Searching for the best WordPress subscription plugins to set up recurring subscriptions on your site?
Subscription payments are a great way to build recurring revenue and maximize your website’s long-term income.
Whether you’re building a full membership site or you just want to create a WordPress subscription payment form, there are some great WordPress subscription plugins that can help you start accepting recurring payments on any schedule that you set, whether that’s monthly, weekly, yearly, and more.
In this post, we’ve done the work to curate our picks for the five best subscription plugins for WordPress, including several options with free versions.
By the end of this post, you’ll be able to find the right plugin to start accepting WordPress subscription payments on your site.
Let’s dig in!
Best WordPress Subscription Plugin Comparison Table
If you’re in a rush, here’s a quick summary of the top WordPress subscription plugins that we’ve curated in this post.
To learn about each plugin in much more detail, we encourage you to keep reading the full post.
| Paid Member Subscriptions | WooCommerce Subscriptions | MemberPress | Paid Memberships Pro | Gravity Forms | |
| Free version? | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Cheapest premium license | €99 | $239 | $359 ($179.50 first year) |
$247 | $159* |
| Full-featured premium license | €199 | $239 | $799 ($399.50 first year) |
$397 | $259 |
| Automatic recurring subscriptions | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Manual subscriptions | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Free trials | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| One-time signup fees | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Custom amounts (user entered) | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Stripe integration | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| PayPal integration | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Square integration | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Mollie integration | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Membership management | ✅ | ❌** | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Content restriction | ✅ | ❌** | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
* While Gravity Forms does have a cheaper version, you need at least the Pro license for subscriptions.
** You can pair WooCommerce Subscriptions with a plugin like Paid Member Subscriptions to access membership management and content restriction functionality.
Five Best WordPress Subscription Plugins Compared in Detail
Here are our picks for the five best subscription plugins for WordPress:
- Paid Member Subscriptions
- WooCommerce Subscriptions
- MemberPress
- Paid Memberships Pro
- Gravity Forms
Paid Member Subscriptions
Paid Member Subscriptions is our popular WordPress subscription plugin that also offers advanced membership functionality on top of its subscription management.
You can use it to create a membership website, an online course, a members-only WooCommerce store, and lots more.
In terms of subscriptions, you can create unlimited subscription levels, each with its own pricing and billing intervals. You can also let customers upgrade or downgrade between different levels as needed.
In addition to offering preset subscription amounts, you can also let customers enter their own custom payment amounts, which is great if you’re looking to accept sponsorships or recurring donations.
Subscription Options
- Supports both automatic subscription renewals and manual subscription renewals.
- Custom subscription intervals.
- Unlimited subscription plans, each of which can have its own price, billing term, and so on.
- Option to add one-time payment plans as well.
- Free trials before charging the subscription fee.
- One-time signup fees that only apply to the first billing cycle before reverting to the base subscription fee.
- Custom payment amounts (great for non-profits or other types of donor situations).
- One user can have multiple subscriptions.
- Upgrade/downgrade paths between subscription levels.
- Coupon codes.
- Fixed period subscriptions to automatically expire a subscription on a specific date regardless of when someone purchased it.
Supported Payment Gateways
Membership Features
- Restrict individual pieces of content or set up bulk content restriction rules.
- Content dripping (give access to content over time).
- Frontend dashboard for users to manage their memberships.
- Group memberships.
- Special WooCommerce integration to restrict access to products and/or offer special discounts.
- Tools to prevent account sharing.
Pricing
Paid Member Subscriptions comes in both a free version at WordPress.org as well as a premium version that extends the free version with new features.
The free version already lets you create membership subscriptions on your site. However, you’ll need to rely on manual payment renewals in the free version.
To access automatic recurring subscriptions and a bunch of other helpful features, the premium version of Paid Member Subscriptions starts at just €99.
Paid Member Subscriptions Pro
The best WordPress subscription plugin to accept recurring payments on WordPress, along with full membership functionality to restrict content
WooCommerce Subscriptions
As the name suggests, WooCommerce Subscriptions is a WordPress subscription plugin that’s specifically built on top of WooCommerce.
With the plugin installed, you can create WooCommerce subscription products just like you would create any other WooCommerce product.
If you’re already using WooCommerce on your site (or if you’re open to installing it), it can be a good option. However, if you absolutely do not want to install WooCommerce on your site, you should choose a different WordPress subscription plugin.
Subscription Options
- Supports automatic subscription renewals and manual renewals.
- Customize subscription intervals.
- Link subscriptions to WooCommerce products.
- Options for free trials and one-time signup fees (as long as you’re using a payment gateway that supports it).
- Coupon codes.
Supported Payment Gateways
Because you’ll use WooCommerce to process your payments, WooCommerce Subscriptions supports a huge array of different payment gateways. This is one of the most unique things about the plugin.
You can find a full list of supported payment gateways here, but here’s a partial list of some of the most notable options:
- Stripe
- PayPal
- Braintree
- Square
- Authorize.net
- Mollie
- WooCommerce Payments
Membership Features
WooCommerce Subscriptions does not have any of its own membership functionality. However, you can pair it with the Paid Member Subscriptions plugin above to add membership functionality.
The advantage of this pairing is that you can fully utilize all of WooCommerce’s many payment gateways (whereas Paid Member Subscriptions only supports Stripe and PayPal), while still accessing all of the advanced membership management features in Paid Member Subscriptions.
Pricing
WooCommerce Subscriptions only comes in a premium version, so it’s not a viable option if you’re looking for a free WordPress subscription plugin.
It costs $239 per year for use on a single site.
MemberPress
MemberPress is a premium WordPress subscription and membership plugin that offers tons of advanced features, but at a pretty hefty price tag when compared to most other subscription plugins for WordPress.
For example, MemberPress includes its own course builder/LMS tool, which isn’t something you’ll find in most other subscription plugins.
If you need and are willing to pay for those advanced features, it can be a great option to consider. But for a simple WordPress subscription site, you can probably save money with one of the cheaper options (or even one of the free subscription plugins on this list).
Subscription Options
- Supports automatic subscription renewals and manual renewals.
- Full control over subscription intervals.
- Unlimited subscription levels.
- One-time payment support in addition to subscriptions.
- Free trials and one-time signup fees.
- Limit payment cycles (e.g. payment plans).
- Upgrade/downgrade paths between subscription levels.
- Coupon codes.
- Gift memberships/subscriptions.
Supported Payment Gateways
- Stripe
- PayPal
- Authorize.net
Membership Features
- Restrict individual pieces of content or set up bulk restriction rules.
- Content dripping.
- Frontend membership dashboard.
- Corporate memberships.
Pricing
MemberPress only comes in a premium version and it’s one of the more expensive WordPress membership subscription plugins that you’ll find.
Plans start at $179.50, but that price only applies to your first year. After the first year, the cheapest license would renew at $359, with the highest tier license going for $799 at full price.
Additionally, if you don’t renew your license, MemberPress will block your access to backend admin functionality, so you won’t be able to add/edit your membership content. The frontend of your site will continue to function normally – you just won’t be able to make any changes until you renew your license.
Paid Memberships Pro
Like Paid Member Subscriptions, Paid Memberships Pro is another subscription plugin that comes in both a free version at WordPress.org, as well as a premium version that gives you access to lots of different add-ons.
One thing that sets Paid Memberships Pro apart is its huge collection of free and paid add-ons. You can install the add-ons for the exact features that you need to create your subscription platform.
With the higher-tier paid plans, you also get access to a code snippet library that can help you make additional customizations as needed.
Subscription Options
- Supports automatic subscription renewals and manual renewals.
- Full control over subscription intervals – even down to hourly charges.
- Unlimited subscription levels.
- Free trials and one-time signup fees.
- Subscription pausing.
- Offer rolling renewal dates for each member or force all subscriptions to renew on a specific day (like Patreon).
- Users can enter their own subscription prices.
- Option to add one-time payments as well.
Supported Payment Gateways
- Stripe
- PayPal
- Authorize.net
- Braintree
Membership Features
- Restrict individual pieces of content or set up bulk restriction rules.
- Content dripping.
- Frontend member directories/profiles.
- Use WordPress multisite to give members their own sites.
- Group memberships.
Pricing
If you want a WordPress subscription plugin for free, you’ll be happy to know that the core version of Paid Memberships Pro is available for free at WordPress.org.
To access the premium features/add-ons, there are two main pricing plans:
- Standard – $247 per year for 20 Standard add-ons.
- Plus – $397 per year for 29 Plus add-ons (as well as the 20 Standard add-ons).
If you can work within the free plan, Paid Memberships Pro can offer excellent value. However, if you need one of the premium plans, using a plugin like Paid Member Subscriptions could be a more affordable option depending on the features that you need, because it starts at just €99 versus $247 for Paid Memberships Pro.
Gravity Forms
Gravity Forms is a full-service WordPress form builder plugin that lets you easily create subscription payment forms using a variety of payment gateways. However, it does not offer the full membership functionality that you’d get with other plugins.
If you only need to accept subscription payments, it can be a good option to consider. However, if you are looking to build a full-fledged membership website, you might want to consider a different plugin or pair Gravity Forms with a full membership plugin like Paid Member Subscriptions.
Subscription Options
- Automattic recurring subscriptions.
- Custom billing intervals.
- Coupons.
- Option to add one-time signup fees or offer trials (if the payment gateway supports it).
- Option to let users enter custom amounts.
Supported Payment Gateways
- Stripe
- PayPal
- Mollie
- Square
- Authorize.net
- 2Checkout
Membership Features
Gravity Forms doesn’t really offer any membership functionality. It’s pretty much exclusively focused on creating subscription payment forms.
With that being said, it does offer some related features such as being able to create an account for someone who pays and assigning them a specific WordPress user role.
Based on this user role, you could then apply content restriction and add membership functionality using a plugin like Paid Member Subscriptions.
Pricing
Gravity Forms does not offer a free version.
While the Basic license does cost $59, you’ll need at least the $159 Pro license to accept subscription payments with Gravity Forms.
Which Is the Best WordPress Subscription Plugin for Your Site(s)?
Choosing the best WordPress subscription plugin for your site will largely depend on your specific needs, knowledge level, and budget – there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for every single website.
For example, if you don’t need any membership functionality and you literally just want to create subscription payment forms, you might be better off with a more narrowly focused plugin like Gravity Forms.
Overall, though, we think that Paid Member Subscriptions offers the best all-around subscription package for most users – that’s why we created it!
First off, it gives you all the subscription-related features that most sites need, including automatic recurring subscriptions, multiple subscriptions per user, free trials, one-time signup fees, and more.
Plus, you also get full membership functionality so that you can manage subscribers and restrict access to some/all of your site’s content.
Second, Paid Member Subscriptions has a functioning free version and the premium version is also more affordable than a lot of other WordPress subscription plugins.
For example, Paid Member Subscriptions starts at just €99, whereas MemberPress starts at $359 and Paid Memberships Pro’s premium tier starts at $247.
If you’re ready to get started, you can get Paid Member Subscriptions here.
Paid Member Subscriptions Pro
The best WordPress subscription plugin to accept recurring payments on WordPress, along with full membership functionality to restrict content
Source: https://www.cozmoslabs.com/1946036-best-wordpress-subscription-plugins/
