Creating Memberships with User Registration & Membership

With the release of User Registration & Membership v4.0 and Pro v5.0, the membership addon is now a core feature – no need for add-on. You can now create a membership plan in your Registration Forms. To get started with this, let’s go through the following steps:

Prerequisites:

User Registration & Membership plugin v4.0 or higher

Creating Membership Plans #

Access Membership Settings #

1. Navigate to User Registration & Membership > Membership
2. Click on the Create a new Membership button at the top-right corner.

Configure Basic Details #

A form to create a Membership Type and Price will be displayed as shown below:

• Membership Name: Give a name to the membership you are creating.
• Membership Description: Describe the nature of the membership or any other details you want to add.
• Membership Status: Enable or Disable the status of the Membership.
• Membership Role: Choose the role you want to assign to this membership type.

Membership Type & Price #

This is where you can set the type of membership and the price for it. You can choose from the three options:

Free Membership

If you want the membership to be free, you can choose this option. This option doesn’t require setting up the price or payment methods. Users can immediately access the product or services upon registration.

Paid

This is the type of membership where the users will have to make one-time payment to register. You will need to set the fixed price and configure payment methods.

Subscription Based

A Subscription-based membership plan is a business model where users pay a recurring fee (weekly, monthly, or annually) to access exclusive content, services, or privileges. You can set the details with a trial period using this option.

Here's a detailed guide on creating subscription-based membership plans. 

Payment Gateways Configuration #

PayPal Setup

To enable the PayPal payment gateway in the membership plan, you will need to configure PayPal settings first.

1. Click on the setting notification or in a new tab navigate to User Registartion & Membership > Settings > Payments.
2. Configure PayPal Settings:

• Mode: Select ‘Sandbox’ for testing payments in a safe environment or ‘Production’ for processing real transactions.
• PayPal Email: Enter the email address associated with your PayPal business account.
• Cancel URL: Set a URL to redirect the users when the payment process is canceled.
• Return URL: Set a URL to redirect the users after successful payment.
• Client ID: Enter your PayPal API Client ID (get it from the PayPal Developer Dashboard).
• Client Secret: Input your PayPal API Client Secret key (get it from the PayPal Developer Dashboard).

Stripe Settings

Similar to the PayPal settings, configure the Stripe Settings through UserRegistartion & Membership > Settings > Payments > STRIPE SETTINGS.

Configure Stripe details:

• Test Publishable Key: Public API key for testing transactions
• Test Secret Key: Private API key for secure test-mode transactions
• Enable Test Mode: Toggle to process payments in Stripe’s test environment (no real charges).
• Live Publishable Key: Public API key for processing real payments (get key from Stripe Dashboard).
• Live Secret Key: Private API key for live transactions (get key from Stripe Dashboard).

Bank Transfer Settings

To add Bank Transfer as a payment option, enter the required bank details through UserRegistartion & Membership > Settings > Payments > BANK TRANSFER SETTINGS.

Click on the Save Changes button, once you complete these settings.

Enable Payment Gateways #

Now, go back to the tab, where you were creating membership. Now you can enable the preferred payment gateways. Hit the Create Membership button, once everything looks fine to you.

Next, enable or disable the membership plans as per your preference.

Membership Groups #

After creating the memberships, you can create a membership group and add the memberships to it. A Membership Group is a way to organize and categorize multiple plans under a shared structure. This feature is important when you have multiple subscription plans.

Group Setup #

1. To create a new Membership Group, navigate to Membership Groups and click on “Create New Membership Groups“.
2. Configure group settings:

Group Name: Give a group name to the membership group you are creating.
Group Description: Describe the nature of the membership or any other details you want to add.
Group Status: Enable or Disable the status of the Group.
Select Membership: You can select the memberships you want to include in this group. Click on the field and the created memberships will appear in the list.

Click on Create Membership Groups once you enter the necessary details.

Now, your Membership Pricing page will have the plans displayed, similar to the image as below:

Add a Membership Field to the Registration Forms #

Step 1: Add Membership Field to the Form #

Choose any form from User Registration & Membership > All Forms > Registration Forms where you want to add the membership. Then, click to edit the form. After that, search for the “Membership Field” and drag it to the form builder page as shown below.

Step 2: Configure Membership Field Options #

Click on the “Membership Field” and you’ll see Field Options on the left.

From here, you can edit the general settings of the field.

Step 3: Configure Membership Listing Options #

You can choose to list the membership either all or certain group. Hence, choose the your preferred option:

• Show all active memberships: To show all the active membership plans
• Select a group: To show the membership plans assigned under a specific group

If you wish to show Membership groups, you can select from the available groups.

Click on Update Form to save. Preview the form, and you can see form similar to the image below:

Users can now register for any of the plans by filling out this form:

Setting up Membership Registration and Thank You pages  #

By accessing the Membership settings, you can easily set the preferred page as the registration and thank you page:

1. Navigate to User Registration & Membership > Settings > Membership.
2. From here, you can choose the Member Registration Form Page. This is the page that will have the membership registration form.
3. Next is the Thank You Page which redirects users after they register for the subscription.

Note: The Membership Page and Thank You page are automatically created and selected on default.

Example of Signing Up for a Membership Plan: #

Now, you can easily manage members using the Payment History. Here's a detailed guide on using Payment History for managing members. 

Managing Members #

You can also manually add the Members from the User Registration & Membership > Membership > Members

• Click on the Add New Member button as shown below

Create a New Member #

• After that, a Create New Member form will appear. Add all the necessary details.

• First Name: Enter the first name of the member.
• Last Name: Enter the last name of the member.
• Username: Enter a unique username for the member.
• Email: Enter the email address of the member.
• Password: Enter a password for the member.
• Confirm Password: Re-enter the password to confirm it.
• Member Role: Select the member’s role.

Select Plan #

After adding all the member details, select the Membership plan, choose the Start Date, and click the “Create Member” button at the bottom-right corner, as shown below.

• You can view the created members from the location below.

UserRegistration & Membership > Membership > Members

Content Restriction for Membership #

Once you have created your Memberships, you can use the Content Restriction feature to control access. You can enable whole site restriction and give access to selected membership. So select users to allow access and Memberships.

Note: This is a global restriction settings, you can override the settings through individual page or post.

To restrict the content from the individual page/post, you can get content restriction option as shown below:

Here's a detailed guide on Content Restriction. 

Next Steps #

Here’s what to do next:

• Test Transactions: Use sandbox mode to simulate payments.
• Customize Pages: Edit the default Membership Registration or Pricing pages.
• Explore Advanced Features:
  • Form Restriction for restriction based on multiple conditions
  • Import user data file.