What are the best WordPress subscription plugins for creators in 2024?
Maximize your earnings in 2024 with the best WordPress subscription plugins for creators. Drive growth and connect with your audience like never before!
Are you a creator looking to generate consistent income from your WordPress site? Dive into our latest video showcasing the best subscription plugins for creators in 2024. Explore features like drip content, member management, and payment gateways designed to boost engagement and profitability. Transform your website into a lucrative platform by implementing these cutting-edge tools today! Click play now for expert insights.
This Week Show’s Sponsors
LifterLMS: LifterLMS
Convesio: Convesio
Omnisend: Omnisend
#1 – Restrict Content Pro
Among membership plugins, Restrict Content Pro is one of the most versatile. This program provides an action hook library and filter modification options. It is applicable to several models of membership sites. It comes with a powerful mechanism for content limitation.
Prices Free | Pro $99 per year
#2 – MemberPress
Member Press is the easiest way to quickly and easily set up a membership site. You are completely in control of the development of content and revenue. It can readily be used for basic models and fully functional online course platforms. Content monetization is another aspect of it.
Prices Basic $359 | Plus $599 | Pro $799 | Elite $999
#3 – Memberdash + LearnDash
The plugin offers extensive membership customization, robust content restriction capabilities, integrated payment solutions through Stripe and PayPal, and a commitment to adding more payment gateways in the future.
https://www.learndash.com/memberdash-plugin/
Prices $199 per year
#4 – Paid Membership Pro
The plugin Paid Memberships Pro is easy to use. It facilitates the management of any member-focused services, such as a blog with courses or a community. It offers customization in the form of directories, customizable pages, content, and a navigation menu.
https://www.paidmembershipspro.com/
Prices Free | Standard $247 | Plus $397
#5 – Wishlist Member
A membership plugin called Wishlist Member is accessible to all beginners, regardless of experience level. This membership plugin is the ideal resource if the company’s only goal is to monetize the content. It has many features that facilitate development, including the ability to design and market online courses with features like progress monitoring.
Prices Basic $149.50 | Plus $249.50 | Pro $349.50
#6 – LifterLMS
Easily create beautiful courses, coaching programs, private communities, and more from your customizable LMS website that you own and control.
Prices $149 per year
#7 – SureMembers + SureCart
One membership plugin that the majority of companies trust is SureMembers. It makes it possible to safeguard sensitive client documents. Many other types of people can use it, including bloggers, podcasters, companies, influencers, people who create courses, and e-commerce websites.
Prices Pro $99 | Business $199 | Agency $299
Prices | Launch Free | Grow $19 per month | Scale $49 per month
#8 – WooCommerce Subscription
Prices $279 per year
The Show’s Main Transcript And Links
[00:00:17.030] – Jonathan Denwood
Welcome back, folks, to the Membership Machine Show. In this show, we’re going to be talking about the best subscription plugins and solutions. If you’re looking to build your membership community website on WordPress I’ve seen 2024. I’ve got a special guest, a regular, though. I’ve got Harun with me. It should be a great show. Harun, would you like to quickly introduce yourself to the listeners and viewers?
[00:00:42.650] – Haroon Q. Raja
Sure thing. Thank you, Jonathan. Hi, everyone. This is Harun. I am a technology solutions architect who has been working in the WordPress ecosystem for around a decade and a half and in the tech industry in general for over two decades. Over the years, I’ve built a repertoire of a toolset of the best-in-class plugins for pretty much every task in WordPress and use pretty much every tool out there. That’s what I bring to the table. I I’m working as a consultant as well as running my own business. I work for Jonathan’s business as well as a consultant. That’s me.
[00:01:23.150] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, thanks, Haroon
. Before we go into the meat potatoes of this great show, I’ve got a couple of messages from our major sponsors. We’ll be back in a few moments, folks.
[00:01:33.620] – Haroon Q. Raja
Are you tired of hosting providers that can’t handle high-traffic loads? Convesio is here to help.
[00:01:40.320] – Jonathan Denwood
Our platform can handle any amount of traffic, all without slowing down or crashing.
[00:01:46.930] – Haroon Q. Raja
With immediate Slack support, performance optimization, and a team that thrives on resolving technical challenges, your e-commerce business is in safe hands.
[00:01:59.510] – Jonathan Denwood
Learn more more about Convexio at convesio. Com. Hi there, tribe. It’s Jonathan here, and I want to tell you about Omensend. Omensend is a great plugin that delivers SMS messaging and email messaging to your clients. If you’re building a Woo solution for your client and you’re looking to provide SMS functionality for them, great email. Why don’t you look at Omicent? Got a great special deal. You can go to wp-tonic. Com/deals, and they’re offering 30% off the first three months. Plus, if you need any technical help or migration, they’re offering almost $1,000 to help migrate. If you’ve got a group of clients that are looking for this type of service. It’s a great offer. They’re a great company. I highly recommend them to you. So, as I said, go over to the deals page on the WP-Tonic website, and you’ll find more details there. Speak to you soon, folks. Bye. We’re coming back, folks. I want to point out we got some great special offers from the major sponsors, plus a created list of the best WordPress plugins and solutions to help you build your membership or community website on WordPress. To get all these goodies, all you have to do is go over to Wp-tonic.
[00:03:41.020] – Jonathan Denwood
Com/deals, Wphypontonic. Com/deals. Flash deals and you find all the goodies there. What more could you ask for? Let’s go straight into it. Where I think we are, Haroon, is there’s membership plugins and also there’s learning management. Plugins. There’s a bit of an overlap of the two. I’ve drawn up a list of about eight of the best, and I thought we could just go through and I can get your reactions to each one. In the end, we could just have a quick discussion and try to choose one or two of the solutions that we think are the best. What do you reckon, Harun?
[00:04:28.290] – Haroon Q. Raja
It sounds good, doesn’t it?
[00:04:30.300] – Jonathan Denwood
Co. So let’s start off with Restrict Content Pro. What are your thoughts on this one, Harun?
[00:04:41.310] – Haroon Q. Raja
It’s one of the old ones in the game. They’ve been around for quite a long time and they’ve changed ownership as well a few times, I think. The latest one was, I think they got acquired by, was it Liquid Web?
[00:05:01.490] – Jonathan Denwood
Yes.
[00:05:02.490] – Haroon Q. Raja
I think it was Liquid Web. Liquid Web is a pretty solid company, so they’re in good hands, I’d say.
[00:05:10.140] – Jonathan Denwood
It starts at around $99 per year for a one-site license. What would you say are some of its strengths and weaknesses, Haril?
[00:05:22.770] – Haroon Q. Raja
Firstly, it’s not just a subscription plugin. It’s a complete membership and content restriction plugin. Handling subscriptions is a part of that package. Before we dive in, let’s first discuss a bit of a distinction between membership plugins, subscription plugins, and a combination of both of those. A membership could be sold as a subscription, and it could be sold as a one-off, a lifetime deal, or a yearly membership that members have to manually renew after a year is complete. Every payment is a payment that you make once and you’re not precisely subscribed to a recurring plan. A membership could be like that. Also a subscription could be set up in a way that you’re not exactly getting any membership. You’re subscribing not to a member’s area of a site. You’re just subscribing to, let’s say, being sent in a month or being sent some physical product at a particular subscription. You don’t really get any digital assets that are secured behind a member’s area. You’re signing up for physical assets, like a physical product subscription. That’s the distinction. But often in the WordPress industry, especially when it comes to membership sites, we consider membership and subscriptions complementary.
[00:06:51.450] – Haroon Q. Raja
We often use them together, especially when we’re offering users an area where they can log in, and access member-exclusive content essentially. That’s the distinction. You could have a membership site without a subscription, but you could have a subscription site without a membership, and you could have both. Many of the plugins we’re going to discuss today cater to both memberships and subscriptions. That said, Restricted Content Pro is very reasonably priced. It gives you all the essentials and then some. It has good integrations in the WordPress ecosystem, and it offers you good tools for managing all sorts of access to members members-only areas and members-only content behind a subscription plan.
[00:07:34.420] – Jonathan Denwood
Right. Out of 1-5 stars, how many stars would you give it?
[00:07:40.720] – Haroon Q. Raja
I’d give it a solid 4.5..
[00:07:43.100] – Jonathan Denwood
All right. That’s a pretty good score. On to the next one, a biggie. I think especially it was the de facto choice. If you were using learn-dash, that situation has changed, and it’s So, for example, for member press. What would you initially say about member press, Arun?
[00:08:05.940] – Haroon Q. Raja
If you are a power user who wants something that can do pretty much everything under the sun, that can be done using a membership plugin, including fully customized membership sign-up workflows, including integration with everything under the sun in the WordPress ecosystem, including a very strong and robust API to to extend it by writing code snippets and a huge set of free written available snippets that you can utilize and a huge community. You name it, you want to do something with memberships and subscriptions, you can do it with member press. That’s member press. But that said, there’s a caveat. For newbies, for those who aren’t exactly good at really delving in, diving in deep, you can still use it really well. You can still restrict all content behind it. You can still set up all membership plans and subscriptions and whatnot. But for them, the UX can be a bit overwhelming and advanced customization options can be a bit overwhelming. But if you know what you’re doing, if you’ve been around the block, then this is the go-to. I don’t even go about looking for another membership plugin when I have access to member press because it does everything I want.
[00:09:25.040] – Haroon Q. Raja
Based on my experience with it, I can do anything with it that can possibly be done with a membership plugin.
[00:09:31.970] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s one of the more expensive solution, folks. The prices I’ve put down are the regular prices. They do initial discounts. They That’s not a lot of heavy discounts, but after the first year, the pricing converts back to their normal pricing. A one-site license starts at $359. Like I say, it What was the de facto solution if you were going to use it with LearnDash, which is one of the leading learning management systems because they didn’t have a very good solution that was being built. This has changed with the next one we’re going to talk about, which is memberDash. Memberdash comes from the same people that produce LearnDash. But it’s only been on the market, I think, about 6-8 months, I think less than a year. I think I’m right about that. It might have been on the market a little bit longer, but not too long. What’s your initial impressions if you have any, on member dash?
[00:10:51.170] – Haroon Q. Raja
First, let me give a start reaching to member press as well.
[00:10:53.790] – Jonathan Denwood
A solid-Oh, yes, I forgot that.
[00:10:55.340] – Haroon Q. Raja
If you’re a power user.
[00:10:58.720] – Jonathan Denwood
Yes, because you gave the other one a 4.5, didn’t you? Yeah, thanks for that. What’s your views on member dash?
[00:11:06.070] – Haroon Q. Raja
If you’re using learn dash and you’re building a membership and subscription site around LearnDash. Basically, you want to charge for course subscriptions and your courses are in LearnDash. You simply can’t go wrong with their membership plugin. It does everything you need it to do with LearnDash, but don’t expect it to do a lot more.
[00:11:38.850] – Jonathan Denwood
No, I think that’s well put. It’s not the most expensive, nor is it the most cheapest, because a one-site license is $199, which is, funny enough, almost exactly the same price of a one-site license for the year for LearnDash LearnDash. You’re looking at something around $400. What star rating would you give it?
[00:12:14.880] – Haroon Q. Raja
In general, as a membership and subscription plugin, I’d probably give it 2.5 in general. But if we discuss it in the context of its purpose, being a companion to LearnDash and providing you with With a membership and subscription management system for LearnDash alone, then it’s a solid 4.5 for that purpose in that context.
[00:12:41.380] – Jonathan Denwood
On to another biggie, I would say the joint biggest, I would say they’re in very similar competition to Member Press, and that’s Paid Membership Pro. They are the joint owners of Lifter LMS as well, but they have so far chosen, unlike memberDash, not to integrate Paid Membership Pro too tightly in Lifter LMS. But I think one of the problems, I think one of the reasons is that Lyfter LMS has always had a reasonably internal system from day one to teach subscriptions whereLifter, where Lyfter, where LearnDash never had that. What would you initially say about Paid Membership Pro?
[00:13:45.130] – Haroon Q. Raja
Another solid option, I’d rate it in the same league as Restrict Content Pro. Paid Membership Pro and Restrict Content Pro, They’re pretty much in the same league. It is also a good thing that Lifter LMS has… The people behind Lifter LMS have always dealt with it as a separate product rather than a companion product to Lifter LMS because it’s a full-fledged solution in its own right that you can use with many other plugins. It’s not tied to Lifter LMS, which is a good thing. In terms of feature set, it’s like you can’t really go wrong with it. I personally wouldn’t use it unless I have to. Same goes for Restrict Content Pro because I’m that much more comfortable with member press. If it’s me choosing something, I go with member press pretty much all the time. But in its own right, it’s a very solid plugin. Again, I’d probably rate it between 4-4.5. Right.
[00:14:56.920] – Jonathan Denwood
Right, Theo. I think of this first half, I think if the price doesn’t put you off, I think the one that we’re given five stars to is member press. Is that correct, is it? And Restrict Content Pro and Paid Membership Pro are the runners up so far. Would you agree with that?
[00:15:22.550] – Haroon Q. Raja
Oh, yes.
[00:15:23.750] – Jonathan Denwood
Yes. Right, to you. Right, to you. I think we got enough for fall coming up, folks. I think we’re going for our mid-break, and we’ll be back in a few moments, folks.
[00:15:37.530] – Haroon Q. Raja
This podcast episode is brought to you by Lifter LMS, the leading learning management system solution for WordPress. If you or your client are creating any online course, training-based membership website, or any type of eLearning project, Lifter LMS is the most secure stable, well-supported solution on the market. Go to lifterlms. Com and save 20% at checkout with coupon code podcast20. That’s podcast20. Enjoy the rest of your show.
[00:16:16.140] – Jonathan Denwood
We’re coming back, folks. We’ve had a feast, a feast of membership, plugins, and subscriptions. Hopefully, we imparted some useful knowledge your way. Before we go into the second on half of this great show, I just want to point out that we’ve got a great Facebook community that will help you with advice and support. If you’re looking to build your membership website on WordPress, That’s the Membership Machine Show Group on Facebook. It’s free. All you have to do is apply to become a member. Please do. We’ve got a great team of WordPress and entrepreneurs like you, so consider joining. I’ll be interesting to hear your thoughts about this one. Wishlist member. One of the first membership subscription plugins That got traction. It’s been around a number of years. What’s your thoughts on this one, Harun?
[00:17:23.320] – Haroon Q. Raja
This is probably one in the list that I have used least. But as of late, roughly around past couple of years or so, I think not a couple of years, around three years or so, ever since they started working on tight integrations with the likes of Elementor and other building tools, they’ve gained a lot of traction. Based on their feature set, it’s also one of the solid options in this list. Pretty much every single option in this list is actually a worthwhile option.
[00:18:03.020] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, there’s no duds. I don’t think there’s any duds. It doesn’t mean it’s not any good, but it’s not one that I’ve really got any real practical experience on. It’s not one that I would naturally… I would probably only turn to it unless there was a specific technical reason for using it instead of some of the other solutions that we’ve talked about, actually, folks. That doesn’t mean… I think it’s got it. It doesn’t mean that it’s a dove. For me- It’s just the… You’re on. Sorry.
[00:18:48.830] – Haroon Q. Raja
Haley, choose it. I wouldn’t personally choose it for any specific technical reason because as I said, there’s nothing that can be accomplished in WordPress with a membership and subscription plugin that I can’t accomplish using member press. That said, I would be very comfortable and happily use it if it’s a client’s requirement that whatever needs to be implemented has to involve Vishes member I would be perfectly comfortable with the client’s decision to go with it. If it’s not my decision, I’d happily work with it.
[00:19:23.750] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. On to the next one, which is Lifter LMS. Now, like I say, unlike LearnDash, they do provide an add-on. They provide two add-ons. If you’re looking to get started with a fully featured solution at a very reasonable cost. This is the one, in my opinion, you should go with because Lifter LMS, most of its functionality comes free, and then they have two add-ons, one for Stripe and one for PayPal. I think unless you really need PayPal, I will just purchase the Stripe. And that’s $149 for that add-on. And then you’re up and going. It won’t be in any shape for all the functionality of member press or paid membership pro. But if you’re If you’re looking just to get started and you’re looking for the most easiest setup, I think this is the one to go for. But like I say, it’s not the right choice for everybody. But if you’re in that, what I’ve I’ve displayed. I think it’s a great solution. What’s your thoughts, Harun?
[00:20:50.810] – Haroon Q. Raja
As with with learnDash, if you’re going to use Lifter LMS for selling your courses. If you’re primarily just selling courses, then this would be the first reasonable choice because why have the overhead of a plugin that comes with so many more features, so many more integrations when all you need is the ability for your students to sign up for a course with a one-time fee or with a recurring plan? This supports both. Just the way member-dashed does with learn-dash. It’s a no-brainer if all you’re doing is selling courses using Lifter LMS, then this should be the first choice. If in the foreseeable future, your site is just going to be about that, then this is a no-brainer.
[00:21:45.890] – Jonathan Denwood
On to the next one, which is an interesting one. It’s from a company that produces a lot of plugins, and that’s well-established, that are also the company behind ASTRA and Spectra and a lot of other products. It’s Sure members. As a membership plugin, it’s not a dud. I wouldn’t say it’s as powerful as the others. But the reason why a lot of people look at it is that it works with a parent plugin solution called SureCart. Surecart offers the actual shopping cart functionality, but in the cloud. The two working together. A lot of people look at this as an alternative to something like Life Car or Sam Car or something like that. The other reason is that SureCart do offer a very functional that takes allows you to do subscriptions with their free products. You can do subscription charging with SureCart, combining it with Sure members. But after that, they do charge per month from $19 to $49. I don’t think that’s as attractive, but if you’re looking for an alternative and also an alternative to using wu commas, you just put off by the whole idea. I would say that these two together can offer some attractive functionality What do you reckon?
[00:23:47.760] – Jonathan Denwood
Do you think I’m on the right track or Ron, or you got something to add to this, Aaron?
[00:23:53.700] – Haroon Q. Raja
First and foremost, Sure members isn’t really built on top of shortcut. It’s standalone being from the same company. It integrates with SureCart, so you can use it perfectly without SureCart as well. I want to clarify that. It doesn’t require a SureCart. Combined with SureCart, it’s a bit of a… I have mixed views about it. I love the company behind it and the team because they’re solid people with strong work ethic who produced reliable products and provided good support. They’ve been there the community when needed, and they produce great content as well. Solid team. But SureCart has a bit of a… It’s not in the true philosophy With the WordPress ecosystem, it differs in that it has a bit of a SaaS site. A lot happens on their servers. It’s like you’re Getting into Shopify territory, if you will. They got both feet in both camps, and it does lead bizarre, probably, with the way I explained it, I tried to keep it as simple as possible.
[00:25:17.550] – Jonathan Denwood
We probably confused a few people. The main thing, I think one of the reasons why people look at it is that they really are put off by utilizing word commerce, and I think they shouldn’t. I think fundamentally, this is going to be covered by the last of what we’re talking about. Maybe I should leave. I’m going to leave what I want to say now to after we talked about the last one. To finish off with Sure members is as a product on its own, it starts at $99. If you’re just looking Looking at Sure members on its own, I don’t think it’s the best solution. Looking at it with Surecar and the free product, it’s probably more attractive. But if you’re looking for functionality after the free product, I think the value proposition deteriorates, and I really wouldn’t go down that route. Let’s I’ve got a bit more to say, but I think I’ll say it after our last solution, which is we’re commerce with memberships.
[00:26:40.230] – Haroon Q. Raja
Now, we’re commerce- But we have to add a bit-Oh, yeah, go on.
[00:26:43.720] – Jonathan Denwood
Sorry.about.
[00:26:44.120] – Haroon Q. Raja
Sure members. If we put SureCart aside, Sure members, considering how new it is, I’d say it’s a very promising product. They also tightly It’s really great with another one of their pretty good plugins, which is show triggers. If you want to go down the Sure ecosystem, like show card, show members, show triggers, it’s a match made in heaven. What I said about there being a SaaS component, that It’s not necessarily a bad thing when it comes to show card. I mean, it works. It’s a proven model. It has worked for many industries. Shopify is a good example. If you want to go down that route, it’s a pretty promising offering. I personally would most likely I don’t use it because I prefer a different workflow which is best suited to more plugins fully in the WordPress ecosystem rather than in the SaaS side.
[00:27:46.120] – Jonathan Denwood
Harun has mentioned Shored Triggers, folks. Shored Triggers is a Zappier for WordPress. But the problem with Shored Triggers is It’s a great product, but they’ve also gone down the SaaS, the semi-SAS route. There’s two competitors. The one competitor that I like the most is Uncanny Automator, and they haven’t gone down the SaaS monthly subscription route. So if you are looking for functionality in WordPress, a Zappier functionality, I would actually personally myself encourage you to look at and can you automate rather than sure, Twigger. But other people would have a different view to that. My For me, that view doesn’t mean that I’m right or wrong. It’s just my personal view. Am I on the right track there, Harun, in your opinion? Or are you going to say?
[00:28:56.170] – Haroon Q. Raja
As I said, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s a personal preference. Yeah, if you will.
[00:29:01.980] – Jonathan Denwood
Let’s go on to WooCommerce and memberships. Woocomers is the WordPress e-commerce solution.
[00:29:10.760] – Haroon Q. Raja
Woocommerce Subscriptions.
[00:29:12.800] – Jonathan Denwood
Subscriptions, yeah. Memberships and Subscriptions. I think they’ve called it memberships. I’m not sure. Maybe I’ve got it.
[00:29:21.700] – Haroon Q. Raja
Separate Plugins.
[00:29:23.940] – Jonathan Denwood
They still are. Right, I got this one. I’m going to change my name to the Subscriptions. So subscriptions. Word commerce is the e-commerce solution for WordPress. It’s owned by Automatic. It is free, and it comes with a host of add-on plugins and a host of third-party solutions that bolt onto it, that extend it in many directions. If you want to take a subscription through Woocommerce, you need the add-on plugin called Subscriptions. It’s enough It’s a strange thing because you can buy it with a yearly subscription, which is $279, or you can pay for it monthly, which is more of a SaaS model, but they do allow you to buy. So I think that caused more confusion, and they did put the price up to $279. But the beauty of it, in my opinion, if you’re going down the LearnDash, and you’re just looking for basic functionality, I really would look at the LearnDash solution, which is member-. Now, if you’re looking for basic subscription functionality on Lifter LMS, all you have to do is buy Stripe. Now, on either platform, if you’re looking for more advanced functionality, actually, that would be both provide pathways in utilizing WU commerce with the subscription add-on.
[00:31:26.870] – Jonathan Denwood
That is the route I would take. If I were looking for more sophisticated functionality that either LearnDash or Lifter provides semi-natively, I would choose the WooCommerce solution. What are your views about what I’ve just said, Harun?
[00:31:52.100] – Haroon Q. Raja
Apart from the member press, the combination of WooCommerce, member chips, and subscription, and member subscription is what I’ve used most in years of looking for ads and very complex products. I’ve got to say, despite having used it to build pretty much anything that can I built using a membership subscription, I’d say I try to avoid WhoCommerce memberships and subscriptions any chance I get. If I can get away with not using these, if I can convince a client to not use these and instead to go for something else, I do that because they work, they get the job done. Okay, firstly, if you want to provide membership access, then WhoCommerce subscription is not enough. Then you have to pair WhoCommerce wooCommerce subscriptions with wooCommerce memberships. It’s like 279 for wooCommerce subscriptions and 199 for wooCommerce memberships. You combine both of these because subscriptions lets you charge regarding payments and put people on a regarding payment plan. Memberships lets you restrict access of those people to a particular site or provide them with access to particular sections of the site. You need to combine both of these. If you want to sell memberships as subscriptions. You can’t sell a membership as a subscription with only Woogomers memberships.
[00:33:20.760] – Haroon Q. Raja
You can’t sell a membership at all using Woocommerce subscriptions. That’s something that you have to keep in mind. Since they were natively built the Woocommerce checkout experience. If you want to make the checkout experience simpler, more user-friendly, more intuitive, and eliminate unnecessary steps. Also, when it comes to the pathway of switching, Switching subscriptions, if you want to provide a better UX for switching subscriptions, if you want to provide a better UX for switching subscription, changing plans, and whatnot, it’s a bit of a nightmare to work with WhoCommerce subscriptions and Google commerce memberships. I get the job done, but I avoid using them I built very, very advanced, very, very complex solutions with these and with half a dozen other major WordPress plugins involved in the equation. Unless you really have to sell subscriptions of products that are in your Woocommerce shop, if you can’t have those products outside of Woocommerce store, outside of Woocommerce shop, avoid Woocommerce memberships and Woocommerce subscriptions and go for something more like member press or strict content pro or paid memberships pro, or specific ones for LMS like member press or… Sorry, like member dash or the Lifter LMS extensions for memberships and subscriptions?
[00:34:48.730] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. My position is a bit different to Haruind’s, but I think it’s influenced because I’m the owner of WP Tonic and we are hosting plus provider. The reason why my position would be a bit different is that part of the package that we provide is that we provide something like CART flows. With CART Flows, you then can develop a modern one-page membership checkout experience. But without you, and there’s a couple of other products that do a similar thing to CART Flows, but we tend to give it as part of our hosting package. But without one of these solutions, everything Haroon has said is correct. The actual shopping car experience, the checkout experience, would not It might not be conducive to a membership site. The other reason why my position is a bit different to Haroon’s is that we provide either LearnDash or Lifter LMS, the Infinity bundle, which is normally $1,200. We provide it, and we provide it. We also provide LearnDash if the client requires that rather than Lifter. Because we are supplying those as part of our hosting package, we don’t have day deal with the content restriction element at Haroon, but everything Haroon has said is totally, factually correct.
[00:36:28.200] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s just that I’m I’m more influenced by the special situation of being the owner of WP Tonic, and we are a rather unique player in the WordPress space. Can you see where I’m coming from, Haroon?
[00:36:45.500] – Haroon Q. Raja
Yeah. Well, one bit of a correction. When you utilize card flows, you can optimize the checkout process agreed. It works really, really well for that. Thanks for mentioning that. But when it comes to managing your subscription in the back-end, when it comes to switching plans, canceling and all, that UX, even card flows doesn’t fix that.
[00:37:08.480] – Jonathan Denwood
No, but if you’re using the- You have to really dig in a lot. If you’re using the learn or you’re using the Lifter, WUCOM as add-on, but you do have a few more set. But as long as you do it a couple of times or you got somebody to do it for you, it’s not that particularly difficult. If I wasn’t utilizing a learning management system, I definitely wouldn’t recommend. I totally agree with you. You would be better off using member press or one or two of the others, paid membership pro. Yes, I totally agree with you.One more thing.
[00:37:56.970] – Haroon Q. Raja
For scenarios like the famous The Dollar Shave Club, where you sign up for a subscription and they send you your shaving blades and all supply every month. For those scenarios, you’re using Woocommerce as a store, then Woocommerce subscription is the perfect fit. I’ll add that as well.
[00:38:15.960] – Jonathan Denwood
I think what we’re pointing out is that there might be different opinions or there might be different case scenarios. I think we’re not fundamentally having a different opinion here. It’s just that It’s just that I’m influenced by WP Tolleys. But if you’re not selling courses or membership, and that’s what this show is about, what I’ve outlined wouldn’t be a really great solution. I totally agree with Haru. But if you are outgrowing it, let’s give a scenario. Either with LearnDash or with Lift LMS, you were selling digital one-off products like PDF books, or you were combining it with physical products like books or some form of other swag. You were doing a combination of physical and digital. The primary solution that comes from the learnDash or from Lifter LMS will not work for you. In those scenarios, I think a combination of CART flows with a Whoosh subscription is a better choice. This does finish off. Are there any other things that we haven’t mentioned that you want to bring up, Harun?
[00:39:52.640] – Haroon Q. Raja
Oh, yes. I want to mention a whole different solution paradigm to which I feel more inclined lately. I’ve been feeling more in grand lately. That is, are you still with me?
[00:40:06.280] – Jonathan Denwood
Yes. Okay.
[00:40:08.070] – Haroon Q. Raja
That is not utilizing a membership or subscription plugin or a dedicated plugin. If I’m building, let’s say, a site with Bricks, there’s this route that I go. If I’m already utilizing something like WS Form Pro that supports Stripe and PayPal regarding payments using the form. Bricks give you excellent ways to restrict different areas of the site based on different factors. There’s this route that I go. I set up a form, and that form can be used for people to sign up and subscribe They put them on a Stripe subscription, and then as soon as they submit and the payment is processed, give them a specific user role using WordPress user role editor. You can set up a separate role for that. Then, within Bricks, provide them access to different areas of the site based on their current user role. Then once the subscription expires, set their role to be changed from that particular member to a subscriber or to some other role, to a non-member role. Then based on that role, they will lose access to that part of the site. Then, I can build a custom dashboard, a custom backend dashboard, where they can manage the subscription.
[00:41:18.440] – Haroon Q. Raja
That gives me the flexibility to not be tied into what a membership or subscription plugin provides. I can build the entire solution exactly the way I want. The form processes the subscriptions, and the user roles dictate what part of the site the person can access using bricks. That’s my favorite solution for lean and large builds now.
[00:41:45.560] – Jonathan Denwood
My position would be, I totally understand why you’ve outlined what you’ve done because Bricks is a fantastic page builder, folks. It’s really aimed at the Quasar Pro I’m a designer developer. Haroon is a professional developer. I wouldn’t recommend bricks for the casual DIY user. I think something like Cadence is a much better solution. But the other thing is if you are that casual user or just an entrepreneur trying to build, I would recommend Cadence with Fluent Forms. I think Fluent Forms if you have the Pro version, provide a similar integration with Stripe. The reason I would suggest that is that Fluent Forms works beautifully with Fluent CRM. Fluent CRM is the marketing optimization platform that I would recommend 100 %. Also, we provide it at WP tonic as part of our hosting. But the fluent support, fluent forms, fluent CRM, and definitely when it comes to membership coaching, you’ve got Fluent Booking now. They provide four of critical plugin solutions that somebody running a membership or a coaching business would want to bolt onto their WordPress solution. That’s why I I would really look at utilizing LearnDash or Lifter with the Fluent Suite. We provide that at WP tonic, but if I was just building a site for a client and they had the budget to buy the professional version of the Fluent Suite, I would still recommend that because, in the medium to long term, they will have a rock-solid solution.
[00:43:58.980] – Jonathan Denwood
But other people got it. It’s all about budget and choice. At least you have those choices. Harun, what’s the best way for people to find out more about you? He looks very relaxed, actually. I think he was watching me. Harun, how can people find out more about you and what you’re up to?
[00:44:18.560] – Haroon Q. Raja
They can visit my website, Haroon Q. Raja, and use the contact form to get in touch with me as well.
[00:44:30.670] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s fantastic. As I say, join us on the Membership Machine Facebook page. You can also sign up for the WP-Tonic newsletter that covers all membership and WordPress. You can get that by going over to wp-tonic. Com/newsletter, Wp-tonic. Com/newsletter. It’s weekly, and it’s totally free, and you get some excellent value from there. We will be back next week with either a gas or we will be talking something about marketing or building a membership community website on WordPress. We’ll see you soon, folks. Bye.
[00:45:17.070] – Haroon Q. Raja
Thanks for listening to the Membership Machine Show. Make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss any future episodes and leave a rating to support the show. Until next time.
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