What Is WooCommerce Memberships?
WooCommerce Memberships is a premium WooCommerce extension that lets you create and manage membership programs on your WordPress website.
Unlike subscription plugins that focus primarily on billing cycles, WooCommerce Memberships focuses on content restriction and member access control. You can sell memberships as products or grant access manually.
For recurring payments, it can be paired with WooCommerce Subscriptions.
Key Features
Content Restriction
Restrict access to:
- Pages
- Posts
- Categories
- Custom post types
- Products
- Hide or redirect restricted content
- Display teaser content to non-members
Membership Plans
- Create unlimited membership tiers
- Grant access manually or via product purchase
- Set membership duration (fixed or unlimited)
Product Restriction
- Restrict product viewing or purchasing to members only
- Offer member-exclusive pricing
- Hide products from non-members
Content Dripping
- Schedule when content becomes available
- Release lessons, downloads, or modules over time
- Great for courses or training programs
Member Discounts
- Offer automatic discounts for members
- Apply discounts to specific categories or products
- Encourage loyalty and retention
Member Management
- View member list inside WooCommerce
- Manage membership status (active, paused, expired)
- Manually adjust access or extend memberships
Combine With WooCommerce Subscriptions
While WooCommerce Memberships handles access control, pairing it with WooCommerce Subscriptions allows you to:
- Charge recurring membership fees
- Automate renewals
- Handle billing cycles
- Manage subscription-based access
- This combo creates a full-featured subscription membership platform.
Why Use WooCommerce Memberships?
WooCommerce Memberships is ideal if you want to:
- Sell access to premium blog content
- Create online course access control
- Offer VIP product pricing
- Build a private community
- Launch members-only digital downloads
- Restrict WooCommerce products to paying customers
- It’s perfect for creators, educators, coaches, online communities, and businesses that want to monetize exclusive access.
Get WooCommerce Memberships
Official WooCommerce Memberships Page:
This is a premium extension available through WooCommerce.com.
How to Install & Set Up
- Purchase WooCommerce Memberships
- Download the plugin ZIP file
- Go to WordPress → Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin
- Install and activate
- Go to WooCommerce → Memberships → Membership Plans
- Create a new membership plan
- Set access rules (content, products, categories)
- Link the membership to a purchasable product (optional)
- Publish your membership product
Once configured, customers who purchase the membership product gain access automatically.
Best Use Cases
WooCommerce Memberships works especially well for:
- Online course access control
- Paid premium blog content
- Private member dashboards
- VIP product pricing
- Download libraries
- Client portals
- Coaching or consulting membership programs
Business Benefits
Using WooCommerce Memberships helps you:
- Build recurring or long-term customer relationships
- Increase lifetime customer value
- Monetize gated content
- Encourage loyalty with exclusive benefits
- Bundle products and memberships together
Final Thoughts
WooCommerce Memberships is a powerful solution for selling restricted access and building exclusive member experiences within your WooCommerce store. When combined with WooCommerce Subscriptions, it becomes a complete recurring membership system.
If your business model involves content gating, exclusive products, or premium access tiers, this extension gives you the tools to manage everything inside WordPress.