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Membership

:::info Built, arriving with the next release Everything on this page is built and arrives with the next release: the Membership app, plans, members, access rules with the one access engine behind them, sign-up forms with email confirmation and approval, the login and account pages, member emails, profile fields, a REST API and AI Assistant tools; selling plans by card, PayPal or bank transfer, with coupons, tax, invoices, gifts and upgrades and downgrades members make themselves; the connection to the CRM, where members are contacts, plans are tags and access rules can use CRM tags, lists and segments; drip content, a metered paywall, protected downloads and selling single items; everything for keeping members; team memberships, a member directory and membership cards; the WooCommerce connection; reports; account security, importers, a scheduler check and command-line tools; and courses with progress, quizzes and certificates. The roadmap tracks each task against the code. The design comes from a study of the leading membership plugins and platforms, summarised under Research. :::

Start here​

New to Membership? The beginner guide walks you through every screen, step by step:

The rest of this page is a quick overview of everything Membership does.

Finding your way around​

Open Unyson+ → Membership and it takes over the screen like an app of its own, the same way the CRM does:

  • The Membership sidebar lists every area: Home, Members, Plans and Access rules; Payments and Coupons; Reports; Emails, Modules and Settings. Payments, Coupons and Reports carry an Off badge while their module is switched off, and their page says what they do, with an Open Modules button; the other modules add their own items when you switch them on.
  • The WordPress menu folds to its icons while you are in Membership. Hide the WordPress menu at the bottom of the sidebar removes it altogether (your choice is remembered), and Back to WordPress takes you to the dashboard. With the CRM on, Open the CRM is there too.
  • The top bar searches members by name or email (press / to jump to it) and has a New menu for a member or a plan.
  • Home shows members with access, active, cancelled and ended memberships, members by plan, recent changes and who is ending in the next two weeks. A fresh install shows the first three steps instead.
  • A plan's page holds its name, prices (several per plan, such as monthly and yearly), how long it lasts (until cancelled, a set time, or until a date), what other plan it includes, its priority and a member limit. A plan with members is archived rather than deleted.
  • A member's page shows each membership with its status, dates and source, with Extend, Change plan, Cancel at end date, End now and Reactivate, a form to add another plan, and the history of every change and who made it.
  • Access rules each say what is protected (the entire site, all items of a type, a single page or post, the pages under a page, a category or tag, a post type archive, or addresses such as /members/*, with "Except" lines for exceptions), who may see it (plans, roles, or anyone logged in) and what everyone else sees: a teaser and a prompt to log in or join (its Join button goes to the Join page set in Settings), a trip to the login page, another page, or "page not found". Every rule that covers a page must be passed.
  • Modules lists every switchable module with a switch for each.

Sign-ups, logins and the member area​

  • Sign-up forms are ordinary contact forms. Switch on Register a member in the form's Settings → Actions and choose the plan it gives (usually a free one). The form needs an Email field; add the Username and Password fields from the form builder if people should choose them, otherwise the username comes from the email and they get an email to set a password. The password is never stored with the form entry, never in the notification email and never shown again.
  • Email confirmation (on by default) sends a link that works once and for a limited time; opening it shows a button that confirms, so mail scanners that open every link cannot confirm for someone. Until then the person cannot log in and the plan has not started.
  • Approval: a form can also make each sign-up wait for you. You get an email; approve them on their member page, and they are emailed back.
  • If something is wrong (the email already has an account, the plan is full) the visitor sees the message on the form and nothing is sent or stored.
  • Member Login element: a login form in your site's style, with "forgot your password" and a sign-up link. Logging in goes through WordPress's own login, so the Security extension's login protection and two-factor login always apply. Members land where their plan says, or on their account page, never in wp-admin.
  • Member Account element: the member's details (changing the email needs their password), their memberships with their dates and Cancel (access continues to the end date; you can switch cancelling off), changing the password, and signing out of other devices.
  • Member emails under Membership → Emails: confirm your email, welcome, waiting for approval, a sign-up to approve (to you), approved, cancelled and ended. Each is editable with placeholders such as {first_name} and {plan}, can be switched off, and can be sent to yourself as a test.
  • Settings: the account, login and join pages, where people land after confirming, how long links work, who hears about sign-ups to approve, whether members may cancel, and the button classes Membership uses so its buttons match your Theme Settings button presets. Membership data is included in WordPress's personal-data export and erase tools.

Selling plans​

Switch on Payments in Membership → Modules, then open Membership → Payments → Payment settings.

  • Two pages do the selling. Put the Pricing Plans element on one page: it shows your plans as cards, with a Monthly / Yearly switch when plans have both, a highlighted plan, and "Your plan" on the ones the visitor already holds. Put the Membership Checkout element on another page and choose that page as the Checkout page in the payment settings. Each plan's Join button goes to the checkout with that plan and price.
  • The checkout shows the plan, its price, any free trial and setup fee, and asks a new buyer for their name, email and a password, so the account is made in the same step. Someone whose email already has an account is asked to log in first, never attached to that account. Add a Terms page in the settings and buyers must tick that they accept it. A free plan skips payment altogether.
  • Card payments (Stripe). Paste your Stripe secret key and a webhook signing secret (the settings show the address to give Stripe and the events to choose). The buyer pays on Stripe's own checkout page, so card details never touch your site, and cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay all work there. Prices that repeat become Stripe subscriptions: Stripe bills each renewal, and the membership follows. A paid renewal pushes the end date out, a failed one makes the membership Past due while Stripe retries (access continues for 3 days after the paid period), and a cancellation in Stripe ends it at the period end. Test mode uses your test keys and no real money moves. Unyson+ takes no fee.
  • PayPal. Paste the Client ID and Secret of a PayPal app, and the ID of a webhook pointed at the address the settings show. One-off prices are paid as PayPal orders; repeating prices become PayPal subscriptions, with trials, setup fees, tax and discounts built in. PayPal cannot move a subscription to another plan without the buyer approving it again, so members who pay with PayPal change plan by cancelling and joining the new one.
  • Bank transfer or cash. Write your payment instructions (use {reference} for the payment's reference). The buyer sees them after checkout, the membership waits, and you start it with Mark paid on the Payments screen. Bank transfer is offered for one-off prices only, since nothing renews by itself.
  • Coupons (switch on the Coupons module): a percentage or an amount off the first payment, the first few months or every payment, for chosen plans, with a total limit, a limit per person and start and end dates. Make many codes creates single-use codes in one go and downloads them as a CSV. Buyers type a code at the checkout, or follow a link ending in ?coupon=CODE (to the pricing page or the checkout). With Stripe, the discount is applied by Stripe itself, so renewals are discounted for exactly the right months.
  • Tax (switch on the Tax module; its settings are in Payment settings): your own rates by country, and by state or region where it matters, with prices that include tax or have it added. The checkout asks for the country first and shows the exact total, tax and discount included, before anything else. Turn on EU VAT numbers and a business in another EU country that gives a valid VAT number (checked with the EU's VIES service) pays no VAT, marked as reverse charge. If you use Stripe Tax, choose it instead and Stripe works out the tax on its payment page.
  • Invoices. Every paid payment gets the next number in one unbroken sequence, with your prefix, business name, address and tax number (Payment settings → Invoices). Members open their invoices from their account page and the receipt email, and can print them or save them as PDF.
  • Members change plan themselves. On a plan's page, tick the plans its members may move to under Members can switch to. Their account page then shows Change plan with each choice and what will happen. A move to a dearer plan happens at once: the difference for the rest of the period is charged now, or the new price starts at the next renewal if you prefer (Payment settings → When a member upgrades). A move to a cheaper or free plan takes effect at the next renewal, so nobody loses time they paid for, and until then the member can choose Keep my current plan. A member without a subscription (added by hand, or on a one-off price) moves to a paid plan through the checkout, and their old membership ends once the new one is paid. On the Pricing Plans element those plans say Change plan rather than selling a second membership.
  • Membership → Payments lists every payment, renewal and refund with its status and reference, and what was taken in the last 30 days. Refund refunds a card or PayPal payment through the payment service, and Mark refunded records a bank transfer you have paid back yourself; refunding a first payment ends the membership.
  • For members, the account page lists their payments and has an Update your payment method button that opens Stripe's billing page, where they can change their card or see their invoices. A receipt is emailed after each payment, and a "payment failed" email when a renewal does not go through. Both are editable under Emails.
  • Developers can add another payment method with the unysonplus_membership_gateways filter, and change the Stripe checkout (for example to allow promotion codes) with unysonplus_membership_stripe_session.

Drip, free reads, downloads and single items​

Each of these is a module you switch on under Membership → Modules.

  • Drip content. On an access rule, Opens after (days) releases it that many days after the person joined, and Opens on (date) releases it on a date. Until then, members who would otherwise see it get "This opens for you in 3 days", their account page lists what is Coming up for you, and they get an email the day it opens. For a course-like sequence, give each lesson its own rule: 0, 7, 14 days.
  • Metered paywall. Tick Free reads on a rule and people without access can read a few of those items each month (or week, or day) before the prompt appears: visitors a few, and people with a free account more, which turns it into a registration wall (Membership → Settings → Metered paywall). Each item counts once, and a short note says how many free articles are left. Visitors are counted in their browser, so clearing cookies resets it, as with any metered paywall.
  • Protected downloads. Upload files under Membership → Downloads and choose who may download them (plans, any member, anyone logged in) and how many times a month. Files are kept in a folder with a random name that the web server refuses to serve, under random file names, so there is no address to guess or share; every download goes through an access check and is logged. Put a file on a page with the Member Download element. On Nginx, the random names are the protection; add a deny rule for the folder if you want belt and braces.
  • Selling one item. The Sell on its own box on any post or page (and the price field on a protected file) sells that one item through the same checkout, for ever or for a number of days. People who are not allowed to see it get a Buy this for $5 button on the prompt, and buyers can open it even when it is also part of a plan they do not hold. Coupons, tax, invoices and every payment method work as for plans.

Keeping members​

Switch on Retention under Membership → Modules; its options are under Membership → Settings → Keeping members, and Membership → Retention shows why people leave and what kept them.

  • When a renewal payment fails, the member keeps access for a few days while the payment service tries again, gets emails on the days you choose, and every email has a one-click link to update the card (it does not log anyone in by itself: whoever opens it logs in as themselves first). Members whose card expires before their next renewal get a warning (card payments).
  • Pause instead of cancel. Members can pause for one to three months (or up to your limit). Nothing is charged and there is no access meanwhile; it starts again by itself on the day, or earlier with Resume now. A membership without a subscription gets the paused time added to its end date.
  • Before someone cancels, they are asked why (your list of reasons) and offered one thing: a discount for the next few months (card payments), a pause, or a cheaper plan. Cancel anyway is always one click away.
  • Reminders go out a few days before a renewal, before a free trial ends, and before a membership that will not renew ends (with a link to renew). A while after a membership ends, a win-back email can offer a one-time discount code for their old plan (with the Coupons module).

Gift memberships​

Switch on Gift memberships (with Payments). The Pricing Plans element then shows Give as a gift (its Gift link text) under each paid plan. A gift code typed into the checkout's Have a code? box opens that gift. The buyer gives the recipient's name and email and a message, and pays once: a monthly plan is given as one month, and nothing renews. When the payment arrives, the recipient gets an email with a link to start their membership, into a new account or the one they have (if they already hold that plan, it is extended). Membership → Gifts lists every gift, with Send again and Cancel.

Teams, the directory and cards​

  • Team memberships (Groups and teams module). Give a plan Team seats (Plans → the plan → Options) and whoever holds it can bring that many people in besides themselves: by email invitation, by a join link they share, or automatically for everyone with an email at their organisation's domain. Each team member has the same plan as the owner and it follows the owner's: renewed, paused, cancelled or ended together. The owner manages the team on their account page (invite, withdraw an invitation, remove someone, which frees the seat at once); members can leave. Membership → Groups lists every team and lets you change its seats.
  • Member directory (Member directory module). Put the Member Directory element on a page: a searchable, filterable grid of members, each with a profile page. By default only members who tick Show me in the member directory on their account page are listed, and you choose whether members only or everyone can browse. Each profile field has its own In the directory setting (not shown, members, everyone): name and picture are always shown, the email address never is, and fields a visitor may not see cannot be searched or filtered either.
  • Membership cards (Membership cards module). Members find their card on their account page and can open it full screen to show at the door, or print it. Scanning its QR code with any phone shows "Valid membership" or "Not valid"; staff who are logged in also see who it is and can Check in the member, which is noted in their history.

WooCommerce​

With WooCommerce active, switch on the WooCommerce module.

  • Products that give a plan. On a product's Membership tab, choose the plan buying it gives. The plan starts as soon as the order is paid, and ends if the order is refunded or cancelled; buying it again extends it. A guest buyer gets an account made from their billing email. With WooCommerce's subscriptions add-on, a subscription product's plan follows the subscription: on hold, cancelled and expired are all reflected.
  • Member perks. On a plan's page (Options), give members a store discount (on everything, or on chosen product categories) and free shipping. Members see a member price against the normal one; the best discount of the plans they hold applies, and a sale that is already cheaper wins.
  • Members-only products. On the product's Membership tab, tick the plans whose members may buy it; everyone else sees "For members of …" instead of the Add to cart button. To hide products from non-members entirely, use an access rule on them like on any other content.

Reports​

Switch on Reports, then open Membership → Reports. Everything is worked out from the memberships, their history and the payments, so the past months are filled in straight away:

  • Monthly recurring revenue now and by plan (a yearly price counts as a twelfth each month; trials and one-off prices do not count), with a chart of the last 12 months.
  • Month by month: members at the start, new members, upgrades and downgrades, members lost, churn, failed and recovered payments, and revenue.
  • Lifetime value (paid, minus refunds, per paying member), trial conversion, and the share of failed payments that were recovered.
  • Cohorts: of the people who joined in each month, the share still members one, two, three… months later; and the share still members by how they came (paid sign-up, free sign-up, gift, team seat, store order…).
  • Most-read members-only content: counted each time a member opens a protected page or post, per item and month, with no record of who.

Download as CSV exports two years month by month. Amounts stay in their own currency.

Account security and running the site​

  • Devices at once (Account security module). A plan can allow, say, two devices signed in at a time; logging in on a third signs out the one used least recently. It discourages sharing an account without getting in anyone's way, and members see where they are signed in on their account page.
  • Login links. Under every Membership login form, Email me a login link instead sends a link that works once, for 15 minutes. Opening it shows a Log me in button, so email scanners that open every link cannot use it up, and asking for one never reveals whether an address has an account.
  • Passkeys. Members add a passkey (their fingerprint, face or device PIN) on their account page, then use Log in with a passkey on any login form, including the WordPress one. A passkey is already two factors in one, so it is not asked for a second step.
  • The log. Each member's page shows their logins (and how), wrong passwords, pages they were turned away from and plan changes, and how many places the account was used from in the last 30 days, a hint that an account is being shared. Addresses are only kept as a scrambled fingerprint, and entries go after 90 days.
  • Importers. Membership → Import reads a CSV file (any columns: you match them, with a dry run first). Include each member's payment-service subscription ID and their renewals keep arriving as before. It can also give a plan to everyone with a WordPress role, or with a value in a user field, for sites where members used to be stored that way. Running the same import again changes nothing.
  • Exporting. Members → Export CSV downloads the memberships the list is showing (its status, plan and search filters apply), one row per membership. The first columns are exactly the ones the importer reads, so a file exported from one site imports into another with subscriptions still linked; the columns after them (ids, names, source, trial and cancel dates) are for reading. Cells that a spreadsheet would run as formulas are made safe. It works whether or not the Importers module is on.
  • Scheduled jobs. Membership → Home shows whether the jobs that end memberships, send drip emails and reminders run on time, and if not, the line to add to your server's scheduler. Site Health checks it too.
  • Command line. With WP-CLI: wp membership list, export, plans, grant, extend, expire, and reconcile, which checks every subscription with its payment service and fixes any that drifted.

Courses​

Switch on Courses and two new screens appear under Courses in the WordPress menu: courses and lessons. A course is protected content with an order and a progress record, on the same access engine as everything else, so there is no second membership system to learn.

  • Who may take it. On each course choose the plans that include it, any logged-in member, or open to everyone. Membership keeps an access rule named after the course in step with that choice, so the lessons are protected and the course page itself stays open, as the place where people join. Sell the course on its own (Pay per item) and buyers get in too.
  • Lessons. Each lesson belongs to a course, has a module name (lessons with the same one are grouped) and a place in the order. A lesson can open a set number of days after the student starts the course.
  • Progress. Students press Complete and continue, see a progress bar and ticks in the outline, and the course page offers Resume the course where they left off. Their courses, with progress, appear on the account page. The Course Outline element shows a course's outline anywhere in the builder.
  • Quizzes. Write a quiz on the lesson in plain text: a line starting Q: is a question, * marks a right answer and - a wrong one (two or more * make it tick all that apply), and = gives a typed answer, matched without caring about capitals or spaces. Set a pass mark (70% by default) and, if you like, require the quiz to be passed before the next lesson opens. Students see which questions they got wrong and can try again.
  • Certificates. Tick Give a certificate when the course is completed on the course and students get one, by email too, when every lesson is complete. Use the built-in design, or design a page in the builder with {name}, {course}, {date}, {code} and {verify_url}, which are filled in for each student. The certificate link shows that it is genuine to anyone who opens it, and it prints cleanly or saves as PDF from the browser's print dialog.
Q: Which of these are payment methods?
* Card
* Bank transfer
- Telepathy

Q: Type the word that means content released over time.
= drip

Profile fields, the API and AI​

  • Profile fields (Membership → Profile fields): extra details to keep about members, such as a company, a phone number or a birthday. Each is text, longer text, a choice, a tick box, a date, a number, a phone number or a web address; it can be required, limited to some plans, and editable by members or only by you. Members fill them in on their account page, a sign-up form fills one when it has a field with the same label, and you see and edit them on the member's page. They are part of the personal-data export and erase.
  • REST API at /wp-json/fw-membership/v1/: the open plans with their prices (/plans), whether the current visitor may see an item (/access?post=ID) and the member's own memberships (/me), all useful for pricing tables and headless front ends; and, for membership managers, members, granting and changing memberships, and the access rules. Every change goes through the same rules as the app, so the history and emails stay whole.
  • AI Assistant: a connected AI app can describe your membership set-up and create or change plans, access rules and settings. It never reads a member's details.

Protecting content​

  • A rule under Membership → Access rules protects many things at once.

  • One item: the Membership box in the editor sets a page or post to Members only (any plan or chosen plans), Open to everyone whatever the rules say, or Follow the access rules, and lists the rules that cover it now.

  • Part of a page: every page-builder element, section and column has a Membership tab (next to Advanced, present while the extension is on): show it to everyone, members, people without a plan, members of chosen plans, everyone except them, or logged-in or logged-out people, and choose what everyone else gets in its place: nothing, or the members prompt. The Paywall Prompt element is that prompt to place yourself.

  • Blocks: WordPress's own blocks get the same Membership panel in the block sidebar, for content written in the block editor.

  • Anywhere else (the classic editor, text widgets, other builders): the [member_content] shortcode.

    [member_content]Members of any plan see this.[/member_content]
    [member_content plans="gold,silver"]Gold or Silver members see this.[/member_content]
    [member_content show="non_members"]Join today![/member_content]
    [member_content plans="gold" prompt="yes"]Others see the members prompt instead.[/member_content]
    [member_content plans="gold" else="Upgrade to Gold to read this."]…[/member_content]

  • Menus: each menu item has the same Show to choice; a hidden item takes its sub-items with it.

  • Check it: on the site, View as in the admin bar previews any page as a logged-out visitor, a logged-in user without a plan, or a member of any plan. Administrators otherwise see everything.

Protection holds wherever the content could surface: archives, search, RSS feeds, the REST API, comments, the XML sitemap, attachments, and the description and social tags the SEO extension writes. Protected pages are sent with no-cache headers so a page cache never shows one person's view to another. A plan can also give a WordPress role while it lasts, applied on the fly; roles that can manage the site are never offered.

Membership turns a Unyson+ site into a members site: free and paid plans, content that opens only to the right people, a member area designed in the page builder like any other page, and payments taken with your own payment accounts. With the CRM switched on, every member is also a contact, and access can follow the CRM's tags, lists and segments (how they connect).

The idea in one paragraph​

Most membership plugins are a pile of separate features that each check access in their own way, and the gaps between them are where content leaks and settings conflict. Membership is built the other way round: one access engine answers "may this person see this?" and everything else asks it, whether that is a page, an archive, a search result, the REST API, a page-builder element, a menu item, a file or a course lesson. Plans, payments, drip, groups and courses are modules on top of that one engine, and any module you don't need is switched off and loads no code.

What every site gets (the core)​

These are always on when the extension is active. They are what a membership site cannot do without, and none of them is held back for a higher tier.

AreaWhat it does
PlansUnlimited plans, each with any number of prices (free, one-time, monthly, yearly, custom interval, fixed-date renewal, lifetime), trials, setup fees, expiry, sign-up limits, a priority when someone holds several, and inheritance (a higher plan includes what lower ones unlock)
Membership recordsA real record per person and plan, with a status (trialing, active, past due, paused, cancelled, expired), dates, the source that granted it and a full history; several plans per person
Access rulesWhat is protected (the entire site, post types, single items, categories and tags, archives, child pages, URL patterns), who may see it (plans any / all / none, logged-in state, roles) and when (now, after N days, from a date). A default per post type, with a protect / open / hide override on any single post
Leak-proof gatingProtection applies to archives, search, feeds, the REST API, comments, sitemaps and attachments, not only the single page
What non-members seeOne clear fallback per rule: a teaser with an upgrade prompt, a login form, the pricing table, a redirect or "not found"; a Paywall prompt element to design the upgrade box
Element and menu visibilityA Membership tab on every page-builder element, section and column, the same panel on block-editor blocks, a [member_content] shortcode, and the same choice on every menu item
AccountsRegistration through the Forms extension (a Register member action, plus username and password fields), login, logout, password reset, optional email verification and approval
Member areaMember login, Member account and Paywall prompt elements, styled by your theme: profile, memberships, payments, invoices, payment method and security in one place
Member emailsEvery lifecycle email (welcome, receipt, reminder, payment failed, cancelled, expired) editable with placeholders, sent through wp_mail() so your mail settings apply
Membership app in wp-adminHome, Members, Plans, Access rules, Payments, Reports, Emails, Modules and Settings; grant, extend, change or revoke by hand; a "view as member of…" preview
Safe by defaultAdmins always have access, a rescue link restores a locked-out admin, protected pages are never served from a page cache to the wrong person, and switching the extension off changes no roles
Privacy and developersPersonal-data export and erasure, documented events for every status change, a PHP API (fw_membership()), REST endpoints and AI Assistant tools

What you switch on when you need it (modules)​

Every module is one switch on the Modules screen. A module that is off loads no code and adds no menus, so a simple members area stays as light as a simple members area should be.

ModuleSwitch it on for
PaymentsSelling plans with your own payment accounts: cards and wallets, PayPal, bank transfer; subscriptions billed by the payment service; a one-page checkout and a pricing table element; upgrades and downgrades with proration; receipts and invoices. No transaction fee from Unyson+
CouponsPercentage or fixed discounts, first payment or forever, with limits, expiry and bulk codes
TaxRates by country and region, EU VAT with number validation and reverse charge, or automatic tax by the payment service
CRMTurns on by itself when the CRM is active: members become contacts, plans mirror to tags, access rules use CRM conditions, membership events drive automations (details)
DripContent that opens N days after joining, on a date, or in sequence, with an email when it opens
Metered paywallA few free articles per period, then a free registration wall or a subscription
Protected downloadsFiles served only through an access check, with limits and a log
Pay per itemSelling one post, page or file without a plan
RetentionFailed-payment recovery with retries and card-update links, pause instead of cancel, a cancellation survey with a save offer, reminders and win-back coupons
GiftsBuy a plan for someone else, redeemed by code or link
GroupsTeam and company plans: one buyer, N seats, invitations by email, link or domain, and a team page
DirectoryA searchable member directory and public profiles, with privacy per field
Membership cardsPrintable or digital cards with a QR code for check-in
WooCommerceProducts that grant plans, member prices and free shipping, members-only products, store subscriptions as the billing source
ReportsMonthly recurring revenue, churn, lifetime value, trial conversion, recovered payments, cohorts
Account securityLimits on simultaneous sessions, one-click login links that are signed and single-use, passkeys, and a login and access log
ImportersMembers, plans and live subscriptions from a CSV file (such as an export from another membership plugin), or from a WordPress role or user field, keeping renewals running
CoursesCourses with lessons in modules, progress and resume, quizzes that can gate the next lesson, and verifiable certificates, on the same access engine

How it fits with the rest of Unyson+​

  • CRM. Optional but made for each other: one person, one contact; plans mirrored to tags; CRM conditions in access rules; membership events on the timeline and in automations. See Membership and the CRM.
  • Forms. Registration is a Forms action, so a sign-up form is built, styled and extended like any other form, and can also run the CRM's action in the same submission.
  • Page builder. The member area, pricing tables, checkout and paywall prompts are elements, and every existing element gains members-only visibility.
  • Theme Builder. Access rules use the same "where" vocabulary as Theme Builder templates, so one way of picking pages runs through the whole product.
  • Security. Login throttling and two-factor login come from the Security extension; Membership adds session limits and passkeys on top.
  • WooCommerce. An optional module, for stores that want products to grant plans; Membership's own checkout does not need it.

Design decisions​

  • One access engine, everywhere. Every gate asks the same resolver, so a rule means the same thing on a page, in a search result, in the REST API and on an element.
  • Core plus switchable modules, no feature tiers. The things a membership site needs are in the core; everything else is a module you switch on, not a higher plan you buy.
  • Your payment accounts, no transaction fee. Subscriptions are billed by the payment service itself, so renewals do not depend on WordPress's visit-driven scheduler.
  • WordPress users, not a parallel login system. Members are WordPress users; plans grant roles and capabilities on the fly and never rewrite roles permanently.
  • Real tables from the first release. Plans, memberships, rules and payments live in indexed tables with numbered migrations, so the data model never has to be moved later.
  • Membership is its own extension. Many membership sites need no CRM, so Membership works alone and connects to the CRM through its public API when both are on.