Create a Membership WordPress Site with UMP

Do you want to start earning money from your WordPress website?

You could enrol in the Amazon Associates program and generate revenue via referral links; sell advertising space using a plugin such as ADning, or your might even decide to start selling your own products via your website. 

All of these methods can generate a healthy income, but they tend to revolve around one-off payments—what if you’d prefer a consistent revenue stream that’s guaranteed to deliver over the next few weeks, months or potentially even years?

Today, many WordPress websites generate money by selling subscriptions. A subscription strategy might mean creating free content plus exclusive, premium content for paying members; selling early access to your best content, or you could even move your entire website behind a subscription paywall. 

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In this article, I’ll show you how to start selling membership subscriptions, using the Ultimate Membership Pro plugin. By the end of this article, you’ll have created several free and paid subscription levels, and explored various ways that you can restrict access to your website’s content, based on the visitor’s subscription level. 

To ensure collecting your payments is as painless as possible, we’ll setup a PayPal payment gateway, so your website’s entire payment process is managed by one of the Internet’s most popular payment platforms. 

Getting Started With Ultimate Membership Pro 

To start, you need to download the UMP plugin, and upload it to your WordPress account:

• If you haven’t already registered for Envato Market, then create your free account now.
• Head over to the CodeCanyon website, click Sign In and then enter your Envato account details when prompted. 
• Head over to the Ultimate Membership Pro listing, click Buy Now and then follow the onscreen instructions to complete your purchase.  
• Download your plugin when prompted. 
• Unzip the downloaded file; the subsequent Main folder should contain several files and folders, including an indeed-membership-pro.zip file, which you’ll need to upload to your WordPress account.
• Log into WordPress, if you haven’t already. 
• Select Plugins from WordPress’ left-hand menu, followed by Add New.
• Select the Upload Plugin button.
• Scroll to the If you have a plugin in a .zip format section, and then select Choose file.
• Select the indeed-membership-pro.zip file. 
• Click Install Now. After a few moments, you should see a Plugin installed successfully message.
• Select the Activate Plugin button.
• A new Membership Pro Ultimate WP item should now appear in WordPress’ left-hand menu. 

Activating the UMP Plugin

By default, you’ll only have access to a trial version of UMP. To access the full version, you’ll need to enter your purchase code which can only be used for a single WordPress installation on a single WordPress website.

You’ll find this code in the [CodeCanyon] Purchase Confirmation email you received when you purchased UMP, or in UMP’s Support section when you’re logged into your Envato account.

Once you have your code: 

• In WordPress’ left-hand menu, select Membership Pro Ultimate WP.
• Hover over the side-tabs, and select the Help tab when it appears.

• When prompted, enter your purchase code and then select Activate. You should now have access to the full version of Ultimate Membership Pro.

Exploring UMP’s Membership Pages

UMP automatically creates all the pages required to deliver its core functionality. 

To take a closer look at these default pages, select Pages > All Pages from WordPress’ left-hand menu. You should find that UMP has created all of the following:

• IUMP – TOS PAGE. This is the page where you’ll display your website’s Terms of Service, which should include information about the kind of data your website collects from its users, and how you plan to use that data. If you need some inspiration, then check out Envato’s Terms of Use, or you can find plenty of ToS templates available online. 
• IUMP – SUBSCRIPTION PLAN. This page displays all of your website’s subscription plans. By default, UMP creates a Free level that provides limited access to your website’s content; a One Time Plan that provides access to premium content for a one-time payment of $10; and a Recurring Plan priced at $1 per month. Later in this tutorial we’ll be replacing these automatically-generated subscription levels with our own subscription plans, as shown in the following screenshot. 

• IUMP – Register. By default, this page displays the same content as the Subscription Plan page. 
• IUMP – Default Redirect Page. If a visitor tries to access a page without the necessary subscription, then they’ll be redirected to the IUMP – Default Redirect Page.
• IUMP – Login. This page will display a login form for any visitor who isn’t currently logged into their account. 

• IUMP – Account Page. If the visitor is logged into their account, then this page will display their user profile. Here, the user can change their profile picture, or access links that contain additional information about their account. For example, clicking the Subscriptions icon will display the user’s current subscription level and any alternative subscriptions they may want to purchase, and selecting Orders will display their complete order history.

• IUMP – LogOut. This is the page visitors will see when they log out of your website. 
• IUMP – Reset Password. This page displays UMP’s standard Get New Password form. 

• IUMP – Visitor Inside User Page. This represents content that a visitor will only see if they’re logged into their account. 

Creating the Membership Directory

UMP may automatically generate all the pages required to sell and manage subscriptions, but by default it doesn’t generate the UMP Members List page. This page displays information about every user who’s currently subscribed to your website, and can be easily created using UMP-provided shortcode. 

Since it provides a good introduction to some key areas of the UMP dashboard, let’s generate a Members List for our website:

• In WordPress’ left-hand menu, select Membership Pro Ultimate WP. This takes you to the main UMP dashboard.

• Select Showcases from the UMP toolbar.
• Select the Members List card.

At this point, you can customize your Members List in several ways. Most of these settings are self-explanatory, but a few that are worth exploring include:

• Displayed user fields. This is the information that’ll be displayed for each member, such as their name, email address, social media accounts, bio, and location. You can choose to hide or display each piece of information, as required. 
• Pagination. This controls how many registered users should be displayed per page.
• Search bar. When enabled, visitors will be able to search for registered users based on various criteria, such as their nickname, email address or country. 

When you’re happy with your settings, scroll to the Shortcode section. This section contains a piece of shortcode that’s generated automatically based on your chosen settings.  

You can turn any page into a UMP Members List, by copy/pasting this shortcode: 

• Copy the shortcode. 
• In WordPress’ left-hand menu, select Pages > Add New.
• Give this page a descriptive title; I’m using Members List.
• In the main body of your WordPress page, give the little + button a click.

• Search for Shortcode and then select it when it appears.

• Paste your shortcode into the subsequent window.
• Click the Preview button to see how this page will appear to your website’s visitors. 
• If you’re happy with your Members List, click Publish to make it public. 

Monetize Your Content With Subscription Levels

If you’re going to start earning money from your subscribers, then you’ll need to create some subscription levels.

Let’s take a look at the levels that UMP creates automatically: 

• In WordPress’ left-hand menu, select Membership Pro Ultimate WP.
• In the toolbar, select the Levels tab

You should see the following subscription levels:

• free_demo. This provides lifetime access to most of your website’s content.
• onetime_demo. This provides lifetime access to your website’s premium content, priced at $10. 
• recurring_demo. This provides access to your website’s premium content for $1 per month.

Depending on the subscription structure you want to implement, it may be quicker to simply make a few tweaks to these automatically-generated levels. However, to keep things straightforward we’ll be deleting these default subscription levels and then implementing our own subscription structure, from scratch. 

I’ll be creating three subscription levels, which reflect the kind of structure commonly used by many subscription-based websites:

• Free. This will provide visitors with lifetime access to limited content.
• Recurring payment. This will be a rolling, one-month subscription plan that provides access to premium content.
• One-off payment. This will provide lifetime access to premium content, in return for a one-time payment.

To remove UMP’s default subscription levels, hover over each level in turn and then click the Delete link when it appears. 

Creating a Free Subscription Level

To create a subscription level, you’ll need to enter some information that UMP will use to request and process each payment, such as how much this subscription costs and what should happen when the subscription expires.

You’ll also need to provide some information for UMP to display on your website’s IUMP – Subscription Plan page, including a sales pitch that explains this level’s benefits to potential new subscribers

To create a free, lifetime subscription level: 

• Navigate to Membership Pro Ultimate WP > Levels.
• Give the Add New Level button a click.
• In the subsequent form, enter a slug for this membership level, which will be included in the subscription level’s URL; I’m using free. Note that this slug must be lowercase.
• In Level label, enter some text that’ll be displayed at the top of this level’s subscription box (circled in the following screenshot). I’m using Free.

• In the Level Access section, you’ll need to decide whether to give subscribers lifetime or limited access to your website’s content. If you opt for limited access, then you can specify a certain number of days, weeks, months or years (Regular Period) or provide access between two dates (Date Range). I want Free subscribers to have permanent access to a limited set of content, so I’m opting for Lifetime. 
• Since this is a free level, open the Billing options dropdown and select Free.
• Scroll to the Level Description section. Here, you can type a few lines that’ll be displayed as part of this level’s subscription card (circled in the following screenshot). I’m using Free lifetime membership! Get free access to all of our website’s first tier content. Note that you can apply all of WordPress’ standard formatting to this text, including bold, underline and italic effects, and can also use line breaks, as I’ve done in the following screenshot. 

• In Price Text specify how much this subscription costs, formatted as a currency. This text will also be displayed as part of the level’s subscription card (circled in the following screenshot). 

• When you’re happy with the information you’ve entered, click Save Level.

You can check how this new subscription level will be displayed to the user, by visiting your website’s IUMP – Subscription Plan page (Pages > All Pages > IUMP – SUBSCRIPTION PLAN > View.)

Offering a One Month Membership

Next, let’s create a recurring Silver subscription, which will provide access to our website’s premium content for a rolling, monthly fee:

• Give the Add new level button a click.
• In Level slug, type silver.
• For Level label, type Silver. 
• Open the Access Type dropdown. Since we’re creating a recurring subscription, select Regular period. This will give you access to some new controls.
• Use the new text field and dropdown to specify that this should be a 1 month subscription. 

• Open the After Expire move to dropdown and select free. Now, if the user cancels their Silver subscription, they’ll be automatically moved to a Free subscription.  
• Open the Payment type dropdown and select Payment. At this point you’ll get access to some additional settings.
• In the new Level price field, specify the price for each month of Silver membership; I’m using £4.99.
• Open the Billing recurrence dropdown and select On Going. Silver subscribers will now be charged once per month. 
• Scroll to Subscription Plan Page details and create a sales pitch for your Silver subscription; I’m using 1 month of premium content! / Get one month of unlimited access to all of our latest, premium content.
• In the Price Text field, type £4.99
• When you’re happy with the information you’ve entered, click Save Level.

Creating a One-Time Payment Subscription 

For our third level, I’m going to create a Gold subscription, which will provide lifetime access to all of our website’s premium content, in return for a one-off payment: 

• Give the Add new level button a click.
• In Level slug, type gold.
• In Level label, type Gold.
• Open the Access Type dropdown and select Lifetime.
• Open the Payment type dropdown and select Payment.
• In the new Level price field, enter the price of lifetime access to your website’s premium content; I’m opting for £29.99.
• Open the Billing recurrence dropdown and select One Time, since we want this to be a one-time payment. 
• Scroll to the Subscription Plan Page details section and create your sales pitch; I’m using Lifetime access to exclusive content / Get unlimited, lifetime access to Gold membership content.
• In the Price Text field, type £29.99
• When you’re happy with the information you’ve entered, click Save Level.

Subscription Plan Showcase: Customizing Your Levels

UMP provides several themes that you can use to quickly and easily customize the look and feel of your Subscription Plan page. To try out these different themes:

• Select Membership Pro Ultimate WP from WordPress’ left-hand menu.
• Choose Levels from the toolbar.
• Select Subscription Plan Showcase.
• Open the Select Template dropdown and work your way through the list of themes. Every time you select a new theme, the preview towards the bottom of the page will update to reflect the new theme. 

• When you’re happy with your chosen theme, click Save Changes.

Re-Ordering Your Levels

The Subscription Plan page displays your levels in the order they were created, but you can change this order, if required: 

• Navigate to Membership Pro Ultimate WP > Levels.
• Click the ReOrder Levels button

• Change the order of these levels, using drag and drop.

Start Monetizing Your Content

After creating your levels, the next step is granting and restricting access to your content, based on the visitor’s subscription level. 

To see this process in action, let’s create a few pages that’ll represent the different content types: 

• Free Content. This will be a stand-in for content that’s accessible to everyone, regardless of subscription level. Since this content is free, we don’t need to apply any restrictions to this post. 
• Silver Content. This content will be accessible to anyone with a Silver or Gold subscription.
• Gold Content Blog 1. Later in this tutorial, we’ll be exploring UMP’s drip content feature. This content will be accessible to Gold subscribers, on the first day of their subscription. 
• Gold Content Blog 2. This will only become available to Gold subscribers on day two of their subscription, as part of our drip content campaign. 

Navigate to Posts > Add New and create these four posts.

Restrict Access Using Pro Locker

UMP provides several ways that you can restrict content, including methods for restricting content en masse.

Let’s start by restricting access to our Silver Content page, using the Ultimate Membership Pro Locker method: 

• Open your Silver Content page for editing, as normal.
• In the right-hand menu, scroll to the Ultimate Membership Pro Locker section.

• Open the dropdown menu and select Show Page Only.
• Open the …for dropdown and select silver, which ensures this content will be accessible to Silver subscribers. 
• Since a Gold subscription allows access to gold and silver content, we need to open the …for dropdown again, and this time select gold.

• Open the If is not allow…. dropdown and select Redirect the page.
• Open the To dropdown and select the page where visitors should be redirected, if they don’t have the required subscription level. I’m going to choose IUMP – Subscription Plan.
• When you’re happy with the information you’ve entered, click Update to save your changes. 

Now, if you try to view the Silver Content page without a Silver or Gold subscription, then you’ll be automatically redirected to the IUMP – Subscription Plan page.

Designing a Drip Content Campaign 

UMP lets you combine content restriction with a “drip content” strategy, where you make content available to different subscription levels depending on how long they’ve been subscribed. For example, a Gold subscriber might gain access to Gold Content Blog 1 as soon as they purchase a subscription, and Gold Content Blog 2 on the second day of their subscription.

Drip content can be a powerful way to drive user engagement. For example, imagine you signed up to a website and saw that they’d published a popular three-part blog series two months ago – what are the chances of you spending a few hours reading through all of this “old” content?

Now, imagine that new instalments in this series appear at regular intervals, throughout the first week of your subscription – you would be much more likely to become invested in this “ongoing” series. 

You could also potentially combine a drip content schedule with other marketing techniques, such as targeted email blasts, to further encourage new subscribers to engage with your website.

Let’s create a simple drip content campaign: 

• Open your Gold Content Blog 1 page for editing.
• Scroll to the Ultimate Membership Pro Locker section.
• Open the dropdown and select Show Page Only.
• Open the …for dropdown and select gold. 
• Scroll to the Membership Pro – Drip Content section and drag the slider into the On position.
• Scroll to the Release Time section.
• Open the Type of release time dropdown and choose when this content should become accessible to Gold subscribers. To ensure this content is available immediately, I’m selecting Instantly Subscription.
• Scroll to the Expiration Time section.
• Open the dropdown and select Never, since we want this content to be permanently available.
• Click Update.

Now, let’s release Gold Content Blog 2 on the second day of subscription:

• Open your Gold Content Blog 2 page for editing. 
• Scroll to the Ultimate Membership Pro Locker section, and select Show Page Only. 
• Open the …for dropdown and select gold.
• Scroll to the Membership Pro – Drip Content section and drag the slider into the On position.
• Scroll to the Release Time section.
• Open the Type of release time dropdown and choose After subscription. 
• In the subsequent controls, specify that this content should become available 1 day after subscription.
• Make sure Expiration Time is set to Never.
• Click Update.

Now, Gold Content Blog 1 will be accessible as soon as someone purchases a Gold level subscription, and Gold Content Blog 2 will become available the following day. 

Restrict Your Content With Paywalls 

Alternatively, you can restrict access to your content using inside lockers, which are similar to the paywalls you may have encountered on some news websites. The following screenshot shows an example of a content locker-style paywall, on news website The Times. 

To create an effective inside locker, you’ll typically place some teaser content outside of the paywall, and then hide the rest of that content behind the paywall. 

UMP lets you create custom lockers featuring different messages and graphics, for example you might create separate lockers for your Gold and Silver-restricted content.

Let’s create a locker for our Gold content:

• In WordPress’ left-hand menu, select Membership Pro Ultimate WP.
• In the toolbar, select Inside Lockers.
• Select Add New Locker template.
• In Locker Name give this locker a distinctive name, I’m using Gold Locker.
• Open Locker Theme and choose a template; every time you select a new template the Preview section will update based on this new template. Work your way through the list of available templates until you find one you’re happy with; in the following screenshot I’m using Zone.

• You can now customize the locker message, for example you might prompt the user to sign up for a Gold subscription or a Silver subscription, depending on the kind of content you’re restricting. 
• Scroll to Additional display options, and decide whether you want your locker to include a login form and/or social media logins. 
• In the Additional display options section you can also select Additional Links, which will add Register and Lost your password? links to your locker – perfect for visitors who may have already purchased a subscription, but aren’t currently logged into their account. 
• In Locker Message, customize the text that appears on your locker. 

• When you’re happy with the information you’ve entered, click Save Changes.

Applying an Inside Locker

Now we’ve created a Gold locker, let’s look at how you can apply an inside locker to your content. To get the full effect, you’ll need to create a page that features at least a few paragraphs of content: 

• Navigate to Posts > Add New.
• Give this page a descriptive title; I’m using Gold Content (Locker).
• Add several paragraphs of text to this page. To save time, I’m using Lorem Ipsum generator to automatically generate five paragraphs. 
• Click Publish…

Now, let’s hide a portion of this content behind a paywall, using our Gold inside locker: 

• Make sure you have the Gold Content (Locker) page open for editing. 
• Highlight all the text that you want to hide behind the locker “paywall,” so that it’s highlighted blue. 

• Select the red MP Locker button from WordPress’ toolbar (if you don’t see this button, then skip ahead to the next section). 
• In the first dropdown, select Show Content Only For.
• Open the Target Users dropdown and select gold, since this content should only be available to gold subscribers. 
• Open the Choose Locker dropdown and select the locker we created in the previous section.
• Give the Save button a click. 
• Save your WordPress page, by clicking the Update button. 

Now when you visit this webpage without signing into a Gold account, you’ll see a preview of the page’s content, while the rest of the content is hidden behind the locker message.

Can’t Locate the MP Locker Button?

If the MP Locker button isn’t appearing in your WordPress toolbar, then you can coax it out of hiding by switching to WordPress’ Classic Editor. 

The easiest way to make this switch, is to install the free Classic Editor plugin:

• In WordPress’ left-hand menu, select Plugins > Add New.
• Search for Classic Editor and when the plugin appears, select Install Now.

• Once the Classic Editor plugin is installed, select Plugins > Installed Plugins from WordPress’ left-hand menu.
• Find Classic Editor and click its accompanying Settings link.
• Find Default editor for all users and select Classic Editor.
• In the Allow users to switch editors section, select Yes.
• Click Save Changes.
• Next, navigate to Posts > All Posts.
• Hover over the Gold Content (Locker) post that you created in the previous step, and select Edit (Classic Editor) when it appears. The WordPress toolbar should now contain the missing MP Locker button. 

URL Blocking: Restrict Access to Any URL

You can also restrict access to specific URLs. This method can be more efficient if you have a long list of posts that you want to restrict, as you can simply copy/paste each URL into the UMP dashboard.

To restrict access to one or more URLs: 

• In WordPress’ left-hand menu, select Membership Pro Ultimate WP.
• In the toolbar, select Lock Rules.
• Find Specific URL, and give it a click.
• In the Full URL field, enter the first URL that you want to restrict. 
• Open the Restrict type dropdown, and then select either Block Only or Show Only.
• Open the Target Users dropdown, and select the subscription level that you want to apply this new rule to. 
• Open the Redirect to dropdown and select the page where visitors should be redirected to, if they try to access this URL without the necessary subscription. 
• When you’re happy with your settings, click Add New. The target URL will now be restricted, based on your criteria.
• Rinse and repeat for every URL that you want to restrict. 

Creating a Keyword Strategy  

You can also restrict access to specific URLs, based on keywords within that URL. 

You can use this feature to create a system where content is automatically restricted as you publish it. For example you might create a rule where all posts with gold in the URL are restricted to gold subscribers. Once this rule is in place, you then just need to include the keyword gold in a new post’s URL, and this content will be accessible to gold subscribers only.

This approach does require some planning, and it’s entirely reliant on you remembering to edit each post’s URL to include the necessary keywords. However, once you’re in the habit of editing your URLs, this approach can save you a significant amount of time, particularly when compared to manually assigning a subscription level to each piece of content.

Let’s imagine you wanted to restrict content to gold-level subscribers, using the keyword gold. To implement this rule, we need to complete the following steps:

• Navigate to Membership Pro Ultimate WP > Lock Rules.
• Select All URL (based on keywords) from the toolbar.
• In the Keywords field, type gold.
• Open Restrict type and select Show Only.
• Open the Target Users dropdown and select gold.
• In Redirect to select the page that everyone apart from gold subscribers should be redirected to, if they try to access a URL containing the keyword gold. 
• When you’re happy with your settings, click Add New.

Now, everytime you create a page or post that’s targeting gold subscribers, you need to include the word gold in that item’s URL. You can edit a page or post’s URL by opening that item for editing, finding Permalink in the WordPress toolbar, and then selecting its accompanying Edit button. 

Receiving Payments via PayPal 

At this point, we’ve created several subscription levels and explored multiple ways that you can restrict content based on these levels. However, there’s currently no way for potential subscribers to actually purchase any of your subscriptions! 

In this section, I’ll show you how to setup payment gateways, so you can finally start earning money from your website’s content.

To take a look at all the different payment gateways that UMP supports: 

• Select Membership Pro Ultimate WP from WordPress’ left-hand menu.
• In the toolbar, choose Payment Services.

All the supported payment gateways will now be displayed along the top of the dashboard. 

The process of setting up a payment gateway will vary depending on the payment gateway in question, but since it’s one of the most popular online payment methods, I’ll be using PayPal: . 

• Select PayPal from the toolbar.
• In Email address, enter the email address associated with your PayPal account.
• Open the Redirect page after payment dropdown and choose a page the visitor should be redirected to, following a successful payment.
• Click Save Changes.
• Scroll to the PayPal Activation section and drag the slider into the On position.
• Click Save Changes.

Assuming this is the first payment gateway you’ve added to UMP, it’s recommended that you take a few moments to configure your website’s payment settings:

• In the toolbar, select General Settings.
• Click Payments.
• Open the Currency Settings dropdown and choose your preferred currency. 
• Open the Default Payment Gateway and select the payment gateway you’d prefer subscribers to use; I’m choosing PayPal. Now, if you add multiple payment gateways to your website, PayPal will always be highlighted as the default payment option. 
• Click Save Changes.

Head over to your website’s IUMP – Subscription Plan page, and you’ll see that PayPal is now listed as a payment option.

If you select any of the subscription plan Sign Up buttons, you’ll now be redirected to a PayPal form where visitors can purchase this subscription and send you payment via PayPal.

Every time a new subscriber completes a purchase, you’ll see a New Order notification along the top of the UMP dashboard.

You can view more information about this payment, along with your website’s entire payment history, by navigating to Membership Pro Ultimate WP > Payment History.

Conclusion 

In this article, I showed how you to start earning money from your website’s content, using the Ultimate Membership Pro plugin. Over the course of this tutorial, we created several free and paid subscription levels, and explored various methods of restricting your website’s content, based on the visitor’s subscription level. We also covered how to encourage new subscribers to engage with your website, by combining subscription levels with a drip content strategy. 

You can grab the UMP WordPress plugin from CodeCanyon, or check out UMP’s official documentation for more information.