Best method: Registration for some pages and Membership for others

  • Hello! Due to the nature of my free content, I need site visitors to register (and agree to terms checkbox) for two pages of my site. But, I also need to set up membership for another part of the site. Essentially the first two pages are open to all visitors, The next two–free tools section and a resources section, (that will require registration and agree to terms). But, registrants will also have the option to subscribe to another part of the site– a private community and other content – which is meant to be a monthly subscription. I am using GenerateBlocks and some lightweight visibility plugins but the user roles seem limited and I am not sure how to handle registration vs membership. I’d like to go as lightweight as possible and I don’t think this should all be done on the initial registration. I would so much appreciate any suggestions on the best way to approach this.

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

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  • Get a membership plugin.

    This will allow you to create different membership plans and define what content is available to each plan.

    You may choose to let all users register for free and have the option to upgrade to a higher plan(s) later down the road or choose their plan (membership level) during the initial registration.

    The membership plugin will also let you hook up your payment gateway to charge users. It will also handle subscription management (recurrent billing, cancellations, plan upgrades, etc). Some may even promise to do the dishes as well ??

    There are a ton of these plugins (with different primary focus and features)… so you want to first clearly outline what features are critical to you and what are “nice to have”… and start digging from here: https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/search/membership/

    Good luck!

    Hello! It sounds like you have a detailed setup for managing both free content and premium membership on your site. To achieve your goals, I’d recommend breaking this down into a few steps while keeping things as lightweight as possible.

    1. Registration and Terms for Free Content: For the first two pages (free tools and resources), you can create a simple registration form with a terms and conditions checkbox. You can use a plugin like WPForms or Ninja Forms for this. They are lightweight and allow you to create custom forms with terms and conditions checkboxes easily. You can restrict access to these two pages using any lightweight visibility plugin you’re already using.
    2. Membership for Premium Content: For the private community and other subscription-based content, I’d suggest using a membership plugin like Paid Memberships Pro or Restrict Content Pro. These plugins let you set up a tiered membership model. Since you’re already keeping things lightweight, these are well-suited as they don’t overload your site with unnecessary features.
    3. Separation of Registration vs. Subscription: Instead of doing everything in one step during registration, you can offer an upgrade path after users have registered for the free content. Once users sign up for the free sections, you can offer them an option to upgrade to the premium membership via a dedicated subscription page.

    For a smooth experience, it’s important to manage user roles effectively. Both Paid Memberships Pro and Restrict Content Pro allow you to assign roles based on membership tiers, ensuring that users get access to the right content after upgrading.

    I recently explored a similar concept while working on this site SSO ID Registration, where we manage user registrations and restrict content based on user roles.

    I hope this helps! Let me know if you need more detailed plugin recommendations or further assistance with the setup.

    Thread Starter Tamera2

    (@tamera2)

    George and Frederrickk, So appreciated! I am going to work on these suggestions right now and see what I can work out. I’ll reach out again and let you know how it turns out. Again, thank you so much for your input!

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