Using WordPress, there are many plugins which will enable you to expand the functionality of the website to grow a community & membership. We have looked and reviewed a few plugins.

Membership Plugins on WordPress

Enabling different level of membership on a site to enable only subscribed members to rad certain content is a great way to build a community. Having some free content is key to hook people in and to convert browsers -> members.

When choosing which plugins to use, a key area to research is the support they provide.  There’s always going to be some glitches (it’s software after all!) but how companies respond and manage their support is key. This plugin is fundamental to your members, and if there are problems, you don’t want to annoy your members!

Upgrading to the paid for plugins is also recommended and if these are fundamental to your business, perhaps looking at the support contracts as well.

There are 2 leading plugins for WordPress which manage membership, renewals and subscriptions.

Key functionality we have looked at are:

• Payment integration – we use PayPal as the subscription option but there are other payment options available
• Integration with social media
• Download email addresses (so you can do email marketing)
• Support (response times and packages)
• Membership levels – ease of setting up content restrictions
• Integration into BuddyPress

Your Members

YourMembers is a feature rich plugin – which has great integration into MailChimp and Facebook. Focuses around restricted content & member roles.

S2Member

S2Member Offers mainly the subscription and membership functionality. It seamlessly integrates with Buddypress to extend the functionality into forums and user accounts (and other community elements)

BuddyPress

Well known plugin so there is an active community around it (really important!). Includes built in forums, membership and active streams.  Other plugins integrate into Buddypress

Magic Members

Is a robust plugin with a great interface. Allows member roles (and allows members to manage their accounts), and different payment options including pay per arcticle, downloads etc.

Magic Members Widgets by magicmembers

Overall, it’s important to use a plugin which matches your business processes and vision for the community.  Shoehorning a site or community into a plugin will always lead to compromises and issues.  Compromising on certain aspects is acceptable as long as it’s not the key functionality.

Work out a key list of requirements check the feature list.  Also have a test site using a back up of the site on WordPress so you can evaluate the functionality. There will be one that you prefer!