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Review of Wishlist Member WordPress Membership Software Plug-in

Blogging, Reviews

Review of Wish List MemberYou’ve invested time in your business blog. You are getting traffic, and people are commenting on your blog. Certainly you can monetize the site with ads, but what if you wanted give subscribers an option for paid access to premium content, month to month? There has been a lot of buzz about paid membership sites as an online business model, and rightly so, they are a great passive revenue model. In this post I’ll review this WordPress plug-in that turns your blog into a membership site.

WordPress Membership Software Plug-in, Wishlist Member

What it is…

Wishlist Member is an easy way to turn your existing blog into a membership site. There is no need to purchase expensive software, hosted on a different domain, move all the content there, etc. Using the familiar WordPress Admin panel options to allow you to secure content, configure access and membership levels, and integrate one of the popular payment gateways. Get the full scoop here.

Important Features

Here is a breakdown of the various components of Wishlist Member.

Installation: Like many WordPress Plug-ins, it is easy to install, just upload and activate.
Unlimited Membership Levels: If you have a service that tiers the offerings (Silver, Gold, Platinum), you can put those levels in Wishlist Member assigning different price points. If you add a new offering, add a new level.
Add to Existing WordPress blog: After adding to an existing site you secure existing content, or you can opt to secure future content when you create it.
Paid Options: Wishlist Member lets you create Free, Trial, or Paid membership accounts. An effective approach is to give a $1 trial, which automatically puts them in a designated membership after 7 days.
Controlling Content: Using the “Hide Button” you can prevent content from being viewed from membership levels of your choosing.
Sequential Delivery: Sometimes new customers can feel overwhelmed when they see all the content available in a given membership site. This feature allows you to release content in a controlled manner, after 30 days Module 2 is released, then Module 3 after 60 days, etc. It is very flexible, and is important in avoiding the buy, download, and dash customers. Something I wish I had in my membership site a couple years ago!
Shopping Cart Support: Supports PayPal, Clickbank, Google Checkout, and 1ShoppingCart.
Secure RSS Feeds: This lets members see paid content in their RSS reader of choice. Since the feed is secure and tied to their membership level, it stops working when they stop paying.
Login Redirection: Control the member welcome page after logging in. This is helpful if you want unique messages for each access level such as news, updates, or inviting them to upgrade their membership.
Secured Content Options:

  • “More” Tag Security, protects anything after this commonly used tag (creates the default “Read more” or “Read the story” links) allowing you to prompt the user for membership to the premium content.
  • Custom Error Pages, when attempting to access content that is not available at the visitors membership level, and are encouraged to register, or upgrade their membership.
  • Partial Content Display, Show what you want in a post and hide the rest. Allows you to reserve a key component for a given membership levels only.

What I Like

Simple Installation: If you have any familiarity with WordPress plug-ins, it really is as simple as uploading and activating.
Great Interface: If you have been using WordPress for any time, you find the interface to be familiar, and intuitive. You can have a look by reviewing any of the videos on the right hand side of this page.
Leverage Existing Search Engine Juice: Since you are using the same domain, and the same IP Address, you have little to worry about when it comes to the search engines.  Other products where you have to move existing content to another domain or IP address have to contend with this issue.
Plugin Updates: On the dashboard you see the version you are running, and a link to download the latest version if needed. Recently they added Paypal and Clickbank integration, as well as Aweber autoresponder integration.
Affordable: I personally have spent thousands on membership site software, and have friends who have spent much, much more for custom solutions. For under $100 (at the time of this writing) what you get this hits the sweet spot for many, and the fact that future updates are included is also nice. There is also a multi-site license available for those who need it.
Reputation: I know the maker, Stu McLaren and Tracey Childers to be solid guys. I was hard pressed to find any complaints about the product; thus far, their customers seem to be happy with the product and the support.

Large Site Considerations

Scalability question: since it is relatively new, I am uncertain how well it scales. As much as I would like to test the scalability, I was unable to in time for this review. There are products that have been out for a long time, and proven to scale well, but obviously are not at this price point. I have friends who have the potential for 10s of thousands of members, and I’m not sure this is the best fit if you are in this situation. Again, I haven’t tested it with 10K or more members, but I am curious how it will handle such a load. Perhaps the creators or larger customers can comment on this.

Conclusion

If you have an existing WordPress blog, or have an idea for a membership site, this is a great way to turn business blogging into profits. I’m not a big fan of FREE solutions for paid products; if it goes down, I want to be able to get support. $97 as a one time fee is not a lot compared to other membership site solutions, and you can begin working with it in about 15 minutes. Get more info here.

What are your thoughts on Wishlist Member or membership software in general? Leave your comments below.

*Image Credits to WordPress Wishlist

business blog, business blogging, membership site, membership software, RSS, Wishlist, Wordpress, wordpress plug-in

About Travis Campbell

Husband. Dad. Marketing automator. Author. Educating and coaching others in their online business endeavors. Here's his Google profile.

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  • http://www.virtualassist.net Andrea Kalli

    Thank you for this! I also recently purchased and installed the WishList plugin for a new membership site I’m putting together. While I’m still in the throws of configuring it the way I want, the most appealing part of it (well, besides the price and that it integrates with WordPress) is the sequential delivery feature. Once you wrap your head around what this does for you, it’s a real beauty.

    Andrea Kalli

  • Travis Campbell

    Andrea-

    As always, appreciate your feedback. Yes, Stu is onto something with that sequential delivery feature. Be sure to report back once you have it fully deployed!

    -Travis

  • Carter

    This is the other product I was just considering employing for my start-up internet business venture. I really do appreciate the wide variety of topics you address on this site. I have just requested the articles and can’t wait to dive in and put them to use. I hope others add comments as well…I’m a firm believer that we all learn best from each other. And I know at this stage in the game I have a lot to learn! Thanks again for another great post.

  • Travis Campbell

    Carter-

    Thanks for taking time to share. If you haven’t done so, be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed:
    http://www.marketingprofessor.com/feed

    Also, be sure to grab the 2 special reports reserved for those who join the site, below the comments section here, in the top right below the video, or http://www.MarketersFAQ.com

    Look forward to delivering more.

  • http://egoist.blogspot.com/2009/02/subnotebook.html Martin Lindeskog

    I have to check out this WordPress application. I am involved in a new online start-up business venture and we will work with the Revolution WordPress template. I am in the process of setting them up. This plug-in could fit in nicely after we have built up a customer base and interest for our products, blogs and the growing community exchange of feedback and conversations.

    Martin Lindeskog’s last blog post..POLITICUS SHIITAKE

  • http://www.elearningblueprint.com Cathy Moore

    I’ve been using WL Member for a B2B membership site. I launched last week, so I can’t talk about scalability, but I can say that the plugin was easy to install and plays nicely with E-junkie, a simple and inexpensive shopping cart. The AWeber integration is working, too. For my site, the whole process goes like this:

    The customer reads about the site on my separate marketing site. They click the “buy” link, which launches the E-junkie shopping cart and takes their credit card info. When the payment clears, E-junkie sends the customer to the login page set up in WishList. The customer registers there, which adds them as a member of the WordPress site at the level for which they paid. At the same time, the plugin sends the name and email to a list at AWeber, building my list automatically.

    One feature that’s currently lacking is a slick way to incorporate an end user license agreement. I’d prefer to have people click a separate check box saying that they agree to the EULA. There’s no way to do this with WL Member that I could figure out. I added a link to the EULA to the registration form, but I can’t make registration conditional on their checking a separate “I agree” box. The WishList folks have announced an upgrade with new features, so maybe this is one of them.

  • Travis Campbell

    Cathy-

    Thanks for stopping by and sharing feedback, it’s great to hear from someone who is fresh from implementing it. They seem to have a steady track record of updating and enhancing the product. I imagine you could have someone code what it is you need and integrate in your blog.

    Feel free to report back on your progress in the future.

    -Travis

  • http://www.DIYMarketers.com Ivana Taylor

    Excellent review Travis. What do you know about their list management and auto-responder feature — or do you have to use another service for that?

    Ivana Taylor’s last blog post..Use Frequency, Intensity and Duration to Get Customers to Choose You

  • Travis Campbell

    Hey Ivana-

    Great question. For email deliverability issues, I would encourage using a 3rd party like Aweber. Since Wishlist member integrates with Aweber, you don’t have to fuss with white listing IPs and all the technical stuff involved to ensure optimum delivery rates when hosting your own autoresponder.

  • http://www.ClaimYourGenesisSite.com Genesis Site

    I’m teetering between purchasing Wishlist Member and the Incremental Bridge plugin. I’m need something that will feed content to members in increments as they sign up. I know Incremental Bridge will do this. I’m still a little unclear as to whether Wishlist’s sequential feature actually does this. Will it feed content and give access to members as they sign up like Incremental Bridge?

    Sure would appreciate this clarification. Thanks!

  • Travis Campbell

    @Genesis-

    From what I’ve been able to tell, it does indeed drip the content based on signup date. What you might do is start with wishlist member, and test it out. Also, thus far, they continue to develop the product and add new features.

    With the Incremental Bridge I understand it requires aMember, and WordPress. For me I get nervous about too many separate pieces (more that is difficult to fix if it breaks).

    Hope that helps.

  • Walter

    I have been manually setting up sites so that when they click register it takes them to my Infusionsoft shopping cart. I then collect the payment and redirect them to the wordpress register page so I can collect the user and give them a username and password. The only problem with this is, if anyone who is registering knows about wordpress, they can just go to http://www.site.com/login.php?action=register and sign up for free.

    It sounds like Wish List Member uses the same method. Speaking to people that are using the product, are these register pages secure in anyway? I could save my company a lot of time and money if this thing works the way it says it does.

    Any advice is much appreciated.

    • Travis Campbell

      Great question, I could be wrong Walter, but I suspect there is more to it than that, as Wishlist seems to tie the user to the membership level they have in the system (silver, gold, etc.).

      I will ping Stu over at Wishlist and see what he has to say here.

  • Walter

    Here is what support told me…
    _______________________________

    Hi Walter,

    Thank you for your email.

    Question 1)
    We currently offer FULL integration with PayPal, ClickBank and Quick Pay Pro.

    FULL integration is if someone were to cancel their payment through PayPal, Clickbank or QPP, they would be automatically blocked from entering your membership.

    Below is an example as to how the process goes with PayPal:

    If you are using the Full PayPal Integration, here\’s what happens…

    1) Person clicks PayPal button
    2) Person pays through PayPal
    3) Person is redirected to a page where they can select their username and password.
    4) Person is automatically logged into the site
    5) Email is sent to member with their username and password

    So from the user\’s experience, they pay at PayPal and then they select their username and password, and then they are automatically redirected and logged in to your site

    You could interchange PayPal with Quick Pay Pro and ClickBank in the above scenario.

    Question 2)
    It depends on what link you are using. The plain registration page link for each level will not be secure.

    If you are using one of our full integrated payment processors or 1SC (which is partially integrated), you are safe from people passing on the registration page and getting in for free.

    Question 3)
    We currently do not have full integration for Infusion Soft but we are working to complete this.

    You can use simple integration, however, but you will have to manually cancel your members from within WishList Member if they cancel their membership or stop payment.

    In this case, being simple integration, the registration page is not secure. as I talked about in the previous question.

    I hope this helps.

    Please let me know if you have any further questions.

    Take care,

    Greg France

    _______________________________

    To me it sounds like they are doing exactly what I have already been doing. Except if you use one of those three processors mentioned above.

    If anyone comes along this in the future and finds a solution, please leave a post.

    Thanks guys!

    • Travis Campbell

      Walter-
      Thanks for sharing your response here. Indeed it seems they are moving the product forward, and Infusion integration sounds interesting (if done right).

      You could also consider having the WP reg page use a different page to help alleviate your concerns. Hopefully you are watching close enough with each new user to make sure they are paying customers.

      Are you not using tiered levels or metering your content as is found in the WishList product?

  • http://cr8tiveliving.com Jen Grant

    Hi–

    Thank you for such a great review and reading all the comments was great too.

    I’m wondering if you can link us to some of the larger membership sites you mentioned?

    Since its been a month or so since the scalability was discussed here, have you learned of larger sites using the app yet?

    Thanks again,
    Jen

    • Travis Campbell

      Jen-

      Thanks for stopping by. So far, I’ve only heard good things about this product. Certainly no software is without issues, but I’ve not heard anything pertaining to scalability issues of yet. I’m not a programmer, but my impression is Wishlist Member will scale as well as wordpress itself. I’ll ask the product creator to stop by and comment here, you can as well if you like.
      http://twitter.com/stumclaren

  • http://www.WishListMember.com Stu McLaren

    Hey Guys,

    Stu McLaren here (one of the WLM creators).

    To answer the scalability question, if you had 15,000+ people you would probably feel some slow downs not because of the software but more because of the server.

    You would need to isolate the database to a different server since there would be so many people logging in and out accessing the database.

    The performance of your site with that many people will largely depend on how your server can handle the load. If it’s optimized, then you shouldn’t have a problem.

    So WLM can handle growth but the big question you’ll need to answer is, can your server handle the growth?

    Hopefully that helps.

    Take care.

    • Travis Campbell

      Stu-

      Thanks for answering Jen’s question, I know that scalability is a concern others have had as well. Keep it up! You have built great features into the product.

  • http://jenniferchilds.typepad.com Jen Grant

    Thanks so much Stu and Travis! Answers make perfect sense. I’ll have to remember the info on server optimization.

    Have a great day and thanks for fabulous products and services!

    Jen

    Jen Grant’s last blog post..Every moment is the Guru…

  • http://twitter.com/BillHibbler Bill Hibbler

    Thanks for the review, Travis. Craig Perrine turned me on to the plug-in and I was eager to hear what others were experiencing with WishList. I'm looking for an alternative to Amember that will work with 1shoppingcart and WordPress. This looks like a winner.

    Another concern I have is being able to add a forum plugin and helpdesk plugin that won't require members to login a 2nd time to access the forum or helpdesk. Any suggestions?

    • http://www.MarketingProfessor.com Travis Campbell

      Bill-
      Glad you found it helpful. I'm not super technical think there us a way to address your concern, either with a single user database, or customization to the database. Oftentimes, one can get away with these inconveniences for a while after initial launch (unless you have thousands of members right away)…just a thought.

      Thanks, as always, for stopping by.

      -Travis

  • http://www.vlucid.com/ Craig Van Sant

    Very good response from customer and sales support. I haven't scaled the product so I'm not sure how that will hold together yet. The code is encoded so if your thinking and hacking on it you won't be able. You shouldn't have to though.

    • http://www.MarketingProfessor.com Travis Campbell

      Craig- Thanks as always for the update and your input. They seem to be responsive to customer input and features requests. Hopefully that will continue.

  • leejones1

    Have only just discovered the possibilities of using a membership plugin with wordpress, such as Wishlist member, and your post here makes me think that i really need to get on the ball and get a site up and runnning very soon, if not straight away.

    So i guess i will need to buy it first ?

    I was contemplating using Amember, but you have convinced me that this plugin is not only easier to use, but will do just about everything i would ask of a membership script

    • http://www.MarketingProfessor.com Travis Campbell

      Lee- Thanks for taking the time to provide feedback. Wishlist is a pretty robust script, and they continue to improve it with regular updates for customers. Let us know how it works out.

  • corporate intranet

    Wishlist Member seems to me something really handy for the bloggers. We have started my website in 2008 and already it has become much popular. All the blogs are free for everyone and we are having fair earnings these days. But I think converting the site to a membership site is not an easy decision. It can back fire the business. Everyday new people are visiting our site only because it’s free. But if I make the site restricted then isn’t it hampers it popularity?

    • http://www.MarketingProfessor.com Travis Campbell

      James-

      Good point, converting to a paid site is not easy. Many have taken on the “Freemium” model. Some of the stuff is free, the rest of it is premium content that is paid for. This seems to work best in tight high-valued information niches, where timely information makes all the difference.

  • http://www.facebook.com/pothi.kalimuthu Pothi Kalimuthu

    Hi Travis,

    Your review is thorough and information. Are you still using Wishlist Member in your sites. I know it's been more than a year since you wrote this article. What's your experience using it?

    Thanks,
    Pothi

    • http://www.MarketingProfessor.com Travis Campbell

      Pothi-

      I'm not using Wishlist at the moment, as I don't have a paid membership site. They have continued to improve the product, and I think it is a good option for most who need a membership site software. There is another product here for those needing something more robust.

      Hope that helps.

      -Travis

    • http://www.MarketingProfessor.com Travis Campbell

      UPDATE: As a result of their integration with Infusionsoft, I am now using WLM, on a Infusionsoft training site. They have continued to improve the product without overcomplicating it for users.

      If you need something more robust, see our Review of DigitalAccessPass as well as the updated review of DAP, as it now supports unlimited affiliate tiers, dime sales, in-page content dripping, and a Self-Service Store (4.1) .

      Hope that helps.

  • http://www.MarketingProfessor.com Travis Campbell

    Pothi-

    I'm not using Wishlist at the moment, as I don't have a paid membership site. They have continued to improve the product, and I think it is a good option for most who need a membership site software. There is another product here for those needing something more robust.

    Hope that helps.

    -Travis

  • Simran shah

    Wow. I just love list like this. Some of these I have saved as a favorite but you just can beat a list that includes a little of everything kinda like a one stop resources page.

    Thanks for putting this together!

  • Rolan

    it has no trial version

  • Faxless Payday Loans

    I have tried it but could not make the best use. Can you have a tutorial?

  • http://www.iphone-case-4u.com/ IPhone 4 Case

    Hey I’v been reading your blog from quite some time now and I just wanted to say keep up the good work.

  • sanjeev sharma

    Thanks for sharing valuable information and i hope it will work beneficial for other member as me…
    Membership Software

  • Asa

    Clearly you are an affiliate.. Though that doesnt mean it is not a good product.
    But I would give it TWO stars out of TEN. The setup is horrific.
    There are all kinds of nifty videos that explain this convoluted, uneccessarily complicated program, and they fail to explain many fine points that will have you scratching your head or pulling out your hair. For some features, there are FOUR different ways to do the same thing (talk about redundancy) and they even conflict with each other! Their own website says so!
    After a full week of wasted time, and 4 submissions to support (no live phone operators my friends), still not working right. I wasted six hours alone on something that turned out to be a “bug” in their latest version.. Am I am beta tester for $200?
    If it eventually works, it will be worth 5 out of 10.
    If I had it to do over.. and even then, I still might switch as I am far from resolved.
    A

    • Anonymous

      Try to find a “review” on the internet of this plugin that isn’t an affiliate shill

  • http://www.MarketingProfessor.com Travis Campbell

    Nick-

    Congratulations on the success of your site. No doubt it has taken quite a bit of work to get it where it is today.

    Let me first say, I’m not a developer, a technical web guru, no do I pretend to be, however I’d still like to respond to your comment, cool? :-)

    As for converting. I wouldn’t go it alone. I would invest in a solid consultant with experience converting people to new platforms or upgrading/augmenting existing ones. While your site may currently be slow, you have an opportunity to demonstrate your commitment to delivering a great experience for customers by hiring a pro to help you. Wishlist has a network of developers who support Wishlist customers with paraticular needs, and often these folks know good plugins that work well with Wishlist, and also enhance user experience (photo sharing, etc.).

    If you don’t have the cash, wait a couple months and save while you are researching some solid people to help you.

    As for speed of your site, you probably would benefit from a dedicated server or a service like MaxCDN if you don’t have one already, and use some caching software to speed it up. Also, a pro should be able to analyze your site and find the offending items causing your site to load slowly. Google also has some website performance measurement tools available for free.

    Hope this was helpful. Be sure to stop back and let us know what you ended up doing!

    -Travis

  • http://www.findakosherrestaurant.com/ Kosher restaurants

    Thanks for the info. Do you know where i can find info how to use it or instal it on our site?

  • Bob Tolbert

    Hi Travis,

    Great review on Wishlist Member.

    My team and I developed a sidebar registration form for free membership level that requires only email and username and has real time validation. It registers the user to the free membership level right after he clicks the “register” button.This is the link to the plugin: http://WishlistRegistrationWidget.comWould love to hear your thoughts regarding the plugin.Regards,Bob

  • Tim Sidden

    Quick question… I will be recording training videos and I would like to set a limit on views say three I know I can do this using the level system but also limit the IP address of the people watching the video. In other words, the person would have to be watching from the same IP as when they signed up… Will the WLM do this?

    • http://www.MarketingProfessor.com Travis Campbell

      I would be interested to know what it is you are really trying to solve for. There may be a better solution. As for your posed question, I know of know way to limit the views while tying it to an IP address.

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