A membership site sells access to gated content for a recurring fee. For bloggers, it’s a higher-revenue alternative to one-off product sales. Done right, it produces predictable monthly income. Done wrong, it’s a half-empty content library nobody uses. This post is the realistic setup.
Why a membership beats one-off products
- Recurring revenue (predictable monthly income).
- Higher LTV (lifetime value) per customer.
- Compounding value as content library grows.
- Community potential.
Why memberships are hard
- You owe members new content forever.
- Churn is constant — members cancel; you have to keep replacing them.
- Marketing and onboarding never stop.
- Content gating creates ongoing access management complexity.
If you don’t want a forever commitment, sell courses (one-time products) instead.
What membership content works
Things that work as recurring value:
- Monthly templates / presets / printables.
- Member-only courses or workshops (added regularly).
- Private community (forum, Discord, Circle).
- Weekly newsletter with deeper analysis.
- Office hours / live Q&A.
- Exclusive deep-dive content (long-form analysis, member-only essays).
- Tools or calculators only members can access.
- Archive access (e.g., 5 years of paid newsletter archives).
Things that don’t work alone:
- Just blocking content you’d publish anyway.
- “Member-only newsletter” if your free newsletter is sparse.
- One-time access to a small content set (that’s a course).
WordPress membership plugins
MemberPress
The most polished commercial option. $179/year basic, $299/year plus.
Features:
- Content protection (per page, post, category).
- Multiple membership tiers.
- Stripe and PayPal integration.
- Drip content (release content over time).
- Built-in reporting.
Best for: serious memberships, multiple tiers, drip campaigns.
Restrict Content Pro (RCP)
Lighter than MemberPress. $99–$249/year.
Best for: simpler memberships, single tier, content gating.
Paid Memberships Pro (PMP)
Free core with paid add-ons. Most flexible if you want piecemeal feature additions.
Best for: budget-conscious starts, you’ll pay for add-ons as you need them.
Ultimate Member
Membership + community features. Profiles, user directories, forums.
Best for: community-focused memberships.
BuddyBoss + LearnDash
Heavy combo for community + course platforms. Best for serious online academies.
External options: Circle, Memberful, Patreon
Not WordPress plugins. Host membership externally; link from your blog.
Patreon: simplest. Takes a cut (5–12%). Lower control.
Circle: community-focused. $89+/month for the platform.
Memberful: integrates with WordPress nicely. Their pricing is per-member-volume.
Choosing a tier structure
Single tier
One price, full access. Simplest to operate and explain.
Works when: your content set is unified, you have one core offer.
Two tiers (free + paid)
Free tier for samples, paid for full access. Most common for memberships.
Three tiers (basic / pro / VIP)
Different access levels at different prices. Maximizes revenue per member.
Common pattern: Basic = content, Pro = content + community, VIP = content + community + monthly call.
Risk: tier complexity confuses prospective members. Most should pick one of the lower tiers and stick with it; offer more only when there’s clear demand.
Pricing for membership sites
Typical blogger memberships:
- $5–$9/month: low-ticket, broad audience. Patreon-style.
- $15–$29/month: mid-ticket. Most blogger memberships.
- $39–$79/month: higher-ticket. Coaching elements, more direct access.
- $97+/month: premium. Often B2B or professional development.
Annual pricing: usually 10x monthly (effectively 2 months free). Improves cash flow, reduces churn.
Content gating strategy
What’s free, what’s gated:
The lighthouse / private content model
Free content is the lighthouse — high quality, attracts the audience. Private content is the depth — only accessible to members.
This works because free content does marketing work permanently.
The teaser model
Public posts have intros visible to all; the rest is members-only. Easier discoverability, but visitors hit walls constantly.
Use sparingly — too many walls feels manipulative.
The freshness model
New posts are members-only for 30 days, then released to public.
Combines benefits but requires careful explanation.
Drip content
Drip = releasing content over time after a member joins. Day 1, Week 1, Month 1.
Useful for:
- Preventing dump-and-cancel (member joins, downloads everything, cancels).
- Structuring onboarding.
- Sustaining engagement.
MemberPress and Paid Memberships Pro support drip natively.
Onboarding
First experience matters. A new member should:
- Get a welcome email with what to do first.
- See a clear member homepage with featured content.
- Have a way to ask questions.
- Get a few wins within the first 7 days.
Poor onboarding = early cancellations.
Churn reduction
Memberships die from churn, not lack of signups.
Tactics:
- Annual pricing (locks in 12 months).
- New content every month (members feel the value).
- Community engagement (members stay for connections, not just content).
- Exit surveys (learn why people leave).
- Pause feature (let members pause instead of cancel).
Industry-typical churn for content memberships is 5–10%/month. Halve that and you’ve doubled your lifetime revenue per member.
Payment processor setup
Stripe for most. PayPal as a secondary option.
Decline handling: ~3% of recurring charges fail (expired cards, insufficient funds). Configure dunning (retry logic) in Stripe or your plugin to recover failed payments automatically. Stripe Smart Retries can recover 30%+ of failures.
Community platforms within / outside WordPress
Communities can live:
- Inside WordPress: BuddyPress, bbPress, BuddyBoss. Native integration.
- External: Discord, Slack, Circle, Mighty Networks. Better UX, separate login.
Most modern memberships use external community platforms. WordPress hosts content; community lives elsewhere.
Realistic timeline
- Month 0: Decide niche, plugin, content plan.
- Month 1–2: Build initial content library (12–20 pieces). Build sales page.
- Month 3: Beta launch to a small group, fix issues.
- Month 4–6: Public launch. First 10–50 members if you have an audience.
- Months 6–18: Consistent new content. Steady member growth. Churn management.
- Year 2+: If you’ve kept content consistent, growth compounds.
Many memberships break $1k/month MRR (monthly recurring revenue) within year one if the blogger has an existing audience. Without an audience, much longer.
The honest summary
Membership sites are excellent recurring-revenue businesses if you can sustain content for years. Pick a niche where ongoing content has real value. Choose a plugin (MemberPress for serious, PMP for budget, external for simplicity). Price between $9–$49/month. Plan content for 12+ months upfront. Expect 1–3% conversion from audience to member. The membership itself is the easy part; consistently delivering value over years is the hard part.
