Turning a WordPress site into a paid membership or community platform comes down to a handful of plugins, and they split along a line that matters more than feature lists: whether you’re building a standalone membership/course site from scratch, or gating content and products on a store you’re already running on WooCommerce. We compared MemberPress, Paid Memberships Pro, and WooCommerce Memberships on price, free-tier depth, and what each one is actually built for.
At a Glance
| Plugin | Starting Price | Free Core Version? | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| MemberPress | $199.50 first yr ($399 renewal) + 4.9% fee on Launch | No | Standalone membership sites, courses, and communities |
| Paid Memberships Pro | Free core; $499/year for premium add-ons and support | Yes — fully functional, open source | Budget-conscious sites comfortable self-supporting |
| WooCommerce Memberships | $199/year, 1 site | No (requires free WooCommerce core) | Stores already on WooCommerce gating products or content |
What to Look For
Before comparing feature lists, decide which of two jobs you actually need done. The first job is building a membership or course site as the primary purpose of the site — that’s MemberPress’s and Paid Memberships Pro’s core use case, and both include content dripping, member management, and payment handling without requiring an online store underneath. The second job is adding membership gating to a store you already run — restricting certain products, categories, or content to members, which is what WooCommerce Memberships is purpose-built for and what it assumes you already have WooCommerce installed to do.
MemberPress
MemberPress bundles membership gating, course delivery, and (on its higher tiers) community features and an affiliate program into one plugin. Pricing starts at $199.50 for the first year on the Launch plan, which renews at $399/year and carries a 4.9% fee on every member payment. Growth ($349.50 first year, $699 renewal) and Scale ($499.50 first year, $999 renewal) drop the transaction fee entirely and add PayPal/Square/offline payments, content dripping, community tools, and — on Scale — a developer API and a bundled affiliate platform. Every plan includes one site; extra sites cost $69/year each. There’s no free version, only a 14-day refund window, and MemberPress rates 4.8/5 from 365 Capterra reviews.
Paid Memberships Pro
Paid Memberships Pro is the one plugin in this comparison with a genuinely free, open-source core — no license key required, unlimited sites, and 25 free add-ons covering free payment gateways and most core functionality. Where it charges is support and premium add-ons: the Standard tier is $49/month or $499/year for one site, unlocking all 54 premium add-ons and technical support, while you host and maintain the site yourself. PMPro also sells Max ($99/month or $999/year) and Max 2x ($299/month or $2,999/year) tiers that bundle managed hosting, daily backups, and higher usage ceilings on top of the Standard feature set — effectively a hosting-plus-plugin bundle rather than just a license upgrade. PMPro rates 5.0/5 on Capterra, though from a much smaller review sample (15 reviews) than MemberPress’s.
WooCommerce Memberships
WooCommerce Memberships is an official WooCommerce extension, not a standalone membership platform — it assumes you’re already running WooCommerce and want to layer member-only access on top. At $199 for a one-site, one-year license, it covers selling memberships as standalone products or bundled with other purchases, restricting products and content to members, content dripping, member-only discounts and free shipping, and a member account area for viewing accessible content and discounts. Recurring billing, free trials, and plan upgrades/downgrades require the separately sold WooCommerce Subscriptions extension, and group memberships for teams need the separate Teams for WooCommerce Memberships add-on. It’s the right tool only if the content or products you’re gating already live inside a WooCommerce store.
Pros and Cons
- MemberPress pros: all-in-one course/membership/community toolkit; clear upgrade path. Cons: no free tier, and Launch’s transaction fee punishes exactly the sites with real revenue.
- Paid Memberships Pro pros: a real free, open-source core with no artificial limits. Cons: self-hosting and self-support unless you pay for Standard or above; the Max tiers bundle hosting you may not need.
- WooCommerce Memberships pros: clean fit for an existing WooCommerce store, official extension with WooCommerce’s support channel. Cons: several core features (recurring billing, team memberships) require buying additional extensions on top of the $199/year base price.
Bottom Line
If you’re building a membership or course site from scratch and want payments, content protection, and community features in one plugin, start with MemberPress Growth to avoid Launch’s transaction fee. If budget matters more than hand-holding and you’re comfortable self-hosting, Paid Memberships Pro’s free core is a legitimate way to launch without paying anything upfront. If you already run a WooCommerce store and just need to gate some products or posts to paying members, WooCommerce Memberships is the narrower, cheaper, purpose-built answer — just budget for WooCommerce Subscriptions too if you need recurring billing.
Sources
- MemberPress — Official pricing breakdown
- Paid Memberships Pro — Official pricing page
- WooCommerce — Memberships extension product page
- Capterra — MemberPress vs. Paid Memberships Pro ratings
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