Are you looking for the best free WordPress membership plugins? Want to create a membership site in WordPress? If yes then, you’re in the right place.
Creating a membership website lets you build a membership system on your site and provide different types of access to the members.
For example, you can create exclusive content that only paying members can access. This way, you can also generate a great income. Hence, you need a good membership plugin to create a well-functioning membership site.
So, here we’ve brought you the handpicked list of the best free WordPress membership plugins.
Let’s start.
What is a Membership Website?
A membership website is a popular type of website specifically built for providing content to its members only. They contain lots of content and resources like other sites but the content can be accessed only by the registered users or the members.
For example, you can look at the popular video streaming platform Netflix. It’s a membership site. It has tons of movies, documentaries, and other videos, but only registered and paid users can watch them.
In contrast, SiteSaga.com is not a membership site. All of its content is available to all users, either registered or not.
Netflix is just an example. Membership sites are used for various purposes. Check more membership site examples.
For instance, content or product creators use it to sell their premium products. Ebooks, podcasts, e-courses, webinars, digital products like software, WordPress plugins, etc. are common types of content offered by membership sites.
Not only that, big business organizations use a membership site to manage their team, share content within the team, etc.
Hence, membership websites can offer their services for payment, free, or a mix of both.
How to Choose the Best WordPress Membership Plugin?
Now let’s talk about some of the things that you might need to consider before choosing a WordPress membership plugin for your website. You can find plenty of WordPress membership plugins, but not all can suit your website model.
However, let’s talk about a few points you need to consider before choosing a WordPress membership plugin for your website.
- Your membership plugin must let you restrict content whether it’s entire or some portion of posts and pages.
- Those plugins must provide and integrate with different payment gateways. And go with those platforms that your target audience prefers and supports currencies too.
- Make sure it offers drip content. As it lets you release the content slowly for your audiences.
- Go with that plugin that can generate coupons and lets you create a variety of custom discount offers.
- Check whether or not it allows you to create different membership levels or not. Such as Bronze > Silver > Gold > Platinum.
If you’re still confused regarding how to choose a WordPress plugin, then check our detailed blog on how to choose the best WordPress plugins.
Now, let’s look at the best free WordPress membership for 2025.
12 Best Free WordPress Membership Plugins 2025
In this list, we’ve included all the best free WordPress membership plugins. Go through the description and features and decide which is right for your site.
1. Paid Memberships Pro
Paid Memberships Pro is the most popular free WordPress membership plugin powering over 100,000 membership sites online. It lets you easily create, manage, and run a complete membership system with WordPress.
Using this plugin, you can restrict access to member-only premium content, create unlimited membership levels, set flexible pricing plans, let users register, and also accept payments. It supports all major payment gateways like Stripe, PayPal, Braintree, etc.
But don’t assume by its name! Although its name has ‘Pro’ in it, it’s available free of cost! Yet, it has premium plans that offer more advanced options via addons.
Key Features:
- Suitable for many membership website types – LMS, online training-based memberships, clubs and associations, etc.
- Various content gating options – restrict posts, pages, categories, events, courses, custom post types, etc.
- Content drip feed addon to offer a series of content over time.
- Frontend user registration, login, password recovery, profile editing, etc.
- One-time payments, recurring subscriptions, and discount code options available.
How to Get Started With Paid Memberships Pro?
Just like any other plugin, log in to your WordPress dashboard and head to the ‘Plugins > Add New’.
Then, search for the ‘Paid Memberships Pro’ in the search bar and click on the ‘Install Now’ button. Shortly, followed by the ‘Activate’ button.
Following that, you’ll see that a new menu named ‘Memberships’ has been added on the left-navigation. Also, you can access the ‘Setup Wizard’ page, where you can fill in the asked details one by one.
Alternatively, you can click on the ‘Exit Wizard and Return to Dashboard’ option at the bottom to work on it later.
With that, you’re directed towards the ‘Initial Setup’ page under the ‘Memberships > Dashboard’ menu.
Then, click on the ‘Create a Membership Level’ option to proceed forward. Afterward, you’ll see a popup box that asks ‘What type of membership level do you want to create?’.
Here, you can choose the desired kind of membership level you want to create. For now, we go for the ‘Free’ one. With that, you’ll see the editor panel where you can add the new membership level.
Then, you can add the general information as you wish along with the billing details, and expiration settings.
Following that, you can also configure content and other settings, and click on the ‘Save Level’ option to proceed.
With that, you’ll see that the ‘Membership Levels’ has been created. You can create the other levels following the same process as before by clicking on ‘Add New Level’ option.
Again, if you head back to the dashboard, then you can click on the ‘Generate Membership Pages’ option.
With that, you’ll see 2 options, ‘Generate Pages For Me’ and ‘Create Pages Manually’, you can go with any as your choice. Here, we go for generate pages option.
On doing so, you’ll see the generated pages for your membership site. You can ‘Edit’ or ‘View’ the page by clicking on the respective buttons.
Once done, click on the ‘Save Settings’ option located right at the bottom.
Likewise, you can move back to the Dashboard page and click on the ‘Configure Payment Settings’.
Then, you can choose the respective payment gateway and also configure currency and tax settings. And click on the ‘Save Settings’ option.
Likewise, you can explore other settings on your own as per how you want your membership to be.
For more guidance, you can check out our detailed article on Paid Memberships Pro review and their official documentation.
Pricing:
Paid Memberships Pro is a freemium plugin available in both free and premium versions. You can install the plugin’s free version directly into your WordPress dashboard from the official plugin directory. Also, you can download it from its official site.
You can get the additional features with its premium addons on its paid plans. Also, you’ll get unlimited support tickets facility, one-click updates, etc. with paid plans.
Its premium plans start from $174/year for 1 site license. It includes 21 Plus addons for payments, marketing, multisite support, etc.
2. ARMember
Another fantastic membership plugin ARMember provides unlimited membership levels, drip content, restricted content, and more. It’s quite easy to operate and also has a great modern user interface.
Furthermore, it comes with front-end member registration, login edit profile, forgot password, and change password page. Its inbuilt security features come with brute-force login protection, a CAPTCHA mechanism, and site access restrictions.
Key Features:
- It allows the members to delete their accounts.
- Comes with advanced drag-and-drop registration and login form builder.
- Supports payment gateway integrations with PayPal, Stripe, and more.
- Provides an easy member management system for managing user’s membership status.
- Also, it has an inbuilt anti-spam mechanism.
How to Get Started With ARMember?
You can install and activate the ARMember plugin as similar to any other plugin. For more reference, you check our article on how to install the WordPress plugin.
So, right after the installation and activation of the ARMember plugin, you’ll see the Welcome page as shown below. Then, click on the ‘Getting Started’ option.
Following that, you’re taken to the ‘Account Setup’ page. You can fill in the required details as asked under several categories. Or, simply click on the ‘Skip The Wizard and Setup Manually’ option.
On doing so, you’ll land back on the WordPress dashboard. Also, you can see that the new ‘ARMember Lite’ has been added to the dashboard.
Now, on the ‘Manage Plans’ sub-menu, click on the ‘+Add New Plan’ option. With that, you’ll see the page as shown below.
Here, you need the type in the required details and click on the ‘Save’ option at the bottom right corner.
Now, if you hit the ‘Configure Plan + Signup Page’ menu, then you can configure the membership registration page.
You can select your preferred payment gateways and also configure other basic settings as your preference.
Once done, hit the ‘Save’ button. On doing so, you’ll get the Shortcode at the top right corner, hold onto it.
Further, you can create a new page via ‘Pages > Add New’ and paste the shortcode there, and publish it.
Further, you can go to the ‘General Settings’ menu, under which there are more configurations that you can do for ‘General Options’.
There are configuration options for user avatars, hiding pages, locking shared accounts, currency type, etc. Also, you can set the ‘Payment Gateways’ and other currency options.
Once, done, don’t forget to hit the ‘Save’ button at the right-down corner.
In the same way, you can configure other sub-menus like default restriction rules, security options, import/export, etc.
Want more detailed guidance? Then, please check our complete ARMember review and guide. Also, you can check out their official documentation and video tutorial guides.
Pricing:
ARMember plugin is available free of cost at the official WordPress plugin directory. Hence, you can install the plugin directly right from your dashboard.
But it also has limited features on its free version. For the full set of features, you should purchase its paid version which is available at CodeCanyon.net for $69 which includes 6 months of support. Further, you can extend the support at $24 to another 6 months.
3. Paid Member Subscriptions
With 10,000+ active installations, Paid Member Subscriptions is one of the best free WordPress membership plugins. It’s a lightweight yet flexible plugin that gives you access to a good amount of functionality. Such as accepting member payments, managing members, creating subscription plans, and more.
This plugin lets you restrict entire posts, pages, custom post types, or just portions of them. You can restrict access to premium content that allows only paying users to view it. Also, it provides discount codes for running promotions or rewarding your members for upgrading their membership level.
Key Features:
- It perfectly integrates with WooCommerce and allows you to create a member-only store.
- You can easily add or edit members or edit their subscription details.
- Allows you to create an unlimited number of hierarchical subscription plans. Example: Free, Silver, Gold.
- It restricts access to content based on a user’s membership level.
- Also, it creates front-end member registration and login forms.
How to Get Started With Paid Member Subscriptions?
As soon as you install and activate the Paid Member Subscriptions, then you’ll see the new ‘Paid Member Subscriptions’ menu has been added to the dashboard. Also, you’ll see the ‘Setup Wizard’ page.
You can simply enable the given options to create several membership pages and click on the ‘Continue’ option. Alternatively, you can also click on the ‘Skip Setup’ option if you want to configure these later.
Here, let’s click ‘Continue’ and then you’ll land up to the design and user experience settings page. Now, all you’ve to do is enable the available settings as per your choice and hit ‘Continue’.
Following that, you can configure several payment settings by connecting to your preferred gateway and click on the ‘Continue’.
Next, you’re asked to enable several addons which are available only in the premium version. If you want, then you can upgrade to the premium version. If not, then you can leave it as default and click on the ‘Continue’ option.
Last but not least, click on the ‘Continue to Your Membership Dashboard’ option to proceed forward.
With that, you’ll land back on the WordPress dashboard. Here, you can click ‘Create a subscription plan and start registering new members’ to create subscription plans.
On doing so, you’ll see the page as shown below, click on the ‘Add New’ button on the top.
Now, you can add your new subscription by specifying the asked details and clicking on the ‘Save Subscription’ button.
In the same way, you can add other subscription plans and come back to the main dashboard as before. Here, click on the ‘Restrict your content based on the newly created subscription plans’.
Alternatively, you can also go to the ‘Settings > Content Restriction’ tab. Whichever way, you’ll land up to the same panel as shown below.
Then, restrict the content exactly the way you want and click on the ‘Save Settings’ option.
Last but not least, go to the ‘Subscription Plans’ and click on the ‘Create Pricing Page’ option.
Then, choose your subscription plans and select your style, and hit the ‘Submit’ button.
Following that, you’ll land up to the page editor as shown below. Here, you can make further changes if you like or leave it as default and click on the ‘Save’ button on the top right corner.
For comprehensive guidance, you can check their official documentation, which offers in-depth tutorials and detailed instructions.
Pricing:
Similar to the other plugins above, Paid Member Subscriptions is also a freemium plugin. You can get the free version of the plugin at the WordPress.org plugin directory.
If you want more powerful features, then you can purchase its paid plans. Starting from €99 per year for 1 website. With that, you get 7 advanced addons, payments management, navigation menu filtering, and other features.
4. Restrict Content
Restrict Content is another easy-to-use WordPress membership plugin. It’s a free plugin that lets you restrict access based on user role. It makes sure that your posts and pages are only viewable for logged-in members only. Besides, it comes with all the features that you’d need to get started on your membership website.
Using it, you protect sensitive content, control user access, collect emails, restrict access to entire pages or septic sections, and more. It even restricts access to images and other media files that are embedded within a post or page. However, it doesn’t protect the original file URL on the server.
Key Features:
- It limits access to full content via a simple interface on the post, page, and custom post-type editing screens.
- Use shortcodes to limit access to the content.
- It displays a registration form for new accounts on any page of your website.
- Also, you can optionally hide content in RSS feeds.
Pricing:
Restrict Content is a free and premium plugin. You can download the free version from WordPress.org or its official website.
For more features, you can upgrade to the premium plan. With that, you can get 34 Pro addons as well as dedicated support and free updates.
Its paid plans start from $99/year. It contains 34 Pro Addons and support and updates for 1 website.
5. ProfilePress
ProfilePress is an excellent WordPress membership plugin powering hundreds of thousands of online membership sites. It allows you to build membership sites quickly, sell digital products, and control access to your content.
With this plugin, you can easily restrict access to exclusive, member-only content, ensuring that only subscribed users can view premium materials. It allows you to create unlimited membership levels with customizable features. You can also set flexible pricing plans to suit various membership tiers, making it simple to offer free, one-time, or recurring payment options.
Additionally, the plugin enables seamless user registration and secure payment processing. It supports major payment gateways, including Stripe, PayPal, Razorpay, Paystack, and Mollie, allowing you to accept payments from customers worldwide without hassle.
Key Features:
- You can restrict access to specific content, such as pages, posts, categories, tags, custom post types, etc.
- Accept one-time and recurring subscription payments through major gateways.
- Create and manage discount codes and promotional offers to attract and retain members.
- Metered Paywall – Allow visitors limited access to premium content.
- Build searchable member directories with advanced filtering to help users connect with others.
- Social login options for quick sign-ups and enable passwordless login for easier access.
- User Approval Control: Manually approve or reject new users before granting account access.
- Insightful reporting and analytics to monitor eCommerce performance.
- Collect additional user information with built-in custom fields beyond standard profile data.
Pricing:
ProfilePress is a freemium plugin that can easily installed directly from your WordPress dashboard or downloaded from the official website.
The free version provides essential features to help you add membership forms and start selling subscriptions on your site. However, an extra 2% fee is charged for all transactions processed in the free version. To avoid this fee and gain access to additional advanced features, upgrading to the premium version of ProfilePress is highly recommended.
The premium version offers three pricing plans:
- Standard: $129 per year for a single website. Eliminates the 2% Stripe fee and integrates with Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor, and LMS plugins like LearnDash and LifterLMS.
- Plus: $299 per year for up to 3 websites. Perfect for those who plan to offer memberships across multiple sites. Integrates with WooCommerce.
- Agency: $499 annually. It is perfect for freelancers, WordPress development agencies, or anyone managing multiple client websites.
6. WP-Members
The WP-Members membership plugin is the best free WordPress membership plugin that you can use to restrict content. With 80,000+ active installations, it’s the easiest to use and the most powerful when it comes to features. With this, you can restrict premium content, create custom registration fields, and more.
WP-Members also allows you to restrict content either by restricting content as restricted or hidden, limiting access to registered users. At the same time, it’s simple to install and configure, yet highly scalable.
Key Features:
- You can use it to restrict or hide posts, pages, and custom page types.
- It notifies the admin whenever the new user registration is made.
- Every new registration is kept on hold unless the admin approves it.
- It limits the menu item to logged-in users.
- Also, creates custom registration and profile fields.
Pricing:
WP-Members is a completely free-of-cost plugin. You can download the plugin from the WordPress plugin repository.
Also, it has a set of premium extensions like Download Protect, Invite Codes, Mailchimp Integration, etc. If you want to use them, then need to purchase them for about $49 each. Or you can buy the Pro Bundle for $125.
7. Simple Membership
As the name suggests, Simple Membership is an extremely simple yet powerful WordPress membership plugin.
It lets you protect your posts and pages so that only your members can view the protected content. You can create unlimited membership levels and protect your content using the membership levels that you’ve created.
This plugin will provide a user-friendly interface that protects the selected post or page for your member. Likewise, the non-member will need to log in or become a member for viewing that protected page.
Key Features:
- You can easily add a member login widget on the sidebar of your website.
- For developers, it offers lots of action and filter hooks that let you customize the plugin.
- It keeps payment logs of all the payments that are made by your members.
- It makes sure that the login and registration widgets are responsive if you use a responsive theme.
- Also, it has an option to automatically log out the members when they close their web browser.
Pricing:
Simple Membership is a free plugin available on the official WordPress plugin directory. So, you can directly install it to your site from the dashboard.
Like other plugins, it also has paid extensions. You can buy the required extensions for about $69 each.
8. Restrict User Access
Restrict User Access is yet another free WordPress membership plugin. You can restrict your content to control what your users get access to or drip content over time. It allows you to create an unlimited number of access levels and override user role capabilities.
Furthermore, it helps you quickly let you set up a membership website where your users can get different levels. Indeed it comes with built-in lockout prevention that prevents admin from lockout. Also, you can restrict unauthorized users to a page or custom pages.
Key Features:
- Easy to use and doesn’t require any coding.
- You can conditionally restrict all your posts, pages, categories, or any content you want.
- It supports custom post types and taxonomies.
- Also, provides built-in support for the most popular WordPress plugins.
Pricing:
Restrict User Access is a fully free plugin. Easily download it from WordPress.org or directly install it to your site.
However, this plugin offers a few paid addons that cost about $39 each for more enhanced functionality.
9. s2Member
Developed by WP Sharks, s2Member is a powerful free membership plugin. It lets you protect your WordPress content and also users get a secure checkout solution to get access.
Similarly, you can use it to protect the whole website, certain areas, or even just parts of pages. It offers free subscriptions and synchronizes user roles with the new membership system. Also, you can customize the content restrictions using simple shortcode conditionals.
Key Features:
- It’s easy to configure and highly extensible.
- It protects downloadable files and streaming audio/video.
- You can configure specific portions of your content with levels or access capabilities.
- It lets you sell specific posts/pages file downloads or access capabilities.
- Also, it properly integrates with PayPal’s website payment standard.
Pricing:
S2Member Framework is totally free plugin. Get it from WordPress.org or its official website.
Want more powerful features? You can upgrade to its Pro version for $89 as a one-time payment for a single site license from its pricing page. With that, you get pro features like one-step registration, coupon codes, gift/redemption codes, etc.
10. Ultimate Member
Ultimate Member is one of the best WordPress plugins for user registration as well as a membership site.
It includes a wider range of features including member directories, user login, user role editing, and content restriction. It even has over 200,000 websites that use it to power its online community and membership websites.
Ultimate Member lets you create a login form effortlessly from the front end of their website. It automatically creates triple anti-spam protection including hidden honey-point field and WordPress nonce. Also, its powerful drag-and-drop form builder lets you reorder any elements of the form.
Key Features:
- It allows users to easily register and become members all from the front-end of their website.
- Users can fully customize their profile in a unique look by changing the cover photo aspects, profile photo shape, and more.
- You can generate permission for a user based on role to edit or delete their profiles.
- It allows you to find each other with ease using their advanced member directories.
- Also, you can add email tags to the email templates for personalizing the emails.
Pricing:
Download its free version from the WordPress.org plugins page or its official website.
It offers paid plans starting from $249/year for unlimited site licenses. It’s called Extensions Pass which includes 20 premium extensions for the plugin along with different integrations.
11. LMS by LifterLMS
If you’re looking for a powerful WordPress online course, membership, and learning management system, then LifterLMS is the one for you.
It lets you build, sell, and protect engaging online courses and training-based membership websites. As it’s an all-in-one affordable LMS plugin that works with all the WordPress themes and page builders.
Likewise, you can easily make money online by building a strong income-generating teaching business or membership website. It allows you to restrict access to certain posts, courses, pages, and more with membership lockdown options.
Key Features:
- You can easily create online courses with its multi-tier drag-and-drop course builder.
- You can protect your learner focus by creating lessons available over time.
- With one-click export, you can easily download all the courses from the website.
- It allows you to boost your course sales by making payment plan options.
Pricing:
It’s available for free download on the WordPress.org plugin repository.
But if you want more additional features, then you can purchase its premium version which starts at $149.50 per year for a single site. With that, you get eCommerce addons for Stripe, PayPal, and WooCommerce along with 1 year of premium support.
12. Members
Members are a well-known WordPress membership and user role editor plugin from MemberPress. With over 200,000 active installations, it gives you the ultimate member experience by providing you with powerful tools to add roles and capabilities.
It allows you to set permissions to restrict content on your site. Best of all, it provides a simple UI for WordPress’s powerful roles and capabilities. You can protect content to determine which users’ roles have access to post content. Also, it lets you make your website completely private if you want.
Key Features:
- It allows you to create, edit, and delete roles along with capabilities for these roles.
- You can deny specific capabilities to specific user roles.
- It seamlessly integrates with MemberPress.
- Use shortcodes to control who has access to content.
- Also, you can build a new role by cloning an existing one.
Pricing:
It’s a fully and forever free-of-cost plugin. You can download it from WordPress.org without paying a single penny.
However, you can purchase the premium plugin called MemberPress by the same company which starts at the cost of $179.50/year. You can check out our article on MemberPress review to know more about the plugin.
Check out our comprehensive article on how to create a membership website for more guidance. Also, explore the best membership ideas that make you money.
Conclusion
That’s about it. These are some lists of the best free WordPress membership plugins for your website. We hope that you’ll agree with our list of the best free WordPress membership plugins.
Lastly, we would like to recommend our favorite WordPress membership plugins i.e. Paid Memberships Pro. Because it’s extremely popular and it’s super easy-to-use and beginner-friendly at the same time.
If you’ve any further queries about the WordPress membership plugins for the website, then please leave a comment below. We’ll try to get back to you as soon as possible.
You may want to take a look at our best WordPress themes for membership sites and the types of membership sites you can start today.
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