MemberPress Review

The MemberPress plugin makes it easy to accept credit cards, sell digital products, and control who sees your content without the usual hassle involved with setting up a membership plugin.

This plugin has rave reviews from some of the biggest names in the WordPress industry, including Chris Lema, WPEngine, wpbeginner, and others. But is it really worth all the hype? In this review, we’ll take a look at the plugin’s features, go over the pricing options, and explore the support and ease of use.

Ease of Use – 3/5

To get started with MemberPress, you’ll have to download it and install it first. Once you have the plugin file, simply go to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Plugins > Add new. Then, click on Upload plugin and upload the zip file with the plugin contents. Once the plugin is installed, you can activate it.

You’ll need to configure your membership levels first and configure the pages for the member portion of your site. The interface of the MemberPress plugin is not so user-friendly, not to mention there are quite a few options to go through which can be overwhelming.

Features – 4.5/5

MemberPress has plenty of features that will help you manage a membership site. Those core features include:

• The ability to restrict access to pages, posts, custom post types, and even categories and tags as well as uploaded files.
• The ability to create password-protected forums
• Creation of one-time purchase products, recurring subscriptions, and multiple membership levels
• Drip content and content expiration features
• And more

Membership Levels

As mentioned earlier, MemberPress supports creating multiple membership levels that support recurring payments as well as trial memberships. You can assign different products and content available for different membership levels.

Another interesting feature of MemberPress is that you can create membership groups and use them as upsells or upgrade options. You can also create coupons for your membership plans to increase the number of signups.

Member Management

With MemberPress, you have complete control over what each member can access. Members can also edit their account information, manage their subscription and edit payment options.

What makes MemberPress stand out from other membership plugins is that you can allow your members to pause and restart membership which can help reduce churn in your membership programs.

Reports

If you want to know how your membership site is doing, all you have to do is navigate to the reports section of MemberPress. This plugin will give you dynamic reports that allow you to see which products and membership levels perform better as well as how holidays and other events impact your membership.

Each report can be broken down by week, month, year and product so you can instantly know which products need to be improved and which ones are resonating well with your members.

On top of that, MemberPress makes it easy to see the average lifetime value of each member, who are the most active members, and how much revenue your membership site generated in total.

Third-Party Integrations

The last important feature of MemberPress are all the integrations that MemberPress comes with. For starters, this plugin integrates with third-party services such as Mailchimp, Aweber, Constant Contact, ActiveCampaign, BuddyPress, LearnDash, and more.

What’s more, the plugin integrates with Zapier so you can connect it with even more applications and services you use on a daily basis.

It’s worth mentioning that most of these integrations are available on the basic plan, however, some of the more advanced integrations are available on higher tiered plans.

Reliability – 4/5

Overall, MemberPress is a reliable plugin that didn’t cause any issues or glitches while using it. Although the installation process was easy, configuring the plugin can be a little overwhelming and confusing given that the plugin interface is not so user-friendly.

The plugin comes with its own set of membership pages so you don’t have to create them from scratch. It also works with any WordPress theme and can be integrated with other WordPress plugins thanks to developer-friendly hooks and actions.

The downside to MemberPress is that integrations should be part of the plugin itself rather than separate addons.

Support – 4/5

As far as support options go, MemberPress has a very extensive knowledge base which is neatly categorized and features a search bar at the top. This makes it easy to find a particular topic as well as a recommended solution for it.

On top of that, you can submit a ticket to MemberPress team if you can’t find an answer to your problem. Another support option is hiring a MemberPress expert from Codeable which comes recommended by MemberPress team themselves.

Let’s not forget the MemberPress blog which features tips and tricks on growing your membership site as well as various tutorials to improve the user experience for your members.

Pricing – 2/5

MemberPress plugin is available in three pricing tiers. Each plan comes with 100% money-back guarantee and includes Subscription Billing, Payment Integration, Customizable Checkout, Content Protection, Member Management, Content Dripping, and more! The plans break down as follows:

• The Basic version costs $149/year and can be used on 1 site. The basic version of the plugin integrates with both Paypal and Stripe and comes with over 20 integrations which include Mailchimp, Aweber, bbPress, and more.
• The Plus version costs $249/year. With this license, you can install the plugin on 2 sites. It comes with all the features found in the Basic plan. Additional features include integration with Authorize.net, ActiveCampaign, WooCommerce, Drip, Sensei, BuddyPress, and more.
• The Pro version costs $349/year and allows you to install the plugin on 5 sites. This license comes with all the features found in the previous two plans along with an extra plugin for managing affiliate programs.

As you can see, the MemberPress plugin is on the pricey side and a major downside to the plugin is that it doesn’t come with a lifetime option. On top of that, the number of sites you can install it on is limited compared to other plugins.

Final Thoughts – 3.5/5

All things considered, MemberPress is a powerful membership plugin that makes setting up a membership site very easy. Benefits of the plugin include the fact that it integrates with major payment processors, it’s suitable for almost any booking or membership site, and offers tons of addons to extend the core functionality.

However, the plugin does have some drawbacks as well. If you plan on using it for booking websites, this plugin doesn’t offer as many features as the Amelia booking plugin. It’s also one of the more expensive plugins with no lifetime option. On top of that, the plugin has a not so friendly user interface, not to mention that some of the additions should be in the core plugin itself.

Overall, the plugin is a good solution for membership sites but if you want more functionality or specific features related to booking, you’ll be better off with a dedicated plugin like Amelia Booking.