WordPress Plugin: PayPal Membership
by David Peralty on July 17th, 2006 
15 Comments
I recently did up an article on paying for WordPress themes and plugins, but it was more out of curiousity than anything else. To my surprise, blogHelper pointed out to me a plugin that is for PayPal Memberships that costs $42 USD. The plugin is called WPB-PAYPAL.
Finally, we are here! After such a long development stage, WPB-PAYPAL reaches its awaited 1.0 release. This highly anticipated software is finally done. None of this would ever have been possible without the John Simeonidis [Don’t tell me that I did not mention you :) ].
General working features
- The user registers normally on your blog, and after is asked to make payment for ammount specified in the configuration panel of WPB-PAYPAL.
- The user must register with same email as his paypal account [this is for verification purposes] after the user made the payment he will receive confirmation email [administrator also getting confirmation email] and he can login normally into your blog
- For the moment you must use any of the available free plugins to provide some categories of your blog only to registered and logged in users
- WPB-PAYPAL emails you when the new payment has been proccessed or if there are any pending payments
- WPB-PAYPAL email reminders to buyers to reminding to make their payments.
- User’s account expire after X months [configure that on WPB-PAYPAL options tab] . User account becomes enabled again after payment is made.
- Plugin will change your default Wordpress installation to a full members only site and only the registered users will be able to get access to the site and potentially the download area.
- Uses automatic PAYPAL payment and user account Activation and Deactivation if the Registration Period Expires!
- Can be used for many web applications and its one of the first for the Wordpress CMS/Blog System.
I really don’t know what to say about this. I think the cost is too great for what it does, but I think that there is a market for pay-to-use plugins for WordPress, especially for things expanding WordPress into the e-commerce realm. I still would love to know more about the plugin and about anyone interested in the plugin.
One other thing that killed me was reading:
After buying the software once, it is only 10 USD per upgrade as newer versions are released
I guess we wait and see what happens with such things.
I agree with you that the killer line is the 10 US dollar update. I am actually interested in said plugin and am totally ok with paying for it, even when the price seems a bit steep.
That said, paying for something which is just released and then having to pay additionally is not so great, so for the moment I’ll pass.
I suggest you pay the extra $10. You’ll get mega-terrific support in return. If you don’t buy this extra, you’ll get terrific support :-) Thank you. Great and very useful plugin !
I’d like to see the full documentation first before I buy any software. And, what about a full online demo so I can see what it does and how it might fit into my organization. Can I use MC / VISA or just move PayPal money? what happens with expirations? Does this work with other plug ins (fgallery, Gallery2, etc.) so I can limit access to other content?
I just purchased this plugin. SUCKS ASS… Can’t get any support and the the documentation is bad news. I thought I was getting a total overview with screenshots etc… I guess its okay but not worth 25 bones… It also sucks cuz you can’t tease the non-registered users with posts. They will never see what they are missing… I say PUH!
Anyone know where I can find a good plugin that will simply block SELECTED posts, not all of them? Either free or paid members.
hello, I used this plugin, but it was complete rubbish. The owner was a con artist who took everyones money and then ran off while the plugin was left in an unworkable state. the whole website was taken offline and now none of the licenses work.
I found a plugin that had taken on a coder who made this plugin and developed it into a new plugin that works and does everything it should. Check it out at http://www.wp-member.com
Sorry for self-promotion – but I just created Wordpress Membership Plugin. I’ve created it as part of my volunteer effort for spiritual services website.
I paid strong attention to SEO features, indexing and scaling.
It supports free teasers (to allow indexing and ranking of premium protected articles) and supports 4 levels of membership – bronze, silver, gold and platinum.
The only thing it does not do currently is automatic subscription / unsub for members – so every new paid user needs to be added manually. This is the next feature I am working on right now to fully automate.
The best part of it – it’s free – http://www.memberwing.com/
I have about 200 people already using it and expect boost in userbase once automatic payments processing feature will be added.
Feel free to try/comment on it.
Gleb
Check it out – http://arepaypal.ehibou.com a very cool wordpress paypal integration.
Looks nice but I rather create my own plugins for the OpenSource CMS.
Also please check it out:
http://wpwave.com/plugins/cms-members/
Unlike others it supports automatic subscription/unsubscription, support custom fields, provide flexible methods for limiting post contents, AJAX form validation and more…
CMS Members is Google friendly and has it’s own register/profile/deposit/upgrade/renew pages. All of these pages have your theme look and feel!
It based on WordPress Users functions so it’s compatible with future WP versions and works with other user plugins.