One of the best ways to generate residual revenue in your eCommerce store is by using paid and free WooCommerce membership plugins. These plugins restrict access to the customers from content available on your website unless they subscribe to a membership plan.
With the help of WooCommerce membership plugins, you can benefit from recurring payments, retaining loyal customers, and restricting content on your website. WooCommerce membership plugins also help in marketing your products by sending personalized emails to your members regarding coupons, discounts, and new membership-only products.
All businesses are gravitating towards streamlined income and membership plans. Why so? Because with WooCommerce membership extensions you can better communicate with your customers and offer services that are beneficial for both the owner and the user.
How Do WoCommerce Membership Plugins Work?
WooCommerce membership plugins are not an exclusive product themselves, instead, their prices are linked to a product. In this way, you can restrict access to the non-members and entice them to subscribe to your membership plugin for products associated with it. This offers more flexibility than a subscription plan, as you can customize the products attached to membership or sell it as standalone.
Now, how to set up WooCommerce membership? First, you need to find a membership extension that is compatible with WordPress and WooCommerce. Once installed, you can create and manage memberships from the admin dashboard and sell it. A good membership plugin should be easy to use, flexible in options, has various payment methods, and also should have basic security measures in place.
There are many ways you can customize a membership plugin, for example, you can choose to show the restricted content to members-only. Thus, the site will appear differently for both members and non-members. You can also sell the membership manually or add new content in the future.
Advantages of A WooCommerce Membership Plugin
Membership extensions for WooCommerce have many advantages that can help you grow your business with minimal effort. Let’s check these out!
- Increased residual revenue
- Retain loyal customers by introducing personalized members-only profits
- Promote and market new products through email notifications
- Restrict content for members only
- Create member discounts, coupons, and exclusive content
- Customize according to your needs
- Expected income
Moreover, WordPress membership plugins for WooCommerce are optimized to generate regular income with the help of special members-only benefits. You have complete control over your membership plans and can tie it to products, exclusive content, or service.
How Can You Use The WooCommerce Membership Plugins Effectively?
Here we are going to guide you on how to benefit and make the most of a WooCommerce membership plugin to better increase your sales and generate increased revenue.
1. Starting plan
Before moving on to the potential benefits memberships can have for your business, it is important to look for the need of the customers first. It is important to create membership plans that are irresistible for your customers and can also help in increasing conversion rates. Your primary focus at the beginning should be to attract new customers. If you start with an extensive customer reach-oriented method in mind, you are sure to increase members.
2. Exclusive offers
Once you have a solid starting plan, you need to start working on your exclusive members-only offers. You also need to offer your customers something special, hard to find, and according to their needs.
The hardest part of any membership plan is to keep a customer interested for a long period. Therefore, by providing your members with coupons, discounts, and exclusive materials, you can tempt them to keep coming for more.
You can also present your customers with multiple WooCommerce membership subscriptions with different pricing and offers. This shows versatility and customers have options to choose from.
3. Advertisement
Proper advertisement is the key to a successful business. No matter how amazing your membership offers are, but if not advertised correctly, they will remain useless. Customers need to know what you are offering them and how it will benefit them. Therefore, a proper and detailed guide to your WooCommerce membership plans will assure your customers what they are signing up for.
Creatively present your membership offers with the help of personalized emails. You also need to be clear about the terms and requirements for your membership plans. This increases confidence and trust in your customers.
4. Pricing
You also need to have clear pricing structures in place for your WooCommerce membership plans. Offering your customers multiple tiered pricing on a membership plan gives them the option of choice. Your customers can subscribe according to their range and still enjoy exclusive benefits.
5. Customization
You have complete control over your membership plans and can customize it however you want. Membership plugins enable you to restrict content from non-members to tease them into applying for your membership plan. You can also restrict content from members and only unlock them as they progress, this will keep them interested and subscribed for a longer period, this is also known as dripping content.
Therefore, by customizing different strategies and offering your customers new and special content, which they cannot find anywhere else, they are sure to recommend you to new potential customers.
6. Payment methods
Provide ease to the customer by enabling automatic billing. Automatic recurring payments are also beneficial to the owner as it helps in setting an expected revenue. Moreover, you can avail of this option by using WooCommerce subscription along with membership plugin, as many payment gateways are associated with it and support automatic billing.
Check out our compilation of the Best WooCommerce Payment Gateways.
By following these instructions, you can utilize it in the best way possible and also get maximum benefits from your WooCommerce membership extension. In the end, it is all about creating the perfect offer, advertising it clearly, and providing different pricing options that your customers are unable to refuse.
8 Best WooCommerce Membership Plugins
There are many WordPress WooCommerce membership plugins available, let’s discuss the best out of them.
- Yith WooCommerce Membership Plugin
- Sumo Membership
- Multivendor Marketplace Membership
- WooCommerce Membership
- WooCommerce Members Only
- Restrict Content Pro
- WP eMember
- MemberPress
1. Yith WooCommerce Membership Plugin
Yith WooCommerce is a premium membership plugin through which you can restrict access and create memberships easily. You can also create specific areas in your site that are only accessible by members. Yith WooCommerce membership is easy to use and can create membership plans for e-Packages like video courses, tutorials, and study plans.
Key Features
- Restricted access for customers who have purchased the membership plan
- You can link multiple memberships
- Allow access to newly published content after a certain time of buying a membership
- Easy communication between members and business owners through “YITH Membership- messages”
- Redirecting non-members to a different page when accessing restricted content
- Limit of products to download on a day
- A complete history of customer membership plan
- Plugin subscription for a single site at $99.99
Check out more features here.
2. Sumo Membership
Sumo Membership is the most comprehensive WooCommerce membership plugin. It is flexible in nature and compatible with all WooCommerce-related themes. It also has numerous features that allow you to create amazing membership plans for your customers.
Check out Best WooCommerce Themes if you want the best responsive and attractive theme for your store.
Key Features
- Provide restricted access to blog posts, pages, and products
- Enables simple and subscription-based membership
- Restriction types: Complete restriction and limited restriction
- Link membership plans with other users
- Master log for recording all transactions
- Members can pause or cancel membership plans
- Members can have multiple membership plans
- You can set the limit to membership plans
- Free and paid trial period available
- Translation ready
- Compatible with WPML
- The site admin has complete control and can enable or disable any membership plan
- The regular license is $39
To install this plugin, click here.
3. Multivendor Marketplace WooCommerceMembership
The Multivendor Marketplace membership plugin is used to create free or premium membership plans. You can also customize your membership in multiple tiers based on pricing, content, and products.
Key Features
- Free and premium subscription for a multi-vendor marketplace
- Create unlimited membership levels
- Compatible with all marketplace add-ons
- Payment through PayPal and Stripe
- Also accepts bank transfer
- Different compatibility modules for each membership plan based on price, content, restricted products, etc
- Members have complete records of their membership plans under the WCFM dashboard
- Translation ready
- Members can upgrade or downgrade their membership
- Pay for product options
For more information, click here.
4. WooCommerce Membership
WooCommerce Membership is a plugin for WooCommerce that lets you customize membership plans and restrict access to non-members. It is one of the easiest WooCommerce membership extensions available. Moreover, you can sell your membership as a standalone product or associate it with a purchase.
Key Features
- Assign membership manually to invite-only customers
- Attach membership to a product purchase
- Schedule when members can see the content by Drip Content
- Free trial period available
- Discounts and coupons for premium members
- Restrict product viewing and purchasing
- Free shipping offer for members
- Members can review details about membership in “Member Area”
- Use recurring billing by combining with the WooCommerce subscription plugin
- You can sell membership to a company or group with the “Teams for WooCommerce Memberships” extension
Find a detailed review here.
5. WooCommerce Members Only
WooCommerce Members Only plugin allows site owners to restrict content from customers and allow access through a password, Id, or user-role. You can also control the content that members and non-members see on your website. Therefore, it is considered one of the best WooCommerce membership plugins.
Key Features
- You can restrict posts, content, product categories, and even whole sites
- Access through a password, username, id, or user role
- You can assign roles and manage capabilities depending on the membership plan
- You can set an expiration date for memberships
- Manually approve memberships
- You can hide widgets and menu items from non-members
- You can redirect non-members to a specific page
- Add custom fields on the registration form
- Available in Basic and Pro license
For more details, click here.
6. Restrict Content Pro
Restrict Content Pro is one of the best WooCommerce membership extensions from which you can grant access to members to restricted content. It also has many useful features such as payment gateway integration, email notifications to customers, and unlimited subscription packages.
Key Features
- Offers free and paid trial period
- Easy to create discount coupons with a percentage or a flat rate
- Accept credit cards with PayPal standard and express, Stripe, and Authorize.net
- You can easily see reports on current membership, renewal, expiry, etc
- Members can manage their subscriptions through the Customer dashboard
- Easy to set up with a user-friendly interface
- Built-in integrations
- Detailed blogs are available on their website
- Pricing starts at $99/annually for 1 site
For a live demo, click here.
7. WP eMember
The WP eMember WooCommerce membership is compatible with WordPress and offers easy installation and setup. With the help of this WooCommerce membership plugin, you can restrict access to certain posts, content, or complete categories. It also creates multiple levels of memberships.
Key Features
- Easy installation and setup
- Allows you to bulk protect content, posts, and blogs on your website
- A fully automated membership system
- Compatible with WordPress and updates regularly
- Multi-site license
- Create multiple levels of memberships
- Customize registration form
- CSV file reports of members’ data
- Can be integrated with WooCommerce to accept payment through payment gateways, such as PayPal, Braintree, etc
For more features, click here.
8. MemberPress
MemberPress is an easy to set up WooCommerce membership plugin. It automatically creates a user, login, and welcome page once installed. MemberPress is also compatible with multiple payment gateways such as PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.net. It has all the features available to convert your site into a membership club.
Key Features
- Allows you to restrict content on your website
- Easy to install and setup
- You can create coupons and set expiration dates
- Stable and secure core
- Integrated with WordPress
- The timed release of content through content dripping
- Compatible with payment gateways
- Compatible with any theme
- Uses email marketing services like AWeber, GetResponse, etc
- Their basic plan starts at $249/year
For more information, click here.
Conclusion
To convert your WordPress site into a fully automated membership website, use WooCommerce membership plugins. These top 8 plugins provide all the necessary features to create amazing memberships on your website and retain loyal customers.
WooCommerce membership plugins are a great way to increase residual revenue and grow your business. Therefore, a good membership plugin should be easy to use, could restrict partial or complete access of exclusive content, create multiple-tier membership levels, content dripping, and notify clients about their membership through email notifications.
Moreover, your customers are the key to your business. By a membership website, you can offer your customers exclusive members-only perks, free products, discounts, and coupons. This also helps in building better relations with your customers and keep them interested for a longer period.
A membership site is also profitable for your business as it generates streamline income, you can sell virtual products such as tutorials and magazines, and increase your value.
