- Paid Member Subscriptions And Paid Memberships On Amazon
- Paid Member Subscriptions And Paid Memberships Online
Paid Member Subscriptions is a lightweight, but still flexible, WordPress membership plugin that comes in both a free version at WordPress.org, as well as two premium versions that tack on a bunch of extra features (without breaking the bank). Download Paid Member Subscriptions: Download Pro: I. Our template considers organic traffic, but many paid membership models will use some combination of organic and paid traffic (e.g., AdWords) to acquire potential customers. The viability of paid traffic depends entirely on the focus of your site; depending on the keywords you’re targeting, you could be paying anywhere between $0.20 and $20.
In today world of ever growing international sites that compete for their share of the web landscape, membership is one of those things that is essential in doing business. Paid Member Subscriptions is a solution that can cover all your membership needs; from signup to payment and everything it offers comes in the form of a WordPress plugin with a simple user interface nobody will have any trouble figuring out.
Subscriptions made easy
After activating the plugin, you’ll first have to set the parameters of what you want/need to achieve with your subscription platform. The first step in doing this is enabling registration on your site.
After that’s done you’ll need to build your subscription “database”. These will basically be your tiers (both paid and free). For your subscription, you get to set the duration, price, status (only active subscription will be enabled for outside users) and user role (subscriber is the default role for members).
Add your basic (free) tier
Now, you can add plans in the same way you add posts – by just adding new ones, but there is a great option that lets you connect your plans. As you can see below, on top of the window there is an option to add an upgrade or downgrade. By doing this, your plans are connected and are easily manageable if you’re running several kinds of subscriptions (you just group the same ones together).
Since we started our test with a basic free plan, we’ll choose to upgrade it to a premium tier (on top you’ll see it’s an upgrade on the first plan we made). The main difference between the plans is the duration and price. Since the free option doesn’t have a price and time limit, both were left at 0 (for unlimited). Here you can see that the price is set, and duration limited (chosen between days, weeks, months and years). By filling out everything mentioned here, your subscription plan is good to go.
Everything mentioned so far is part of the plugin’s free package, but more options become available with premium add-ons (which we’ll get into later). There is no limit to the number of tiers and plans you can create so you don’t have to limit yourself.
Building your membership base
With the plans out of the way, it’s time to see how they’re implemented to your post and pages.
Customize how and for who your content is displayed
As you can see, a set of new options are added below the text box. Everything works on a content restriction principle. To put it simply, all you need to do is tick the boxes next to tier levels according to what content you want to be available for that tier. Also, there are options for message prompts explaining and instructing users what they need to do in order to get access to the content. Messages can be written manually or you can use the system default ones.
Paid Member Subscriptions And Paid Memberships On Amazon
In order to get use of your carefully made subscription plans, you’ll need members. And the first step in getting members is giving them a registration form. After that, they’ll need to be able to log in, check their account, manage their subscriptions and check payments as well as be able to recover passwords if lost. These are some of the basic things your members will expect of your, or any other membership site for that matter. The great thing here is that all the required forms are done already made, you just need to implement them with shortcode.
You can see in our example that adding forms is really that easy. We’ve bunched them up on one page to show them all at the same time, but you’ll want to create separate pages for each separately. You can check out the example for managing your account below.
Account management
Looking from the front-end, you can see how the basic registration form looks for your visitors. In the picture you’ll be able to see some premium add-on options we’ll mention in a bit.
If you’re looking for more options regarding registration be sure to check out Profile Builder plugin from the same developer. This will let you customize your registration form with even more features.
In the settings tab you’ll be able to customize everything to best fit your particular needs, from automatic emails (register emails and activate/cancel/expired subscription emails) to payment options, (currency, payment options etc.) where PayPal is the default choice. Any changes done here are then applied across the board.
Add-ons
Everything mentioned so far is part of the free plugin package, going further with the premium packages (there are two) a plethora of options become available to you and we’re going to cover them all.
Pricing plans
Basic Add-ons (Pro and Hobbyist versions)
bbPress – restrict forum content with the bbPress integration
Global content restriction – add rules that filer your content (posts, pages etc.) based on subscription plans
Restrict content based on tiers
Discount codes – adds the option of creating custom discounts that your (potential) members can use to get great deals
Email reminders – set up automatic email reminders that go out to members when certain criteria are met (for example – imminent subscription expiry)
Create automatic email reminders
Navigation menu filtering – customize/restrict menu content that is based on subscription plans
Fixed period membership – adds an option to set a fixed membership instead of a recurring one
Set up fixed memberships instead of recurring ones
Pay what you want – replace a fixed pricing method with an open module that lets your members choose what they feel is right (min. and max. amounts can be set)
Pro Add-ons (Pro version only)
Recurring payments for PayPal standard – enables your members to set up a recurring payment plan, so they don’t have to think about paying every month
Enable simple automatic payments for members
PayPal Pro and PayPal Express – enables your members to use PayPal Pro and Express if they have them
Stripe Gateway – offers your members direct payments with credit and debit cards
Enable direct credit and debit card payments
Content dripping – set the delay after which certain content is available when you enter a subscription plan
Multiple subscriptions per user – allows members to sign up for multiple subscription plans from multiple groups
Users get to have multiple subscriptions
Invoices – generate PDF invoices for both you and your members for every payment
The premium subscription solution
Looking only at the free options, this plugin provides enough for you to start and run a small subscription site. When you add all the extra premium content, you get a vast tool that can equally be used with demanding commercial sites and simple local sites. Just check the demo. Either way, you won’t go wrong with Paid Member Subscriptions.
No matter what kind of site you find yourself running, your main goal is always to attract and then retain your visitor base. One of the easiest ways to ensure this is to offer them subscription options, making them full-fledged members.
If you’re running your website through WordPress, then one of the best plugins to get your subscription site started is, without a doubt, is Paid member subscriptions from Cozmoslabs. With it, you’ll be able to set up the whole subscription system and right here is where we’ll show you how to do just that, step by step.
Step 1 – Enabling subscriptions
After you’ve installed and activated the plugin, you’ll need to enable subscriptions for your site. This first step isn’t directly linked to the plugin but needs to be activated in the WordPress general site settings.
Step 2 – Creating plans/tiers
After you’ve made it possible for your visitors to become members, it’s time to create subscription plans or tiers that provide benefits to those who sign up. We’ll start with the most basic free tier which, in some form or another, all prominent sites/services have.
The starting point of a subscription plan
The great thing about Paid Member Subscriptions is the option to create connecting plans which scale up and down as upgrades or downgrades (seen highlighted in red on the picture above). By just choosing an option that is presented you’re automatically given a new, connected plan, in a simple click.
You’re then free to edit the setting of this new plan as you see fit (in our case it’s an upgrade to a premium tier seen below).
As you can see there are some differences in the way we’ve set up these plans – the price and duration. If you leave the duration at zero, the subscription won’t expire. In this example, it’s used for the free plan, but it can also be used for lifetime memberships that don’t have expiration dates.
Price is of course at zero for the free tier, whereas the premium tier requires payment. You can stack plans like these in the same way if you have multiple paying plans with different features.
Step 3 – Defining restrictions
The plugin works on a restriction principle, which means if you don’t have the right “clearance” (subscription to a plan), then the content you’re trying to access will be blocked for you. With that in mind, you need to set up what is shown to your visitors who are not yet members when accessing this premium content.
Choose how to restrict content
It’s essential to put enough thought into when content will be unavailable and for whom. This is the reason why visitors will want to become members, so you can safely add an asterisk to this step since it’s probably the most important one for building up your member numbers.
Step 4 – Registration forms
Okay, so you’ve created your sub plans, restricted content behind said plans and you have casual visitors wanting to become members in order to access all the content you have to offer. This is done through forms.
All the forms are already built into the plugin, and all you need are shortcodes to implement them on your pages.
In the example shown, we’ve listed all the different forms that are available, just so you can get a sense of everything that’s available. Normally, you would use one form per page and one pertaining to accessing your account look like the example below.
An account form page from the backend
Step 5 – Pages with shortcodes
Now that you know the shortcodes and have created pages that use them, you’ll need to set up a landing page for your new members. Every page you’ve published will be available for redirecting; all you have to do is choose.
From the frontend, your visitors will be redirected to a page with a registration form that looks similar to the picture below.
A frontend look at a registration form
Step 6 – Payment
Of course, since you’re setting up a membership site, you’ll need to set up a payment method. With the free plugin package, your only option is PayPal, but there are more options available, which we’ll get into more later.
Step 7 – Emails
While running any kind of service, be it free or paid, you’ll want to be as clear as possible towards your customers. That’s precisely why it’s important to include automatic emails that confirm a visitor has become a member, that a new subscription has been activated, or that a subscription is canceled, or has expired.
Doing it this way there won’t be any doubt from either side (you, or your visitor) what has occurred. An example of a successful registration mail can be seen below.
An example of a registration confirmation mail
Free and Premium
All the aforementioned steps cover the basic set up for your subscriptions and all of them are absolutely free. Within the free tier, you’ll also get functions that connect other popular plugins such as WooCommerce integration (if you’re using it), detailed payment logs for helping with financial control and oversight, as well as security features that help with the prevention of account sharing.
Paid Member Subscriptions, however, comes with two payment tiers that greatly enhance your options in creating the perfect subscription plan on top of everything we’ve already gone through. Upgrading your plugin gives you access to features like content dripping and a “pay what you want” option for members. You can find all the available add-ons below.
Add-ons
The basic package is ready to be used by everyone, but you can advance it further with various add-ons you have at your disposal.
Basic Add-ons (Pro and Hobbyist versions)
bbPress – enables you to restrict forum content relating to the bbPress integration
Global Content Restriction – add rules for filtering the content on your site (posts, pages, etc.) based on subscription plans
Restrict content based on the subscription plan
Discount Codes – adds the option of creating custom discounts that your (potential) members can use to get great deals
Email Reminders – set up automatic email reminders that go out to members when some certain criteria are met (an example could be an expiring subscription)
Create automatic email reminders
Navigation Menu Filtering – similar to global content restriction, here you can restrict content showing up in menus for those not on an appropriate subscription plans
Restrict menu access according to subscription plans
Fixed Period Membership – enables you to choose between a regular (recurring) subscription and a fixed subscription
Create a fixed membership option, not just a recurring one
Pay What You Want – if you don’t want to burden your members with fixed payment rates, you can offer them a chance to pay what they feel is right (min. and max. amounts can be set)
Pro Add-ons (Pro version only)
Recurring Payments for PayPal Standard – give your members the option to set up recurring payment plans, so that the subscription fee is automatically deducted from their account every month (or whichever time interval is used on your site)
Additional payment option for members are always welcome
PayPal Pro and PayPal Express – enables your members to use PayPal Pro and express if they have them
Stripe Gateway – offers your members direct payments with credit and debit cards using Stripe
When PayPal is not enough
Content Dripping – choose how quickly do your members get to the restricted content after they sign up for a subscription
Multiple Subscriptions per User – give your members the option to subscribe to multiple subscriptions from the same account
Enable more than one subscription per account
Invoices – generate PDF invoices for both you and your members for every payment
Summary
Paid Member Subscriptions has something for everybody. The free options are robust enough for smaller sites, but with the add-ons, it becomes a full-fledged professional option for any type of commercial site you could be running.
Paid Member Subscriptions And Paid Memberships Online
Now that you know how to use the plugin, you don’t have an excuse anymore why you’re not doing it.