A WooCommerce membership plugin lets you sell access, not just products: a paid membership that unlocks content, member-only prices, or a members area of your site. There are two quite different jobs hiding behind that phrase, though, and the right plugin depends on which one you have. This guide explains the difference, compares the main options, and shows how we set it up with WP User Manager and its WooCommerce addon.
Two kinds of WooCommerce membership
- Membership as part of the store. Members get discounts, early access to products, or products only they can buy. The shop is the point, and membership is a pricing tier. WooCommerce Memberships and Paid Memberships Pro’s WooCommerce add-on are built for this.
- A membership site that uses WooCommerce to take payment. People pay to join a community, a club or a content library. They need registration, a profile, an account page and members-only content, and WooCommerce handles the checkout. This is what WP User Manager’s WooCommerce addon does.
Some sites need both, and some plugins combine with others to cover both. Work out which one you’re mostly building first.
What to look for
- How people pay to join: buying a product in the shop, or paying as part of signing up.
- Recurring billing: almost every option relies on WooCommerce Subscriptions for automatic renewals, which is a separate paid extension.
- Content restriction: posts, pages, categories and products only members can see.
- Member pricing: discounts or special prices for members in the shop.
- The member’s side: a front-end account page, a public profile, a member directory, or just WooCommerce’s My Account page.
WooCommerce membership plugins compared
| Plugin | Best for | Member profiles and directory | Recurring billing |
|---|---|---|---|
| WP User Manager + WooCommerce addon | Membership sites that charge at registration | Yes | With WooCommerce Subscriptions, or WP User Manager’s Stripe integration |
| WooCommerce Memberships | Member pricing and restricted content inside a store | No | With WooCommerce Subscriptions |
| Paid Memberships Pro + WooCommerce Add On | Membership levels with member pricing in the shop | No | Through Paid Memberships Pro |
| Ultimate Member + WooCommerce extension | Community sites that also sell | Yes | With WooCommerce Subscriptions |
| ProfilePress | Selling memberships, with WooCommerce stores and account forms | Yes | Through ProfilePress’s own checkout |
| WooCommerce Private Store | Hiding the whole store from the public | No | Not applicable |
WP User Manager with the WooCommerce addon
WP User Manager gives you front-end registration, login, account and profile pages, member directories and roles, free. The WooCommerce addon adds payment: a registration form can require a WooCommerce product, so new members pay as part of signing up, through any payment gateway you’ve set up in WooCommerce. It also puts WooCommerce on the member’s side of the site: orders, addresses, downloads and subscriptions on their account page, and their purchases and reviews on their profile.
What it doesn’t do: member discounts or members-only pricing in the shop. If that’s the main thing you need, pair it with a pricing plugin or choose WooCommerce Memberships. The addon’s 1.3 release added support for WooCommerce’s order tables (HPOS) and the current checkout. It’s a paid addon, included in the Pro and Agency bundles.
WooCommerce Memberships
WooCommerce Memberships is the official extension from the WooCommerce team and the most complete option for memberships inside a store. You can sell a membership as a product, include it with other purchases or assign it by hand. It restricts content, drips it out over time, gives members discounts on products or categories, and can hide products from non-members or let only members buy them. Members manage it all from a Members Area in WooCommerce’s My Account page.
For recurring billing it needs WooCommerce Subscriptions, sold separately. Both are paid yearly. There are no public member profiles or directories, so a community site needs another plugin alongside.
Paid Memberships Pro with the WooCommerce Add On
Paid Memberships Pro handles membership levels, payments and content restriction itself. Its free WooCommerce Add On brings membership into the shop: member prices per product for each level, a percentage discount on everything for a level, and selling memberships through the WooCommerce checkout. It’s a good fit if you want Paid Memberships Pro’s membership features and only need WooCommerce for the store.
Ultimate Member with the WooCommerce extension
Ultimate Member is a profiles and community plugin. Its WooCommerce extension gives users a role when they buy a product, adds purchases and reviews tabs to profiles, and shows total spent in profiles or the directory. It’s included in Ultimate Member’s plans or $45 a year on its own. Like ours, it’s a membership site plugin that uses WooCommerce, rather than a store pricing tool.
ProfilePress
ProfilePress has grown into a membership and payments plugin with its own checkout. Its WooCommerce integration, in the paid plans, adds members-only discounts and stores, and replaces WooCommerce’s login and account forms with its own. Choose it if you want one plugin to sell memberships and you’re happy to use its checkout as well as WooCommerce’s.
WooCommerce Private Store
WooCommerce Private Store by Barn2 does one thing: it hides your whole shop, including products, cart and checkout, unless visitors enter a password or log in with a role you choose. The rest of the site stays public. It’s not a membership plugin, but it’s the simplest answer for a wholesale or members-only store. It starts at $79 a year.
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How to charge for membership with WP User Manager and WooCommerce
Here’s the setup for a membership site where people pay to join.
Step 1: Install the plugins
You need WooCommerce with at least one payment gateway set up, the free WP User Manager plugin, and the WooCommerce addon.
Step 2: Create a membership product
In WooCommerce, add a product for your membership, such as “Annual Membership”, and tick Virtual: only virtual products can be sold at registration. Tick Hide from shop if you only want it bought by signing up.
Step 3: Add the product to your registration form
Go to Users > Registration Forms and edit your form’s settings. Choose the product in Registration Product, or turn on Allow Product Selection and pick several in Allowed Products so people can choose between, say, monthly and annual. The product and its price then appear on the form.
After filling in the form, new members go through the WooCommerce checkout. They’re marked as paid once WooCommerce counts the order as paid (processing or completed), so payments by bank transfer count once you mark the order as processing. Our help article on collecting payment at registration has the details.
Step 4: Keep unpaid members out
Turn on Restrict Access Until Paid in the form’s settings, and people who registered without finishing payment can’t get into the site until they pay. Their account page gets a Subscribe tab where they can complete the purchase.
Step 5: Restrict content to paying members
With the Content Restriction addon, tick Restrict by Subscription on a post, page, category or tag, and only members who’ve paid at registration can see it. Our comparison of WordPress content restriction plugins covers other ways to gate content.
Step 6: Bring WooCommerce into the account page
Under Users > Settings > Profiles > Account, choose which WooCommerce tabs members get: Show Orders, Show Downloads, Show Billing address and Show Shipping address, plus Show Subscriptions if you use WooCommerce Subscriptions. See display orders on the account page. You can also show a member’s purchases and reviews on their public profile.
If you’d rather take recurring payments without WooCommerce, WP User Manager can charge for registration with Stripe directly: see accepting recurring payments with Stripe.
Which WooCommerce membership plugin should you choose?
- Members pay to join a site, and need profiles and an account area: WP User Manager with the WooCommerce addon, or Ultimate Member with its WooCommerce extension.
- Members get special prices and products in your store: WooCommerce Memberships, or Paid Memberships Pro with its WooCommerce Add On.
- The whole store is for members only: WooCommerce Private Store.
- Both: WP User Manager for the membership site, with a pricing plugin for member discounts.
For the full picture of building a paid membership site, see our guide to building a membership website. To start, install the free WP User Manager plugin, and see pricing for the bundles that include the WooCommerce addon.