{"id":5623951,"date":"2022-12-26T14:06:33","date_gmt":"2022-12-26T14:06:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wpallimport.com\/?p=5623951"},"modified":"2025-11-15T06:37:54","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T06:37:54","slug":"how-to-create-a-wordpress-paid-membership-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wpallimport.com\/how-to-create-a-wordpress-paid-membership-site\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Create a WordPress Paid Membership Site"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you want to monetize your audience, creating a paid membership site is the easiest way. It requires very little time, and you don\u2019t have to quit your job to do it. You also don\u2019t require any technical knowledge or coding skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this article, we'll show you the easiest way to create a paid membership site with WordPress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why You Should Create a Paid Membership Site<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A paid membership site allows visitors to view some of its content for free but requires them to purchase a paid membership to view its premium content. This is what news sites like The New York Times, The Guardian, and Business Insider do. They let you read a few stories for free but require a monthly membership if you want to keep reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The best part about this business model is that it doesn\u2019t require much work, and once you set it up, it doesn\u2019t require much maintenance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This approach works so well that many big YouTube channels have started using it. For example, Blacktail Studio, a YouTube channel that uploads videos about woodworking, sells its woodworking plans for beginners on its site. To download these plans, you need to become a paid member. This paid membership requires only a one-time payment of $49:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Blacktail<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Charging a one-time fee is a great place to start if your membership site doesn\u2019t have a lot of content to offer. But as you add more and more content to your membership site, you can start charging more. An excellent example of this is Ness Labs:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Ness<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Their membership gives you access to their premium content and many other benefits:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Ness<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

One of the most significant benefits they offer is called Mind Match. Once you join, you can fill out a short form, and they will introduce you to someone else in the community who is similar to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How much you can charge for a paid membership depends on how much you have to offer. You don\u2019t have to start with dozens of features and hundreds of pages of content. Instead, you can start small and add new features and content over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are a lot of different platforms that let you create a membership site, but most of them are limited. WordPress, on the other hand, offers numerous high-quality plugins for paid membership sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of these is ProfilePress<\/a>. It\u2019s an all-in-one tool for creating membership sites and selling digital downloads. It's also built for beginners who don't have technical knowledge or programming skills. If you can use Facebook, you can learn to use ProfilePress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let's show you how!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How To Create Paid Plans For Your Membership Plans<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

ProfilePress allows you to create both one-time payment plans and recurring subscription plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How To Create a One-Time Payment Plan<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

This is the type of plan that Blacktail Studio offers its audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To create a one-time plan, log into your WordPress website\u2019s dashboard and navigate to the Membership Plans<\/strong> section of ProfilePress:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"ProfilePress<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Click the Add New Plan<\/strong> button:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"ProfilePress<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

This will take you to the ProfilePress new plan creator:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"ProfilePress<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In the first section, called Plan Details<\/strong>, fill out a name and description. You can also enter a purchase note if you want. This note will be emailed to your customers along with the order receipt when they buy this plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next, enter a price for this plan. This is how much a user will have to pay to buy this plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scroll down and you\u2019ll see a section called Subscription Settings<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"ProfilePress<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Change the Billing Frequency<\/strong> to one-time to create a one-time plan. Then, click the Save Plan<\/strong> button:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"WordPress<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

How To Create a Recurring Payment Plan<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If you have a lot of content on your website, you can create a recurring plan that charges your customers monthly or yearly. Recurring plans are perfect for online courses and membership sites with a lot of content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To create a recurring plan, create a new plan by following the first few steps in the previous section. Then, scroll down to the Subscription Settings<\/strong> section:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"ProfilePress<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

First, use the Billing Frequency<\/strong> field to select how frequently your customers are charged for this plan. You can choose Daily<\/strong>, Weekly<\/strong>, Monthly<\/strong>, Quarterly<\/strong>, Bi-Annually<\/strong>, or Annually<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can charge your customers a sign-up fee by entering the amount in the Sign-Up Fee ($)<\/strong> field. Your customers will be charged this fee in addition to the first month\u2019s charge when they sign up. This fee is only charged once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you want, you can offer your customers a free trial. They won\u2019t be charged until the trial period is over, and they won't get charged at all if they cancel before the trial runs out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, click the Save Plan<\/strong> button (not shown) to publish this recurring subscription plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IMPORTANT: The Checkout Page<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For every plan (recurring or one-time) that you create, ProfilePress will create a checkout page. You can get the link to this checkout page from the Membership Plans<\/strong> section:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"ProfilePress<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

If you open the checkout link, you\u2019ll see a checkout page similar to this:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"ProfilePress<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

You can now link to this checkout page from any of your pages. For example, you can link to it from a pricing page or your website\u2019s navigation menu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you visit your checkout page right now, you won\u2019t see any payment methods. That\u2019s because you haven\u2019t connected a payment platform to your WordPress site. We'll show you how to do this later in this article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How To Restrict Access To Your Premium Content<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

ProfilePress offers a lot of ways to restrict user access to your content. Here are two of them that you\u2019ll find handy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How To Restrict Access To Your Premium Posts and Pages<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

First, navigate to the Content Protection<\/strong> section under ProfilePress:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"ProfilePress<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

You\u2019ll now see the Add Protection<\/strong> Rule page:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Profile<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

First, enter a name for the protection rule. This name is only for your reference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next, select a condition for the rule:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"ProfilePress<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

ProfilePress lets you choose from many different conditions. These conditions allow you to restrict access to posts, pages, and categories. The easiest is the Selected Posts<\/strong> condition and its counterpart Selected Pages<\/strong>. These conditions allow you to enter the names of posts or pages that you want to restrict access to:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"ProfilePress<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

You can add as many conditions as you want by clicking and +AND<\/strong> link:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"ProfilePress<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

If you want to restrict access to a lot of posts, create a new category called \"Premium Posts\" (you can name it whatever you want). Then, select Posts With Categories<\/strong> as the condition and select the new Premium Posts<\/strong> category:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"ProfilePress<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

This way, you won\u2019t need to edit this content rule whenever you publish a new post that you want to restrict access to. Instead, you can just add the Premium Posts<\/strong> category to that post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, scroll down to the Access Condition<\/strong> section and select Logged In Users<\/strong> from the drop-down menu, then enter the names of the Membership Plans<\/strong> that you want to grant access to:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"ProfilePress<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Finally, click the Save Rule<\/strong> button (not shown) to publish this content protection rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, log out of WordPress and visit any posts or pages you selected in this content protection rule. Anyone who isn\u2019t logged in or doesn\u2019t have an active subscription will see this error message:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"WordPress<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

You can edit the message from ProfilePress settings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How To Restrict Access To Parts of a Page\u2019s Content<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

ProfilePress lets you restrict user access to parts of a page\u2019s content. This allows you to tease your website visitors with sample content. This is what sites like The New York Times do. They let you read a couple of paragraphs and then ask you to subscribe if you want to read the rest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The easiest way to do this is to use ProfilePress\u2019 content restriction sho<\/a>rtcode<\/a>. Whatever you put between the opening and closing tags of this shortcode will be hidden from your users who don\u2019t have an active subscription:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[pp-restrict-content]<\/strong>THIS CONTENT WILL NOT BE VISIBLE TO FREE USERS[\/pp-restrict-content]<\/strong>\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Every plan that you create in ProfilePress gets a unique ID. You can check this ID on the Membership Plans<\/strong> page under ProfilePress settings:<\/p>\n\n\n
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\"ProfilePress<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
You can enter the IDs of all the plans that are allowed access to this content like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
[pp-restrict-content plans=\u201d1\u201d]<\/strong>THIS TEXT WILL NOT BE VISIBLE TO FREE USERS[\/pp-restrict-content]<\/strong>\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
In the above example, 1 is the ID of the plan that offers access to this content. You can enter more than one ID separated by commas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you find this too confusing or complicated, there\u2019s an easier way to restrict parts of your content. You can use the free Conditional Blocks plugin. It has a built-in ProfilePress integration making it easy to restrict access to content. Read this guide<\/a> to learn how to use it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ProfilePress has a lot of other options for restricting access to your content. You can:<\/p>\n\n\n\n