parent company that owns Learndash. They had a problem problem because if you were selling subscription and you wanted to restrict content, the LearnDash system could do it, but it was extremely clumsy Lindsay. You ended up having to use a first-party plugin. The problem with LearnDash, it’s got a very elaborate corporate setup. It’s managed by entity called Stella WP, which has a number of WordPress plugins. One of them we’re going to be discussing after this one, which is quite unusual. They’ve actually got two solutions that they now own in the membership area. I don’t know the reason why they’ve ended up, but they developed this, and I think they were going to bundle it, and they did start to bundle it with… Well, I think they were going to just offer it as a plugin and just burn up the price of LearnDash. But then for some reason, they changed. I’m only surmising this.
[00:40:46.000] – Jonathan Denwood
I’ve got no inside knowledge. I might be totally wrong, folks. They never did it. Learndash costs $199, and MemberDash costs $199. It’s not as featured rich as something like paid membership pro or easy digital download, but they’ve got a problem, and that problem is SureMember, because why would you pay $199 where you can just pay $99 for a Sure member. That’s the problem. What’s your thoughts about what I’ve just outlined?
[00:41:28.010] – Kurt von Ahnen
From a marketing perspective, from the average course creator from that mindset, getting something that seems like a package or seems like it’s the Lego blocks that just fit together. It’s like, do I want to use this tool, this tool or this tool in Lifter LMS’s premium add-ons, or do I want to go to some third-party thing? Most people will elect to use the Lifter LMS third-party add-ons because it has that illusion of those Lego blocks. It’s meant to go together. So when I think of learnDash and memberdash, I think to myself, well, of course, they’re meant to go together. They’re brought the same people. The integration is going to be smooth. If I need support, they’re going to be able to offer support and support both ends of the equation for me. So I see it as a very, very attractive option. But I do struggle with the idea that there’s… I almost think it’s like if you paid for learn-dash, there should be some coupon or bundle or offer to put it together. With the member dashboard.
[00:42:31.270] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, they do. I think the reason why is you got, and I wrote an article about this recently on the WP tonic website, and it’s called LearnDash Cloud, which is their fully hosted. I have to check But I think if you go with LearnDash Cloud, where they provide the hosting, that means they’re the quasar competitor to WP tonic. I need to point that out to your listeners and viewers, but we’re a lot better. We offer a ton more than what they offer, is I think you get Learndash and memberdash together if you go with the cloud. So they were in a strange position, and that’s why I think it was the business side of it that’s led to all this. But it’s a great solution. It’s well thought out. Like I say, it doesn’t offer all the swings and roundabouts as paid membership pro or member press, but it’s not supposed to. Like I say, it’s only real problem is you got SureMember, and SureMember, it’s got this lovely integration with SureCart, and it’s as good as memberDash. But all the ones that we’ve talked about, you’re not going to go wrong. None of these are junk.
[00:43:52.640] – Jonathan Denwood
They’re all been around. But I think when you’re talking about Learn Dash, they probably get hundreds. I don’t know. I feel it could go to a thousand. I don’t know. They probably get hundreds and hundreds of signups per month. I’m not sure if they’re in the thousands per month. Do you think they’re in the thousands of signups per month?
[00:44:18.520] – Kurt von Ahnen
I hesitate to say because you and I are in this… We’re in this little echo chamber where we think everybody wants a membership website, but then I talk to other agencies where all they do is brochure websites, and they don’t have any demand for membership or learning. So it’s really hard. I can’t even guess.
[00:44:35.490] – Jonathan Denwood
I doubt if it’s in the thousands per month, maybe hundreds, maybe.
[00:44:41.070] – Kurt von Ahnen
Maybe, maybe. You know what I find, and I’m just going to take us back on something else, and hopefully this doesn’t confuse things more than clear things. A lot of times when we start talking about learning sites versus membership sites, something’s going to come up like, well, can you process VAT taxes for me? Can you sign up short codes or slack integrations or all these kinds of things? I think it’s really, really important. Part of why we do these shows is to understand what’s offered by which. For example, Paid Memberships Pro has all of these add-ons to do all these kinds of crazy cool things, like things that… Were you wouldn’t even be a part of a membership.
[00:45:23.320] – Jonathan Denwood
I think you’re making a great point there. If you’re into that, it’s probably you’re better off looking at easy digital downloads.
[00:45:30.730] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, because that will do that too for some of those items. But then if you do that, then you have to think, Well, then if I wanted courses, what would I do? And there’s a special installation that partners with paid memberships pro so you don’t double up on the membership tools. So it’s just at the very beginning, we said, you need to understand what your expectations are and what you want your user experience to be, and that will help you pick the right tools. And that’s where I’m coming circle.
[00:46:00.490] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, because the reason why I push SureMember is if you’ve got a LearnDash website, folks, and you select LearnDash SureMember, if you then go and you want to do upsells or downsells, a bump offer, like you offer a course or when it comes to a one-page checkout. It’s this one-page checkout environment with the ability to do upsells, downsells, whatever, However, subscription management. It’s going to be so much easier doing this with SureMember with ShortCart. And SureCart offers a free level, which is pretty feature Which are rich. The next one up is only $99 a year, and that really does offer almost everything. And I’ve just found it’s just the easiest route to go, basically. Now, the last one Which is a bit funny because it’s owned by Stella WP. Now, Stella is the people that own LearnDash, and Stella are owned by a hosting company called Liquid Web. It’s a three-tier structure, but they own Restricted Content Pro, and then they brought out Member Dash, didn’t they? But I I’ve not used Restricted Content Pros for a long time, but it’s been on the market a very, very long time, and it’s free. They got a free level, and then they’ve got a paid level that’s 99.
[00:47:43.420] – Jonathan Denwood
I don’t know the reasons why. Do you think it’s around legacy code? I don’t know why they used member Dash when they own Restricted Content Pro.
[00:47:59.350] – Kurt von Ahnen
I will be the weird guy on the show and talk marketing and assumptions. New people are coming to the space. The name is Bizzarr, right? It’s your content pro. It’s a bizarre name. If I were searching for something in the repository, if I were new to WordPress and in the repository, and thinking of membership, nothing in Restrict Content Pro leads to a membership search. But it’s been around forever. So people in the space are familiar with it. We all know people who have been in the agency space are all like, yeah, it’s a staple for us. And I refer to it quite often with clients. But I notice when the client is new to the space, when I say Restrict Content Pro, they assume it’s some security plugin or something, as opposed to a membership plugin. And so in my heart of hearts, I think that maybe that’s why they came out with a member.
[00:49:02.100] – Jonathan Denwood
I feel it’s great. I never thought that. It’s a fantastic insight. Thanks for that, Kurt. I think you are probably spot on. I think you just sold by. And then with everything we’ve discussed, even Suremembers can work with WooCommerce. They all have some ability to work with WooCommerce. And if you want what you want, and WooCommerce, people think, or it’s called Woo now. I never really understood that change. If you look, people say, Oh, it’s resource hungry. Not really. But the problem was that it’s not designed for a one-page checkout, which is probably what you’re looking for with a membership website. And, if you’re going to use it, you’ve got to use something like… My brain’s just gone blank. Cart, something. What’s that?
[00:50:13.740] – Kurt von Ahnen
Are you thinking of CART Flows?
[00:50:14.960] – Jonathan Denwood
Cart Flows. You’ll have to use CART Flows, another add-on that works well with WooCommerce, so you can produce a one-page checkout with upsells and downsells in a one-page checkout environment. Using WooCommerce without that on a membership website is probably flogging a dead horse. That’s why I keep returning to SureMember: You get a modern one-page checkout environment with upsells and downsells functionality using SureCart.
[00:50:54.760] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. Adam’s has excellent products such as SureLine, SureCart, and SureMember. It seems very simple, very direct, very intuitive. When we take a LearnDash site and add SureMember for a client, the onboarding or the acclamation to the tool seems pretty straightforward. It looks like they get it right out of the box. Like, tick this box, tick that box, save, and do. At the same time, some of these other options take a little bit more onboarding or maybe some YouTube research to feel comfortable and confident with.
[00:51:28.320] – Jonathan Denwood
Any final thoughts about this? I think we’ve covered a ton of stuff, haven’t we?
[00:51:35.400] – Kurt von Ahnen
It’s funny when you put them all on a list like you have for us, and we look at what we’re going to cover, what really stands out to me, and part of me has always guessed from an entrepreneur standpoint, what’s the value of freemium? Why would you give away your product for free? Then, when you look at this list, a couple that pop off that use the freemium example rise to the top of the bucket for me.
[00:51:58.650] – Jonathan Denwood
What’s the best way for people to find out about you and your thoughts, Kurt, online?
[00:52:05.780] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, they could sign up for hosting with WP Tonic, and you’ll have them get on a call with me, and they’ll get to know me better. But other than that, Mañana No Mas is my agency. It’s connected to everything online, Mañana No Mas. If you want to connect on LinkedIn, use my name. I’m the only Kurt von Ahnen on LinkedIn. I’m easy to find.
[00:52:23.690] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s fantastic. Thanks for listening, folks. Like I say, if you want another great resource, go over to the WP Tonic YouTube channel and subscribe to that. I have over 1,600 videos covering every area of marketing, membership websites, technology, and SaaS reviews. We’ve got a ton of resources on that site. It’s rapidly grown, I think. I’ll be up to 10,000 subscribers in the next couple of months. So on we would move. But it’s got a tremendous amount of resources, and it’s free, folks. What more could you ask for? We will be back next week with another Membership Machine show. We’ll see you soon, folks. Bye.
Best LMS Plugins
LifterLMS
Prices Core Free | Earth Bundle $299 | Universe Bundle $499 | Infinity Bundle $1,499 per year
LearnDash
Price: $199 per year
$199 per year
TutorLMS
Prices $199 per year
Best Membership Plugins
MemberPress (not recommended)
Prices Basic $359 | Plus $599 | Pro $799
SureMember
Prices: Starter $99 per year
Paid Memberships Pro
https://www.paidmembershipspro.com
Prices Free | Standard $347 | Plus $597 per year
Easy Digital Downloads
Easy Digital Downloads – Simple eCommerce for Selling Digital Files
Prices Personal $199 | Extended $399 | Professional $599 per year
MemberDash
Prices $199 per year
Restrict Content Pro
https://restrictcontentpro.com
Prices Free | $99
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