Over the past half decade, there was a giant boom and bust of premium WordPress plugin developers and WordPress membership plugins are no exception. For some people, this can make finding the right premium membership plugin difficult because you don’t want to end up buying a lifetime license, only to find out that it is no longer supported or on its way out the door. For the most part, there are three key things that you need to focus on when choosing which plugin is right for you – features, reliability, and support.

The features are normally what most people look at first, but in the end you just need to make sure that it does what you want and can grow with your membership site. More importantly, you need to give a little extra attention to reliability and support because this will tell you whether or not the plugin will be a good long term solution or not.

1. Magic Members
Magic Members is a little bit newer than some of the others on this website, however it has quickly become one of the premier WordPress membership plugins. It has proven to be extremely reliable and the support is definitely solid. One of the things that has made this plugin stand out from the rest is how rapid updates are released. More impressively, these aren’t simple coding updates but major function updates that gives you more payment processors and similar types of integration advances.

2. Wishlist Member
Wishlist Member is another popular membership plugin that has been around for some time. They has a solid track record in terms of reliability over time. This is largely because they offer several premium WordPress plugins. They will likely be player for the foreseeable future because along with their plugin, they have also created the Insider Community, which is a membership training opportunity. Keep in mind that throughout their training, they rely solely on their products, so if you are going to integrate other competing premium plugins such as Magic Affiliate then you may need to look elsewhere.

3. MemberWing
MemberWing used to be considered the top premium WordPress membership plugin, but it seems to have tapered off over the past few years. This is largely because they are one of the only premium plugins that have 3 different versions with varying features instead of the standard single-site and multi-site licenses.

4. Digital Access Pass
Digital Access Pass has been in the background of premium membership plugins for a while. It never seems to have really become a major player, but at the same time, it is considered to be a solid option. While it does allow you to create a variety of different membership sites, it is most well known as a product-based membership site or download site-style plugin.

5. eMember
eMember has always been considered to be in the top handful of premium membership plugins, but is rarely in the very top. While it has the features and functions that you should expect from a premium plugin, it still seems to have a larger list of non-compatible plugins than other options on the market.

6. S2Member
S2Member is a decent option, but the difference between the free version and the pro version is negligible compared to the other options on this list. S2Member pro does provide some additional payment gateways and features, but it tends to test poorly compared to the other options on this list.

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Designing a basic WordPress plugin isn’t inherently difficult which is why there is a growing trend to hire a freelancer or company to create customized plugins. While this may serve a purpose in some cases, this isn’t always the best idea. If you are thinking about this for a membership plugin then you might want to reconsider. There are a number of potential hazards that you could run into, especially if you do not have a freelancer developer who you work with on a consistent basis. Here is a closer look at what these problems are and why purchasing a commercially available membership plugin is likely to be the better option.

The first problem, or group of problems, all arise if you do not have a freelance developer who you use often. While some people do have WordPress developers on retainer, it is fairly rare. The first problem is that you are going to have to test out a handful of candidates just to find the right one. While this may not sound like a big deal, you cannot get sample projects done for free. In many cases, testing out 5 developers will be more expensive than buying a plugin outright. Not only is it expensive, but you may not be happy with the results. This could be a time frame issue, workability issue, or communication issue. Regardless of what it is, if the project ends and you are unsatisfied then you have wasted a lot of time and money.

The next problem is dealing with the future. WordPress is constantly updating its core which means the plugin could become incompatible at any moment. If you purchase a custom membership plugin and in a few months there is a problem you don’t have anyone to turn to. You can either re-hire the first developer to fix it or you may have to go through the entire hiring process again. Plus, the second developer will not be familiar with your custom plugin which means that they will have to spend time understanding it before they even start working. Another future-related problem is expansion. What happens if your demographic changes and your new members want to use a payment processor that you didn’t have integrated?

There are a number of additional problems that can arise as well depending on how the creation process goes.

As you can see, there are several major hazards that you can fall victim to if you hire a developer to create a custom membership plugin. The better option is to simply purchase a commercially available membership plugin that meets all of your needs. There are several high quality option on the market and they are very cost effective when you consider how much time and effort goes into creating and supporting them. As an added bonus, the commercial plugins were built after weeks or months of testing, plus they are designed based upon the feedback that users give them. This means that not only will you be purchasing a great product, but it will always be changing and adapting to meet your needs.

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When you installed your membership plugin when you first launched your site, everything seemed to be laid out pretty well, but over time you may have noticed that there are some minor tweaks that need to be made. The problem is that your plugin is making this task a much bigger problem than it should be. There are a number of different ways that your members can out-pace your plugin. Here is a quick look at the two major areas to focus on when deciding whether or not it is time to upgrade and get a better membership plugin.

The first area is your members themselves. There are some membership plugins that were designed to do absolutely everything. Many of them get billed as the set it and forget type plugins that will magically create a membership site out of thin air. Normally they will include a number of feature completely unrelated to your site itself such as landing page generation or affiliate management. The problem that often arises is that over time you realize that there are better plugins specifically designed for those tasks.

This can affect your members and potential members in a number of ways. The first is that your members may not be getting what they want. For example, do they want a members only forum, but your plugin doesn’t support it? Do your members want the ability to customize their profile page but can’t? All of these are fairly small issues that may not drive away customers by themselves. However when these types of problem compound, there is nothing left for your members to do but leave.

The other area that your membership plugin can be outpaced by your customers is on the administrative side. In most cases the problem is that there are some tasks that you need to complete manually. While this may not be a problem while your membership site is just starting out, as it grows all of these tasks take more time. As we all know, the more time you spend doing mundane tasks the less time you are spending promoting your site or developing your community.

Some of the most common examples include manually importing and exporting members lists for email marketing or billing. While these tasks are simple with a small amount of members, they can quickly become a time suck as your site grows.

Another potential problem is that once you decide to change over and use a new membership plugin, your entire site must be reworked. In order to bypass this problem, it is critical that you choose a membership plugin that allows you to integrate it with your current setup. Fortunately there are several plugins on the market that will allow you to do this, most notable the Magic Members plugin.

Why Creating a WordPress Membership Site Has Become the Most Popular Option

When it comes to creating a profitable online business there are a number of different strategies that you can use. There is affiliate sales, Adsense websites, email marketing, PPC, product creation, and much more. Above all of these options, membership sites have become the most popular for a number of reasons. More specifically, the WordPress membership site has taken hold. Here is a quick look at why membership sites, especially those hosted on WordPress, have become so common.

Membership sites in general hold a number specific advantages. The primary advantage is that it provides both passive recurring income as well as instant income. It creates passive recurring income from your membership fees, while this does take some maintenance, you really only need enough content to meet the needs of your longest member, assuming that you are drip feeding content. It also gives you instant income because you can promote additional products to your members as well as sell advertising space within your members area.

Along with the ability to generate multiple streams of income from a single asset, membership sites are also fairly simple to create when compared to other products. It is no more difficult that writing an ebook or maintaining a blog. The only difference is instead of sharing it all at once, your membership site lengthens the amount of time that it takes for the members to get access to the content. As an added bonus, you can use all of the social aspects of a membership site to learn more about what your members want, as well as use their questions to create additional products that they want.

The WordPress membership site has become particularly popular because it combines the power of a membership site with the simplicity of WordPress One of the biggest barriers to starting membership sites is that you used to need both some membership management software, plus a content management system. To make things more difficult, the two had to function well together. With a WordPress membership site you can use the WordPress core with a membership plugin to take care of the whole thing. Plus, the plugin will have been specifically designed to work with the tools that WordPress already offers.

With all of this in mind, it should be no surprise that the WordPress membership site has risen to become the most popular way to make money online. This isn’t to say that the other methods don’t work, rather that for the amount of time and effort they require a WordPress membership site has the ability to pay greater dividends. It can create both residual and instant income from multiple sources with no more effort than creating an ebook. With the added benefit of using WordPress, the entire process becomes even easier.

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One of the biggest sticking points when choosing a membership plugin for your WordPress site is payment processor integration. There are a number of issues to consider when deciding what your best options are. You should not only consider which payment processor that you want to use, but also what your current and future members want to use. To answer this question, many membership site owners think that they only need a plugin that has “enough” options available, the problem is deciding what “enough” really is.

The truth is that one could be enough or maybe you need 10. It all comes down to what your members and potential members want. If you are only operating in the United States then you might be able to use only PayPal, but you might also need a regular merchant account as well. The problem is that most membership sites are not very regionally constrained. For example, if you have a health related website, your members won’t only be from a single country or region, but can easily be from all over the world. This means that you need to be able to accept payments from people all over the world.

You also need to consider that the online landscape has changed dramatically over the past few years and there is no reason to think that the internet has come to a standstill. This means that you not only need to have enough payment processors to satisfy your customers today, but also have the flexibility to add and subtract payment processors that become popular in the future. With this in mind, it is more important to choose a membership plugin that is continually evolving to meet the needs of membership owners around the globe, rather than a plugin that simply has “enough”.

There are a wide variety of different factors to consider when choosing the right membership plugin for your next WordPress membership site. When it comes time to look at the payment processors that are supported, it is important to not look at the number of them available but rather whether or not you will get the ones that you need. It is important that you view things from the right perspective. This isn’t a time to play the numbers game. You could get 20 different payment processors but if you don’t have the one that you need, then it doesn’t matter. Instead, you need to focus on two things. First, you need to make sure that you can use the payment processors that you need now. Once you have a list of plugins that meets that criteria, it is time to look at the future. It is important to make sure that the membership plugin that you choose is being actively developed and responsive to the ever-changing internet environment.

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As WordPress continues to claim a larger share of the CMS world, there are more plugins created for membership sites than ever before. The problem that many people run into is that they either assume that all of these plugins are created equal, or they simply don’t know how to choose the right one. This means that you need to choose your WordPress membership plugin carefully. Here are three all-to-common scenarios that people face when they choose the wrong membership management plugin for their WordPress site.

1. Plugin Dictates Site

One the biggest problems that you will run into if you do not choose your WordPress membership plugin carefully is that your entire site will be limited by the plugins abilities. For example, if the plugin doesn’t allow you to post teaser content then your membership sites SEO abilities will be limited or you will be forced to create another website separate from your membership site. If your plugin only allows you to choose between a limited number of payment processors then you may be losing potential members because they don’t have a payment method that they feel comfortable using. In short, the wrong plugin can severely limit your sites capabilities as well as limit your target audience.

2. Incompatibility

Another potential problem is that the wrong WordPress membership plugin will likely force you to drop some of your other favorite plugins. There are a lot of WordPress membership plugins that are not well designed and have little support. This tends to mean that the plugin will not play nicely with some other plugins. On the other hand, the top tier membership plugins are not only already tested to work with other plugins, but they also offer fantastic support which means that even if you do run into a problem, it will be resolved quickly.

3. Easy to Use Means Easy to Outsource

If you already have experience running a membership site, then you know that the more time you spend on administrative tasks, the less time you will be spending gathering new members. If you have a high quality WordPress membership plugin, then it will be very easy and intuitive to use. This makes training your outsourced writers, virtual assistants, and customer service reps much easier to trainer. The easier the back-end of the plugin is to use, the easier it is train other people how to use it. On the other hand, if you choose a poor plugin, then your outsourced help is more likely to get confused or make a mistake. The harder you make it for them to do their job, the harder they will make yours.

As you can see, there are some very dire consequences that you may face if you choose a WordPress membership plugin that is not up to par. The best membership plugins, like the Magic Members plugin, are designed to make your life easier not harder. Because they are commercial plugins, they have the ability to provide excellent support and can even help you create a customized solution in the event that you need something that the plugin doesn’t already provide.

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WordPress is a popular choice for creating up and maintaining membership websites for a number of reasons; it’s easy to use, it’s very flexible, and a lot of available plugins are evolving to accommodate more needs. Even before comprehensive plugins came about, there were so many ways on how to integrate multiple plugins to setup a membership website and you can all do these for free. As technology evolved to improve on existing methods, comprehensive plugins came into existence which holds a great value to users and webmasters alike. Nowadays, a single plugin can do everything. Below are the top benefits.

1. Everything you need is there.

You can expect a lot of cohesion when you use a single plugin, and obviously this is your top advantage. This allows you to manage just every single aspect in your WordPress membership site: registration, recurring billing, and all the details in between. It’s easier to setup and maintain a membership website on a daily basis and headaches are very minimal, if not totally nonexistent. Usual tasks are easier to do like creating major changes on the setup and adding content. Compared to a piecemeal plugin, you will have to modify each and every plugin you have integrated before any minor change can take effect and you can just imagine the time and effort this menial task will consume when a single plugin can do it all.

2. Support issues here.

Comprehensive WordPress membership plugins also allow for faster and easier support when issues arise. You will know exactly who to talk to when you encounter problems and most of the time, help is very reliable. With several plugins pieced altogether, one developer can say that the problem lies with the other plugins so most of the time they won’t be willing to help. If you are able to convince one developer to change their plugin, well and good; but understand that this is next to impossible. The problem with multiple free plugins is that support is always unavailable, either the developer won’t be helpful or it just vanished from the face of the Web. This means that you will have to analyze the problem and troubleshoot it yourself.

3. Maintenance issues there.

When you maintain 5 different plugins, you update and troubleshoot each one of them even for a very minor change you need to effect on your website. Not all plugins are compatible with each other and this is especially true when you update a single one that may bug the others. You may also encounter maintenance problems trying to upload fresh content. A single comprehensive plugin is very low on maintenance because the design is simple. You won’t have these kinds of problems even if you update the core of your WordPress membership site.

For the most obvious reasons, having a single comprehensive plugin have a lot more benefits to offer compared to using several plugins which can only be a headache later on. These benefits translate to important resources saved – time, effort, money, unnecessary stress, and that valuable time you can otherwise devote to more productive pursuits – if you take advantage of these benefits.

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WordPress has always been a popular option for setting up membership websites.  Before there commercial membership plugins were available, there were a variety of ways to piece together multiple free plugins in order to create a WordPress membership website.  However, commercial plugins have proven to be a much more comprehensive option, which holds a number of advantages to webmasters.  There are a number of reasons that using a single plugin is beneficial when compared to piecing together multiple free plugins to create a WordPress membership site.

1. Cohesion

The most obvious advantage of using a single plugin is the cohesion that it creates.  It allows you to manage all aspects of your WordPress membership website from registration to recurring billing and everything in between.  This cohesion makes setting up and maintaining a membership website on a daily basis much easier.  This is especially true when it comes to adding content and making large scale changes to the setup of the website.  If you are working with a large number of plugins that have been piece-mealed together, there is a much greater chance that you will need to make modifications in several plugins in order to create a single change.  With a comprehensive plugin, you will be able to make almost all of your changes from a single place.

2. Support

If you are using a single, comprehensive plugin to manage your WordPress membership website then getting support, if a problem arises, is easy because you know exactly who to talk to.  If  you are using several plugins together, there is a good chance that each developer will tell you that the problem lies in the other plugins.  This means that you will need to convince a developer that they need to change their plugin.  Additionally, when dealing with free plugins, there is a higher chance that their plugins come with no support, which means that you will need to find out what is causing the problem and then fix it yourself.

3. Maintenance

Obviously, maintaining a single plugin is much easier that maintaining 5 plugins, regardless of what they are.  By using a comprehensive WordPress membership website plugin, regular maintenance is simple.  However, if you are using several plugins then there is a good chance that they will need to be updated and maintained at different times.  Additionally, if you are using several plugins, then when you update one, it may become incompatible with the other plugins that you are using.  This can become especially problematic when it comes to updating the WordPress core.

As you can see, there are some big advantageous to using a comprehensive WordPress membership plugin rather than piecing together multiple plugins.  All of these advantageous can be measured in the savings that they provide.  You will be able to save time, money, effort, and a whole lot of stress by using a single, comprehensive WordPress membership site plugin.

Integrating CCBill with WordPress Sites Offers Unique Advantages

—–Update——

Magic Members WordPress Membership Plugin informed us that they completed CCBill integration for WordPress.

CCBill has proven to be an excellent credit card processor for many WordPress websites.  Integrating CCBill doesn’t have to be difficult, as long as you are using software that streamlines the process.  It allows you to automate the entire credit card processing process, while still ensuring the highest levels of security through rigid fraud checks and screening.  CCBill continues to expand and perfect their services which makes them a perfect partner for many WordPress websites.

Benefits of Integrating CCBill with WordPress Websites

There are a number of features that makes CCBill an excellent choice.  They offer extremely high performing real-time processing speeds to make sure that your customers are never late waiting around for your products.  You will be able to accept Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and any cards with a Visa or Mastercard logo, such as bank debit/credit cards.  They even offer the option of processing payments that have been made over the phone.

CCBill also offers electronic check processing services so that you can accept paperless checks via your website.  Using their automated ACH processing services, all paperless checks can be approved within 2 seconds.  This ensures that you will always get paid.

CCBill offers a very high level of security that protects both you and your customers.  Fraud protection has been integrated throughout the payment processing process and risk management systems have been put into place to help keep everything secure.  Their system is always kept up to date with compliance issues from card association regulations and requirements.  Since processing echecks creates an added level of risk, CCBill automatically performs additional verification, along with the standard fraud filters, to minimize the chance of fraudulent transactions and returns.

If, for any reason, you need to access CCBill’s support staff, they are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  Their staff is a combination of support engineers and operations professionals to make sure that your problem is resolved quickly.

CCBill also offers subscription billing so that you can charge for recurring expenses, such as access to a membership site or online newsletter.  All of the data is stored in Visa CISP-certified data centers to eliminate any risk to the merchants.  Since all of this is done automatically, merchants decrease the risks associated with human error and ensure a more predictable cash flow for each website.

CCBill has proven to be an effective solution for many WordPress webmasters.  Integrating CCBill with WordPress websites has made it easy to sell digital/downloadable products as well as create membership based websites with automatic recurring fees.  CCBill also offers the peace of mind that comes with fraud prevention and a high level of automation, to decrease the chances of human error.

—–Update——

Magic Members WordPress Membership Plugin informed us that they completed CCBill integration for WordPress.

CCBill WordPress Membership Plugin;
Single License: $97
Please click here to purchase the membership plugin.

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Magic Members has proven to be one of the best WordPress membership site plugins available.  To see exactly why this plugin has become a favorite, it is important to look at its features outside of what you would expect from a standard membership site plugin.

What Should Be Expected From a Standard WordPress Membership Site Plugin?

1. Secured Content

Magic Members not only will secure your members-only content, but goes a few steps farther.  First, you cannot only create a secured members area, but create multiple membership levels to maximize your profit potential.  Second, it also allow for teaser content.  This is content in which anyone can see the first part of the content, but will need to join the membership site in order to get the entirety of the content.  Third, it has a Pay-Per-Post option.  This allows a user to pay to read only one or two posts instead of a complete membership.  This is a great way to make money off of readers that would otherwise leave your site without spending a dime.

3. Variable Membership Lengths

With a standard wordpress membership site plugin, you will need to choose the length of subscription.  With Magic Members, you have the ability to set multiple subscription lengths simultaneously.  This allows for users to pay for a few weeks, months, or even a year at a time.  This not only gives more options to your members, but also helps establish reliable income.

3. Content Delivery

With a standard wordpress membership plugin, users will gain access to your content immediately.  This creates a potential problem because users can sign up for a trial or your minimum subscription and download all of your content and then cancel their subscription.  This is especially detrimental if you have a money-back guarantee because they can download all of your content and then ask for their money back.  Magic Members has a drip feed or post delay function.  This allows you to create content months or years in advance, and then it will release the content to users based on how many days they have been members.  They will get certain content immediately and then get access to additional content based on when you want them to get more, daily, weekly, or monthly.  The best part is if someone signs up for your membership site a year from now, they will still only get immediate access to the content that you decide is available immediately.

4. New user friendly interface

Magic Members has a really clean design that makes setting up a membership site incredibly easy.

An Overview Video of  Magic Members;

There are many more great features that make Magic Members one of the best Membership Softwares available.  It is up to you to take advantage of it.

Price:
Single License: 97$
3 Users License: 197$
Unlimited License: 297$

Discount Coupons For Magic Members Plugin;

Single License:   MGM876MM      $15.00
3 Users License:  MGM965MM      $25.00
Unlimited License: MGM996MM      $35.00

Visit Magic Members’ Home Page: http://www.magicmembers.com/

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