Episode 2 of WordPress Membership Plugins
Here our full article on all seven membership plugins!
Magic Members:
This plugin supports loads of different payment gateways. It’s difficult to find a gateway that the plugin doesn’t support, and it probably is easier to list the ones it doesn’t support.
Magic Members also has loads of functionality, with great general and video training support materials. This plugin is really powerful, with a number of key features that some of the other plugins don’t have. Its interface is very impressive and it is also very easy to use for both developers and owners.
Prices: Single $97, (3 User pack $197) or Unlimited $207 support is paid yearly.
https://www.magicmembers.com/pricing
WishListMember:
This plugin integrates with a number of payment gateways (though not as many as Magic Members). It is one of the oldest membership WordPress plugins on the market at the present moment. It’s very well documented and the support is generally quite good.
I have used this plugin on a couple of client jobs over the past 18 months. I personally don’t like it as much as some of the others; this is mostly because it has a lot of options that take quite a bit of time to learn and use effectually. Some of the other plugins use a simper central plugin, and then give you the choice to add to the core functionality by using micro-plugins.
One of the jobs I had to do with this plugin was to integrate it into a forum that was using a popular third-party forum WordPress plugin. It did work; however, the client found it quite hard to administrate the site due to WishListMember’s extensive options.
I personally feel that there are number of better WordPress solutions available now. Nevertheless, WishListMember is still a quality membership plugin that a lot of other third party WordPress plugins work with it (meaning that in some situations you have no choice but to use it).
Prices: Single site $97 and Multi-site license $297
https://member.wishlistproducts.com/
iThemes Exchange/Membership:
This looks like a very impressive membership plugin that also gives you the e-commerce functionality of iThemes Exchange. Here’s a list of its key functionality.
- Sell paid (or free) membership access to your WordPress site
- Protect content based on membership
- Add multiple membership products
- Delay (drip) individual content items based on membership
- Add members-only digital downloads
- Assign membership hierarchies for membership product tiers (parent and child memberships)
I personally have never used this—neither Exchange nor its micro-plugin Membership—however, by what I have read on a number of independent review websites, it does look like a great plugin membership system. That said, it doesn’t support a large number of payment gateways compared to couple of the other plugins. It has a number of additional micro-plugins, which are quite expensive.
Price: 2 sites $97, unlimited sites $150 Pro Pack all Exchange add-ons $197
