TL;DR: MemberPress Review (2026): Pricing, Features, And Who It’s For
MemberPress is a WordPress plugin that turns your site into a membership business, with paywalls, subscriptions, online courses, coaching programs, and a members-only community. It suits creators who already run a WordPress site and want to sell access to their content from it. If you’d rather not manage WordPress, a hosted platform like Thinkific or Kajabi is the easier route.
• Pricing. Launch renews at $399/year, Growth at $699/year, and Scale at $999/year, with half off the first year. No monthly billing and no free plan.
• Pick Growth for courses. Launch charges a 4.9% transaction fee, accepts Stripe only, and leaves out quizzes, certificates, drip, and the community.
• Biggest strength. Content protection rules that can lock almost anything on your site, from a single section of a page to a whole category.
• AI tools. Every plan includes an AI Course Generator with yearly credits, and an add-on connects your site to Claude and other AI apps.
• Watch out for. Affiliates, Zapier, corporate accounts, and the gradebook only come with Scale.
Try MemberPress With A 14-Day Money-Back Guarantee
If you run a WordPress site and want to sell online courses, offer a membership program, or build an online community, MemberPress is probably on your shortlist.
It’s one of the most widely used membership plugins for WordPress, and it now covers courses, coaching, and community as well as paywalls.
In this MemberPress review, I’ll walk through what it does, what each plan includes, where it falls short, and who should use it.
By the end, you’ll know whether MemberPress fits your business or whether a different setup would serve you better.
MemberPress Snapshot (2026)
| What buyers ask | MemberPress’s answer |
|---|---|
| What it is | A WordPress plugin for memberships, paywalls, courses, coaching, and community |
| Hosting | Self-hosted. You need your own WordPress site and host |
| Plans | Launch $399/year, Growth $699/year, Scale $999/year at renewal, with half off the first year |
| Free plan or trial | Neither. A 14-day money-back guarantee |
| Transaction fees | 4.9% on Launch. None on Growth or Scale |
| Members and courses | Unlimited on every plan |
| Content protection | Lock pages, posts, categories, files, or single page sections |
| Course tools | Drag-and-drop builder on all plans. Quizzes, assignments, certificates, and drip on Growth and up |
| AI tools | AI Course Generator with yearly credits on every plan. AI Foundation add-on connects to Claude and other AI apps |
| Coaching | CoachKit on Growth and up |
| Community | Forums and member directory on Growth. Direct messaging on Scale |
| Payments | Stripe on Launch. PayPal, Square, and offline on Growth. Authorize.net on Scale |
| Affiliates and teams | Easy Affiliate, corporate accounts, and gifting on Scale |
| Mobile app | AppKit branded app, sold separately |
| Best for | Creators already on WordPress who want to sell memberships, courses, or coaching from their own site |
Read: The Best WordPress LMS Plugins For Selling Courses and Memberships
What Is MemberPress?
MemberPress is a WordPress plugin for selling access to content. You install it on your own WordPress site, and it adds memberships, subscriptions, a paywall, online courses, coaching programs, and a members-only community to the site you already run.
As a plugin, MemberPress depends on WordPress. You choose the host, the theme, and the other plugins, and MemberPress handles payments, access rules, and the member experience. You own the site and the member data, and you’re also responsible for hosting, updates, and backups.
MemberPress started as a membership and paywall tool, and that’s still its core. Over time, it has added courses, coaching, community forums, and AI tools as part of the same plugin. Caseproof, the company behind MemberPress, also owns AccessAlly and Easy Affiliate.
Here’s what MemberPress covers today.
- Memberships and subscriptions: Sell unlimited membership tiers with one-time, recurring, or trial pricing, and let members upgrade, downgrade, or cancel on their own.
- Content protection: Lock pages, posts, categories, files, or single sections of a page, so you decide exactly what each member sees.
- Online courses: Build unlimited courses with a drag-and-drop curriculum builder, plus quizzes, assignments, and certificates on higher plans.
- Coaching: Run coaching programs with milestones, habit tracking, and cohorts through CoachKit.
- Community: Add forums, private groups, member directories, and profiles through ClubSuite.
- Selling tools: Use coupons, pricing pages, a multi-item cart, gifting, and an affiliate program on the top plan.
- AI tools: Draft courses, lessons, and quiz questions with the AI Course Generator.
Is MemberPress Right For You? Quick Verdict
MemberPress makes sense if you already run a WordPress site, or plan to, and you’re comfortable handling WordPress yourself or with a developer. In that case, it gives you one of the most flexible ways to sell memberships and courses on a site you own.
It fits best when content protection matters. A blog that wants to charge for premium posts, a coach who sells a course alongside private coaching, or a professional network with paid tiers all get a lot from MemberPress’s access rules. If you’re still deciding on your model, my guide to the types of online course business can help.
If you don’t have a WordPress site and don’t want the upkeep that comes with one, choose a hosted platform. Tools like Thinkific and Kajabi handle hosting, security, and updates for you. And if your business centers on courses with heavy assessment, a dedicated LMS such as LearnDash goes deeper.
MemberPress Pricing (2026)
MemberPress sells yearly licenses only, and every plan includes unlimited members, memberships, and courses. The first year costs half the regular price, and renewals charge the full price, so I plan around the renewal figure.
| Plan | Renewal price | First year | Transaction fee | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Launch | $399/year | First year $199.50 (intro price) | 4.9% | Testing a simple membership or course with Stripe |
| Growth | $699/year | First year $349.50 (intro price) | 0% | Course creators, coaches, and community builders |
| Scale | $999/year | First year $499.50 (intro price) | 0% | Businesses that need affiliates, teams, or integrations |
| Feature | Launch | Growth | Scale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price (renewal) | $399/year | $699/year | $999/year |
| First-year price | $199.50 | $349.50 | $499.50 |
| MemberPress transaction fee | 4.9% | 0% | 0% |
| Members, memberships, courses | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Payment gateways | Stripe only | Stripe, PayPal, Square, offline | Adds Authorize.net |
| AI Course Generator credits a year | 25,000 | 50,000 | 100,000 |
| Quizzes, assignments, certificates | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Content dripping | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Quiz and assignment gradebook | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Community forums and member directory (ClubSuite) | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Direct messaging (ClubConnect) | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| CoachKit coaching platform | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Email marketing integrations | Mailchimp | ActiveCampaign, Kit, Drip and more | ActiveCampaign, Kit, Drip and more |
| Easy Affiliate program | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Zapier and REST API | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Corporate accounts and gifting | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
MemberPress has no free plan or trial. Instead, it offers a 14-day money-back guarantee, so you can test it on a staging site and ask for a refund if it doesn’t fit.
Which MemberPress Plan Should You Buy?
Launch suits a simple paywall or a basic video course, and the 4.9% fee makes it expensive once sales grow. For most course creators and coaches, Growth is the realistic starting point, since it removes the fee and adds quizzes, certificates, drip, PayPal, CoachKit, and the community. Choose Scale only if you need affiliates, corporate accounts, Zapier, or the gradebook.
What Else You’ll Pay For
- WordPress hosting: A managed host with enough capacity for logged-in members, such as the options in my web hosting guide. My guide on how to create a WordPress website covers the basics, and these tips help you increase WordPress site speed.
- Video hosting: A service such as Vimeo or Wistia for lesson videos, since large files slow WordPress down.
- An email platform: MemberPress sends account emails, and marketing sequences need a separate email tool.
- Add-ons: AI Foundation and AppKit cost extra.
MemberPress Features For Selling Courses & Memberships
MemberPress puts most of its features in one plugin. But the plan you choose decides which ones you can use. For each feature, I note the plan it needs.
| Feature | What you get | What’s missing | Plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| Memberships and content protection | Unlimited tiers and members, free, one-time, lifetime, and recurring pricing, self-serve member dashboard, prorated upgrades, rules that lock pages, categories, files, or single page sections | Drip and access expiration on Launch | All plans. Drip and expiration on Growth and up |
| Online courses | Unlimited courses and lessons, drag-and-drop curriculum builder, distraction-free classroom, progress bar, branded course catalog | Quizzes, assignments, certificates, and drip on Launch. SCORM support, which MemberPress doesn’t list | All plans. Assessment on Growth and up |
| Quizzes and assessment | Multiple choice, multiple select, true or false, short answer, and essay questions, randomized question pools, certificates | A gradebook below Scale | Growth and up. Gradebook on Scale |
| AI Course Generator | AI Course Creator, Lesson Assistant, and Quiz Builder with yearly credits (25,000, 50,000, or 100,000 by plan) | Published figures on how many credits a course or lesson uses | All plans |
| AI Foundation | MCP connection to Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, and VS Code for plain-English questions and approved actions | Inclusion in the core plugin, since MemberPress lists it as a separate add-on | Add-on on every plan |
| CoachKit coaching | Unlimited programs, coaches, and cohorts, milestone and habit tracking, coach and client dashboards | Built-in scheduling or booking | Growth and up |
| ClubSuite community | Unlimited forums and private circles, member directory and profiles | Direct messaging below Scale. Activity feeds like a full social network | Growth and up. Messaging on Scale |
| Payments and checkout | Stripe wallets and buy-now-pay-later, tax and VAT handling, PDF invoices, multi-item cart in beta | PayPal, Square, and offline payments on Launch. A 4.9% fee on Launch | All plans. More gateways on Growth and up |
| Marketing tools | Unlimited coupons, trial coupons, pricing page templates, automated member emails | Order bumps and upsells below Scale, and they’re still in beta. Built-in email campaigns | All plans. Upsells on Scale |
| Email integrations | Mailchimp on every plan, ActiveCampaign, Kit, Drip, and MailPoet on higher plans | Zapier and the REST API below Scale | All plans. Zapier on Scale |
| Affiliates, teams, and gifting | Full Easy Affiliate platform, corporate accounts with sub-accounts, gift memberships | Any of the three below Scale | Scale only |
| Site building and app | ReadyLaunch pages for registration, login, accounts, pricing, and courses. AppKit branded iOS and Android app | A full website builder. A listed price for AppKit | ReadyLaunch on all plans. AppKit sold separately |
Feature #1: Memberships And Content Protection
Memberships are what MemberPress does best. Every plan lets you create unlimited membership tiers and members, with free, one-time, lifetime, or recurring pricing. Members manage their own accounts from a self-serve dashboard, and upgrades and downgrades prorate automatically.
The access rules give you a lot of control. You can lock a single page, a whole category, a custom post type, a file, or one section of a page built with Elementor, Divi, Beaver Builder, WPBakery, or the block editor.
That flexibility opens up several business models. For example, you can offer a free course with a few premium lessons, keep most of your blog free while charging for in-depth posts, or run a monthly membership that bundles courses, live training, and downloads.
On Growth and Scale, you can also drip content on a schedule and set access to expire after a set time. That works well for cohort programs and fixed-length memberships.
Where it falls short. Dripping, which most course creators need, starts on Growth, so on Launch all your protected content opens at the same time.
Feature #2: Online Courses
MemberPress Courses turns your WordPress site into an online course platform. You build courses with sections and lessons in a drag-and-drop curriculum builder, and you don’t need to manage parent and child pages yourself.
Lessons can include video, audio, text, and downloadable files. Learners get a distraction-free classroom with the curriculum on the side and a progress bar that shows how far they’ve come. Your courses also appear on a central catalog page that you can brand with your own logo and colors.
On Growth and up, you can add unlimited quizzes and assignments and issue completion certificates. Quizzes support multiple choice, multiple select, true or false, short answer, and essay questions. You can also build question pools, so each learner sees a random set of questions in a random order, which makes answers harder to share. On Scale, a gradebook tracks scores across quizzes and assignments.
My guide on how to create quizzes covers how to write questions that test real understanding.
Where it falls short. Quizzes, assignments, and certificates all need Growth, so Launch only works for simple video or text courses. Course design also depends on your theme more than it would on a hosted platform.
Feature #3: AI Course Generator And AI Foundation
Every MemberPress plan includes the AI Course Generator, which works inside MemberPress Courses. You describe your topic, audience, learning outcomes, and course length in a chat panel, and it builds a curriculum with sections, lessons, and draft content that you can edit before saving.
The generator has three parts. The AI Course Creator drafts whole courses, the AI Lesson Assistant writes or improves individual lessons, and the AI Quiz Builder writes quiz questions from your lesson content. Each plan comes with a yearly allowance of AI credits, 25,000 on Launch, 50,000 on Growth, and 100,000 on Scale, and each action uses credits based on its complexity.
AI Foundation, an add-on available on every plan, connects MemberPress to AI apps such as Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, and VS Code. Once connected, you can ask questions about your members, subscriptions, and revenue in plain English, and with your approval, the AI can take actions on your site.
Where it falls short. MemberPress doesn’t say how many credits a typical course or lesson uses, so you can’t yet estimate how far each plan’s allowance goes. Treat AI drafts as a starting point, since the generator only knows what you tell it about your learners. My review of Teachable’s AI tools covers how hosted platforms approach the same job.
Feature #4: Coaching With CoachKit
CoachKit comes with Growth and Scale. It lets you run unlimited coaching programs with unlimited coaches and cohorts, track client milestones and recurring habits, and give both coaches and clients their own dashboards. You can sell coaching on its own or bundle it with a course or membership.
Where it falls short. CoachKit handles program structure and tracking, and scheduling still runs through outside tools. For more on that side of the business, see my roundup of online coaching platforms.
Feature #5: Community With ClubSuite
ClubSuite brings community features into MemberPress. On Growth, you get ClubCircles for unlimited forums and private sub-groups, plus ClubDirectory for searchable member directories and profiles. With Scale, ClubConnect brings real-time direct messaging between members, groups, and coaching clients.
Access follows your membership rules, so you can offer a community only to premium members or give each tier its own circle. If you need something more like a full social network, MemberPress also works with BuddyBoss and bbPress.
Where it falls short. Direct messaging only comes with Scale. For a community-first business, compare ClubSuite with the tools in my roundup of online community platforms.
Feature #6: Payments And Checkout
MemberPress handles one-time payments, subscriptions, and trials, with automatic tax and VAT handling. Through Stripe, buyers can pay with Apple Pay, Google Pay, direct debit, and buy-now-pay-later options. A multi-item cart and shop page, currently in beta, let buyers purchase more than one product at once.
Payment options depend on your plan. On Launch, you can only accept Stripe. Moving to Growth adds PayPal, Square, and offline payments, and Scale adds Authorize.net.
Where it falls short. The 4.9% transaction fee on Launch comes on top of Stripe’s own processing fee. At $10,000 a year in sales, that fee costs $490, which is more than the price difference between Launch and Growth.
Feature 7: Pricing Pages And Marketing Tools
MemberPress includes pricing page templates that show your tiers side by side and highlight your most popular plan. You pick a template from a dropdown, list each tier’s features, and publish.
For promotions, every plan includes unlimited coupons with expiry dates and usage limits, and you can create trial coupons for new members. Automated emails cover sign-ups, upgrades, renewals, expiring cards, and abandoned registrations, and you can edit each one to match your brand.
On Launch, MemberPress connects to Mailchimp. Upgrading to Growth adds ActiveCampaign, Kit, Drip, MailPoet, and other email platforms, and Scale adds Zapier and a REST API for custom workflows. My list of email marketing platforms can help you pick one.
Where it falls short. Order bumps, upsells, and downsells are still in beta and come only with Scale.
Feature #8: Affiliates, Teams, And Gifting
On Scale, MemberPress includes the full Easy Affiliate platform for running your own affiliate program. You get unlimited affiliates and links, a self-serve affiliate dashboard, tracking, and one-click PayPal payouts, with no network fees.
The same plan adds corporate accounts, which let you sell bulk memberships to a company and give its manager control of sub-accounts. Gifting lets members buy a membership for someone else.
Where it falls short. All three features need the top plan, so a small business that only wants affiliates pays $999/year at renewal to get them.
Feature #9: Site Building And Mobile App
ReadyLaunch, included on every plan, gives you ready-made pages for registration, login, account, pricing, and courses, so you can start selling without designing every page. If you want an app, MemberPress AppKit turns your site into a branded iOS and Android app, sold separately.
Where it falls short. MemberPress doesn’t list AppKit’s price on its pricing page, so ask before you plan around it.
MemberPress Site Examples
Here are a few sites that use MemberPress to sell courses and memberships.
Bulletproof Musician
Bulletproof Musician sells online courses, live coaching, and digital downloads as part of its subscription plans.
The Wealth Club
The Wealth Club runs a membership program and community for real estate professionals, with several membership tiers.
The Digital Project Manager
The Digital Project Manager pairs a large free blog with one free and two paid plans that mix courses, downloads, and live calls.
MemberPress Pros And Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Fine-grained content protection. Lock anything from a page section to a whole category, which lets you build free-plus-paid models other tools can’t match. | Annual billing only. Every plan bills yearly, so you need the full fee upfront, with renewals at full price after the first year. |
| Unlimited members and courses on every plan. Revenue growth never pushes you into a higher tier. | A fee on the entry plan. Launch adds a 4.9% transaction fee and accepts Stripe only. |
| One plugin for memberships, courses, coaching, and community. Fewer plugins means fewer conflicts and one place to manage members. | Key features sit on higher plans. Quizzes, drip, and community need Growth, and affiliates and Zapier need Scale. |
| AI course drafting included. Every plan comes with AI credits for outlines, lessons, and quizzes, which speeds up first drafts. | You still run WordPress. Hosting, updates, backups, and plugin conflicts stay your job. |
| Flexible payments. Stripe wallets, buy-now-pay-later, PayPal, Square, and tax handling cover most buyers. | No free plan or trial. The 14-day money-back guarantee is your only way to test it. |
| Room to grow into B2B. Corporate accounts, gifting, and affiliates support bigger sales models on Scale. | Beta features. The cart, checkout upsells, and order bumps are still marked beta. |
MemberPress Alternatives
The right alternative depends on what you’re trying to fix.
- For deeper courses on WordPress: Consider LearnDash, which starts at $259/year for Essentials and goes further on quizzes, grading, and group training. Many sites run LearnDash and MemberPress together.
- For CRM-driven selling on WordPress: Try AccessAlly, which ties purchases and course progress to tags in ActiveCampaign or Keap, at a much higher price.
- For a community-first site on WordPress: Look at BuddyBoss, which offers a fuller social network with profiles, feeds, and an app.
- For no WordPress at all: Hosted platforms such as Thinkific, from $40/month on annual billing, and Kajabi, from $143/month on annual billing, handle hosting and maintenance for you.
My roundup of membership site platforms compares more options side by side.
Is MemberPress Worth Buying? My Verdict
MemberPress remains one of the strongest ways to run a membership business on WordPress. Its access rules go further than most membership plugins, and courses, coaching, community, and AI drafting now come in the same package.
It’s worth buying if you already run WordPress, have a clear offer to sell, and can handle the site yourself or with help. Start on Growth if you sell courses or coaching. If you’re still testing ideas, or you’d rather not manage a website at all, a hosted platform will get you selling with less to maintain. My guides to membership site pricing and successful membership sites can help you shape the offer first.
MemberPress FAQs
Does MemberPress have a free trial?
No, MemberPress doesn’t offer a free plan or trial. Every plan comes with a 14-day money-back guarantee, so you can install it on a staging site, test the features you need, and request a full refund within that window.
Does MemberPress charge transaction fees?
Only on the Launch plan, which charges 4.9% per successful payment on top of your payment processor’s fees. Growth and Scale charge no MemberPress transaction fees, and Stripe or PayPal still charge their standard rates.
Can I pay for MemberPress monthly?
No, MemberPress bills yearly only. The first year costs half the regular price, and the license renews at full price each year after that unless you cancel or change plans.
Does MemberPress work with LearnDash?
Yes. MemberPress integrates with LearnDash, so you can use MemberPress for memberships and payments and LearnDash for courses. Many course creators choose this setup when they need LearnDash’s deeper quiz and grading tools.
Can I build a membership app with MemberPress?
Yes. MemberPress AppKit turns a MemberPress site into a branded iOS and Android app, and your memberships, courses, and content carry over. MemberPress sells AppKit separately and doesn’t list its price on the main pricing page.
Does MemberPress handle sales tax and VAT?
Yes. MemberPress includes tax handling with automatic VAT calculation, and it integrates with TaxJar, Quaderno, and Stripe Tax for more complex tax needs. Members can download PDF invoices for each transaction.
Can I move my members to MemberPress from another platform?
Yes. MemberPress offers an importer add-on for bringing in members and subscriptions. Moving active subscriptions usually needs care with your payment gateway, so plan the migration with MemberPress support before switching.
Can I connect MemberPress to Claude or other AI apps?
Yes. The AI Foundation add-on includes an MCP server that connects MemberPress to Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, and VS Code. You can ask about members, subscriptions, and revenue, and approve actions the AI takes on your site.
ABOUT YOUR HOST
Learning Revolution founder Jeff Cobb is an expert in online education and the business of adult lifelong learning. Over the past 20+ years he has built a thriving career based on that expertise – as an entrepreneur, a consultant, an author, and a speaker. Learning Revolution is a place where Jeff curates tips, insights, and resources to help you build a thriving expertise-based business.
Jeff Cobb, Founder of Learning Revolution
Jeff Cobb is an expert in online education and the business of adult lifelong learning. Over the past 20+ years he has built a thriving career based on that expertise – as an entrepreneur, a consultant, an author, and a speaker. Learning Revolution is a place where Jeff curates tips, insights, and resources to help you build a thriving expertise-based business. Learn more about Jeff Cobb here.
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