I get asked this question a lot: “What’s the best, free WordPress Membership Plugin?” To be honest, there’s only one option.
S2 Member Free WordPress Membership Plugin Features:
- Integrates seamlessly with PayPal (only). The Pro version supports Paypal Pro.
- Fully supports recurring billing, with the ability to track affiliate commissions on a recurring basis.
- Supports custom Pages for registration ( including Custom Registration Fields ), account access, and a whole lot more.
- Compatible with Multisite Networking too, and even with BuddyPress if you like!
- Allows Free Subscribers ( at Level #0 )
- Allows up to four Primary Membership Levels, [1-4]
- Support unlimited Custom Capability Packages. Custom Capabilities allow you to create an unlimited number of Membership Packages, all with different Capabilities and prices. You can label your Membership Levels anything you like. The defaults are Free, Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum.
- Protect Pages, Posts, Tags, Categories, URIs, URI word fragments, URI Replacement Codes for BuddyPress, Specific Post/Page “Buy Now” Access, and even portions of content within Posts/Pages/themes/plugins. Everything is configurable through the s2Member Options Panel. This makes s2Member VERY easy to integrate into any WordPress®-powered site.
- Protect files, using special restrictions on how many downloads can occur within a certain amount of time; all based on Membership Level.
- Each Membership Level can have different restrictions, and you could even integrate Conditionals within your content based on Member Level, or on Custom Capabilities.
- Fully integrated with Roles & Capabilities that are already built into WordPress®. No new tables 🙂 It is designed to be completely seamless, without code bloat. We’ve carefully structured the entire framework, in order to maximize compatibility with other plugins.
- Sell Specific Post/Page Access ( membership not required ), using “Buy Now” buttons.
- Package multiple Posts/Pages together into one “Buy Now” transaction.
- Tons of support documentation.
Why did I personally choose Wishlist Member and InfusionWP?
I initially tried out various solutions including DigitalAccessPass, MagicMember and YourMember.
- YourMember didn’t support autoresponder signups out of the box. They kept pointing me towards an API and complex PHP scripts I didn’t want to bother with.
- DigitalAccessPass was extremely robust and feature-filled, but it significantly slowed down my VPS server and required me to recompile PHP with PDO. It also carries a hidden $20/mth fee after your support period expires. If I wanted a monthly fee, I’d stick with InfusionWP or Nanacast. Wishlist Member is a true one-time purchase.
- MagicMembers also significantly slowed down my VPS server. Managing the admin area became painful.
These days, the only 2 solutions I recommend are Wishlist Member (for Paypal/Clickbank/InfusionSoft vendors) and InfusionWP (for InfusionSoft customers only). I wish I could say enough nice things about Bob and Micah at InfusionWP. They alone are worth the cost of InfusionWP.