How do you choose a WordPress membership or online course (LMS) plugin?
Choose a membership or LMS plugin by the job, not by a feature grid in an ad. Content gating, recurring billing, and a real course player are different products. If you only need drip lessons, say so before you buy a community suite. Security, backup, and SEO plugins stay on the essential WordPress plugins list, not on this page.
- Gating: hide pages, categories, or files until a level is active.
- Billing: charge a renewal without you sending a manual invoice.
- Courses: lessons, quizzes, and a progress screen. Many membership plugins do not include this.
- Community: forums and profiles. Add that only if members must talk to each other.
Write the job in one sentence before you compare brands. “Members pay monthly and see a category” is not the same product as “students finish a graded course”. Buying both jobs in one plugin is optional, not required.
How do MemberPress, Paid Memberships Pro, Restrict Content Pro, and WooCommerce Memberships compare?
These four plugins are examples to compare, not a prize list. MemberPress and Paid Memberships Pro restrict content and bill members. Restrict Content Pro now ships as Kadence Memberships inside Kadence bundles. WooCommerce Memberships ties access to WooCommerce products. WebJi® does not sell them. Read each vendor's current feature page before you buy.
| Plugin | What it is known for | Courses | What to verify on the vendor page |
|---|---|---|---|
| MemberPress | Membership rules and billing in one plugin | Publishes course tools. Confirm they are on the licence you buy. | Which gateways that licence includes |
| Paid Memberships Pro | Content restriction, often used by associations | Not an LMS by itself. Pair a course plugin if you need lessons. | Which features are core and which are add-ons |
| Kadence Memberships, formerly Restrict Content Pro | Simpler content gating | Not a course builder | The current Kadence bundle, and the old name if you already run Restrict Content Pro |
| WooCommerce Memberships | Access tied to WooCommerce products | Use a course plugin or sell lessons as products | That you are ready to run a WooCommerce shop |
Existing Restrict Content Pro sites may still show the old name. New buyers should read Kadence’s current bundle instead of an old review. Prices change and are not repeated here.
Which membership plugins support Indian recurring payments, UPI Autopay, and Razorpay/Stripe in INR?
UPI Autopay is a payment-gateway feature, not a switch inside the membership plugin. Stripe and PayPal are the recurring gateways these membership plugins usually ship. For UPI, cards, and netbanking in INR, WooCommerce Memberships plus Razorpay's official WooCommerce plugin is the path to verify. Confirm subscriptions are enabled on your Razorpay account.
| Need | Where to look | Confirm before you promise it |
|---|---|---|
| Cards and recurring billing outside UPI | MemberPress, Paid Memberships Pro, or Kadence Memberships | Stripe or PayPal is included on that licence, and your Stripe account can bill in INR |
| UPI, cards, and netbanking in INR | WooCommerce Memberships | Razorpay’s official WooCommerce plugin is installed |
| UPI Autopay renewals | The gateway, not the membership plugin | A renewal test succeeds. A one-time UPI payment is not a subscription. |
Do not advertise UPI Autopay because a plugin lists “India” on a marketing slide. Place a real renewal, then cancel it, and keep the receipt. WebJi® does not sell these gateways or plugins.
Why do membership and logged-in user sites require higher PHP worker limits on your hosting plan?
Logged-in members bypass a full-page cache, so every lesson view runs PHP. A public blog can be served from cache. A course site with many simultaneous students often hits the PHP worker or process limit first. WebJi® does not print a worker count here. Check the current limits on WordPress hosting before you open enrolment.
- Estimate how many members may be in a lesson during the same hour.
- Confirm that logged-in pages skip the full-page cache. That is correct behaviour, not a fault.
- Ask support for the PHP worker or process limit on the plan you are about to use.
- Keep large videos off the lesson’s PHP request. Embed them so the page itself stays small.
- Move up a plan before enrolment day if the limit is lower than that concurrent guess.
Disk space is rarely the first wall. Timeouts during a live class usually mean PHP is busy, or the database is, because every student is uncached. Quote the plan page rather than a number from memory.