Membership Site Software

A growing way to monetize a site is to create a membership site where people pay to participate, learn, and create their own online presence.

Here are 12 member site software packages:

EasyPayPal

WordPress plug-in.  Sounds limited.

AMember

Fairly robust, integrates well with WordPress, but some complain that it does not adequately handle affiliate and joint venture administration.

MemberGate

They don’t allow just anyone to use their software, which they install, they pre-screen their clients.  They also don’t state their price.  Reeks of “control freak”.  We have heard of sites that are pulled down overnight, with no warning, by companies like this.

Click here to read about the remaining 9 plugins and software packages; there are some great options available:

VisionGatePortal

$100 set-up, $200 per month.  Again, like MemberGate, you run the risk of them going out of business or cancelling your site.

Motivated Marketing System

Sounds good in theory, but you can’t see what you’ll get visually, there’s a ton of hype and a big long sales letter landing page.

Joomla

OpenSource, which is free and you maintain total control.

WP eCommerce Gold with Membership Plug-In: about $100.  Works.  Limited.  One level of membership only, does not have “teaser” section ability.

EasyMemberPro

sounds remarkably like Joomla except not free.  $137 for one site; $300 for multiple.

iGrOOps

They can boot you, and are the only ones who can change the administrator info, rights, and access.  Multiple layers of membership, including free.  The really good parts are:

Included Affiliate Program, Smart AutoResponder, and E-commerce modules are now included that will make your iGrOOp a complete web marketing & communication solution.

• The E-commerce Module (Shopping Cart): The E-commerce system will allow you sell an unmimited number products and/or services from your iGrOOp. It allows for recurring billing, integration with the affiliate module, autoresponder module, and sales pages.
• Affiliate Program Module: With the iGrOOps affiliate program module, you can run an affiliate program on your online group and offer commissions to those members who refer other paying members. The affiliate program module has complete tracking and reporting features needed for a streamlined affiliate program that will result in more members and more revenue.

Also, audio/video postcard, audio/video presentations, file sharing, calendar, blog, podcasting, help/faq section for your site, custom member web pages, photo and video/mp3 galleries, task manager/project management tool, teleconferencing, web audio and video chat (like Skype, except no download necessary and group video is not only possible, but you can do a group video teleseminar like WebEx and have people text in questions while someone does a video presentation – really great stuff!).

At this point, I officially have to say, hmmm, iGrOOps sounds excellent!  Wow!  Have any of you tried them or heard anything about them?

iGrOOps pricing: $80 per month for whole package; you can leave things out, and most modules come at $20 per month.  $100 initial fee, and $3 per person per year over 100 members.  There is also a free for personal or non-profit version with limitations and their branding and advertising.

Pretty great stuff if they deliver.  Definitely let us know if you know anything about them.

Members Only

WordPress plugin.  Free.  Does not have ability to charge fee built in.

Your Members

WordPress plugin ~ $50.  Make sure to also get Your Minder to prevent people from sharing their login.  Looks like a pretty good plugin; not sure about support, which is a major problem with Instinct’s Members Only plugin.

Paypal Subscriptions

Your Members primary payment gateway is Paypal allowing you to set up both one off payments and Subscriptions using its flexible payment system.

Anybody who lives in a country which has access to Paypal can use it, allowing you to accept members from all over the world.

Flexible Role management

Your Members, allows you to define a near infinite number of roles which can be used to lock down content to specific role or roles allowing total flexibility.

Because Roles are an extension of WordPress own user roles, any plugin designed to work for “subscribers” will work for members as well plus you get the piece of mind of the WordPress standard user protection.

Alert third party scripts to new members

Whenever a person registers for a paid for account, the system is designed to allow you to call other applications such as Affiliate systems or Auto responders such as Aweber.

Other Membership Features

Your Members Features include:

• Flexible Membership Lengths
• Make parts of any post Private
• Private RSS feeds with Tokens
• Allow the one off payment to access specific posts
• Provide Free and Trial Access
• Post Delay, allowing you to provide content over time
• Smart Autoresponders Module

WP-Member

$30 – $70 depending on number of licences you purchase (for one or more sites).  Protect content, unlimited membership levels, unlimited subscriptions, pay-per-access, lots of control for you.

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MemberWing

Intriguing.  Free.  Very low budget, but designed to allow parts of posts to be visible both to search engines – critically important for organic rankings – and to regular visitors, which helps to pique their interest and get them to buy.  It’s not clear how prospective members purchase their subscription.