MemberPress is worth it for a WordPress site selling memberships or courses, and Growth is the plan most sites should start on. Growth costs $349.50 for year 1, then $699 a year, with no cut of payments. This MemberPress review draws on all 29 low-star Trustpilot reviews, the newest 200 five-star ones, and its terms.
Launch costs $199.50, then $399, plus 4.9% per payment. Taking payments on a lapsed licence adds an Expired License Transaction Fee. Other routes include Paid Memberships Pro (free core plugin, 2% on its Stripe setup) for a WordPress paywall and CartMango, which I run (free right now, from $10 a year once paid plans start in November), for billing alone.
You are about to tie your paywall, your member list and your monthly income to 1 WordPress plugin, and its price doubles in year 2.
I read all 29 low-star Trustpilot reviews of MemberPress, then the newest 200 five-star ones, then its terms and help docs. The praise is real, and most of it is about the support team.
About half of the complaints land on renewal day, on the cancel screens or on the day a licence runs out.
By the end you will know what each plan does, what year 2 costs, and what happens if you stop paying.
Key Takeaways
- Trustpilot is strong. 534 of 563 reviews give 4 or 5 stars, and 131 of the newest 200 five-star reviews mention support.
- The first year is half price. Launch, Growth and Scale renew at $399, $699 and $999 a year, and Launch adds 4.9% per payment.
- Most sites should start on Growth. Once both renew at full price, it beats Launch above about $510 a month in member payments.
- 14 of the 29 low-star reviews are about money or leaving. They name renewals, refunds, cancelling, site limits or a lapsed licence first.
- A lapsed licence can cost you on every payment. The terms add an Expired License Transaction Fee, and I could not find a published rate.
- It suits WordPress sites that need a real members area. Paid Memberships Pro has a free core plugin, and CartMango handles billing alone.
A bill that doubles in year 2 is 1 way a membership leaks money. The Online Selling Mistakes Challenge covers 5 more over 5 days, drawn from what we saw processing $179M+ in creator sales.
What MemberPress costs in year 1 and from year 2
MemberPress sells 3 yearly plans, and each one renews at double its first-year price. The page says it in a footnote: “all annual renewals are at full price.”
MemberPress Launch costs $199.50 then $399, Growth costs $349.50 then $699, and Scale costs $499.50 then $999, and only Launch takes a cut of each payment.
| Plan | Year 1 | From year 2 | MemberPress fee | Payment options |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Launch | $199.50 | $399 | 4.9% per payment | Stripe only |
| Growth | $349.50 | $699 | 0% | Stripe, PayPal, Square, offline |
| Scale | $499.50 | $999 | 0% | Adds Authorize.net |
Every plan covers 1 site, and each extra site needs another paid activation.
Your payment processor charges on top of all this. Stripe’s standard rate for a US card is 2.9% plus 30 cents.
Launch looks like the cheap way in, and for a small site it is. At $12,000 a year in member payments, Launch costs $987 in year 2 and Growth costs $699, so the lower sticker price ends up costing $288 more.
| Member payments a year | Launch, year 1 | Growth, year 1 | Launch, year 2 | Growth, year 2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $3,000 | $346.50 | $349.50 | $546 | $699 |
| $12,000 | $787.50 | $349.50 | $987 | $699 |
| $36,000 | $1,963.50 | $349.50 | $2,163 | $699 |
Those figures add the plan price and the 4.9%, and they leave out Stripe, which you pay on any plan.
The crossover sits at about $3,061 a year in year 1 and about $6,122 a year after that. Our MemberPress pricing breakdown walks through the math per payment.
Old prices still show up in this search, so check any figure against the live plan page. Google’s AI Overview told me MemberPress “does not take a cut of your sales”, then listed 4 retired plans: Basic at $359, Plus at $599, Pro at $799 and Elite at $999. Astra’s review carries the same 4 plans and lists “No transaction fees or monthly fee” as a pro.
The AI Overview for this search. Read the No Transaction Fees line, then the 4 plan names. MemberPress’s pricing page sells Launch, Growth and Scale.
Site counts go wrong too. 4 of the 5 third-party reviews on page 1 (Membership Geeks, The Guitar Lesson, BlogVault and Astra) say the plans differ by how many sites they cover, while MemberPress’s multi-site doc says Launch, Growth and Scale “all come with one available license (site) activation”.
What 563 Trustpilot reviewers praise, and what the low-star 29 name
Support earns most of the praise in MemberPress’s Trustpilot reviews, and money or leaving earns about half of the complaints. MemberPress scores 4.7 out of 5 there: 493 five-star reviews, 41 four-star and 29 at 3 stars or below. 131 of the newest 200 five-star reviews, which run from July 2025 to October 2026, mention support or customer service, and several thank a staff member by name.
Far fewer talk about the product itself: 31 of those 200 say easy, simple or intuitive, 22 mention courses or quizzes and 12 mention price or cost. These are plain word counts, so treat them as a direction.
I sorted all 29 low-star reviews, which run from 2020 to 2026, by the first problem each one names: 14 are about renewals, refunds, cancelling, site limits or a lapsed licence, 12 about setup, bugs or missing features, 2 about support and 1 about review-request emails.
| First problem named | Reviews | In a reviewer’s words |
|---|---|---|
| Renewal price, charge or refund | 7 | “The renewal fee is double the annual price” |
| Setup, bugs, missing features | 12 | “when some other plugin updates, memberpress has problems” |
| Cancelling | 3 | “it had at least 5 screens” |
| Lapsed licence | 3 | “You lose the ability to add new members, issue customer refunds” |
| Support | 2 | “Useless unresponsive support” |
| Site limit | 1 | “staging/dev sites are not included” |
| Review-request emails | 1 | “Sending me an email every day” |
MemberPress disputes some of these. It answered a July 2026 refund complaint by saying the full refund had gone out hours before the review was posted. It told 2 other reviewers in 2026 that it could not find a matching customer.
Trustpilot’s company page says MemberPress asks its customers for reviews, so read the 4.7 with that in mind. In the past 12 months MemberPress replied to 3 of 6 negative reviews and flagged 3 reviews to Trustpilot. All 3 stayed online.
Reddit points the same way on support. A user in an r/Wordpress thread called support “quick to answer”, then said MemberPress can do almost anything, “but sometimes not in the way you would prefer that it be done.”
Getting the site live without a developer
MemberPress’s ReadyLaunch, on every plan, builds your pricing, login and account pages without a developer. The plugin still runs on a WordPress site you own, so the hosting, backups and plugin clashes stay your job. Membership Geeks calls the ReadyLaunch designs “very limited and aesthetically awkward”.
Setup can run long. The same r/Wordpress user who praised support had “penciled in a two-week period” and needed 3 months. Another, on a second r/Wordpress thread, said it does the job once installed, but “to get it to look great, you definitely need to do some CSS tweaking.”
MemberPress sells a done-for-you setup service if you would rather skip it, and our membership site platform guide prices the hosted tools that remove WordPress altogether.
Putting a paywall around your content
MemberPress locks pages, posts and custom post types with access rules on all 3 plans. An online Pilates platform on Trustpilot says it runs “subscriptions, recurring payments, trials, cancellations, member accounts, content protection, and course access in one place.” Content dripping and access expiry start at Growth, so if your plan is a new lesson every week, Launch cannot do it.
Taking the money every month
Your MemberPress plan decides how members can pay. Launch takes Stripe alone, so a member who wants to pay by PayPal can’t. Growth adds PayPal, Square and offline payments, and Scale adds Authorize.net.
Every plan includes coupons, trial coupons, automated reminder emails and Stripe Tax. Our MemberPress coupon code guide covers building your own discounts.
Launch connects to Mailchimp, while Kit, ActiveCampaign and AWeber start at Growth.
Dates can drift between MemberPress and Stripe. A club owner on r/Wordpress changed expiry dates in MemberPress, found they “did not register in stripe at all”, and was charged early. If you move a billing date, check it in Stripe too.
Order bumps and upsells, both labelled Beta, are on Scale alone. If a checkout offer is all you want from that plan, CartMango, which I run, has order bumps on every plan, though it has no members area.
Teaching and keeping members in one place
MemberPress includes a course builder with unlimited courses and lessons on every plan. Quizzes, assignments and certificates start at Growth, and the gradebook needs Scale. Circles, member directories and coaching programs start at Growth, while live chat and the affiliate program need Scale.
Reporting draws complaints at 2, 3, 4 and 5 stars. A 2-star reviewer wrote in 2022 that “I need to know exactly what has been completed in a course”, and the Pilates platform, a happy 5-star customer, still names reporting and debugging as areas to improve.
If courses or community come first, look at the dedicated tools before you buy. LearnDash is the course-first WordPress option, and Podia hosts courses and community for you. Both are priced in the verdict table below.
What happens if you stop paying MemberPress
If you stop paying MemberPress, the front of your site keeps working, while support, updates and eventually your admin screens go. Your payments can also start carrying an extra fee. None of the 5 third-party reviews on page 1 says what a lapsed licence costs.
Renewal comes first. Plans renew automatically, and MemberPress’s refund policy says “no refunds are given for renewal charges”. Its 14-day guarantee “applies to new subscriptions only”. A Trustpilot reviewer was charged for a tool they had stopped using, and MemberPress replied that a notice goes out 30 days before each renewal, so check the inbox on your account.
Reviewers count 5 to 10 cancel screens. A 2023 reviewer counted at least 5, and a developer in October 2026 counted 10. MemberPress says it could not find that customer, and that the flow is 1 step about future pricing plus a feedback request you can skip.
Then the licence ends. MemberPress’s licence doc says that on the day it expires you lose support and “updates to the MemberPress plugin, including security updates”. A grace period follows, and it does not say how long. After that: “You won’t have access to any of the MemberPress admin screens.”
Your members can still log in, because the front end runs on. You just can’t add a member, change a membership or issue a refund. A 5-star reviewer wrote in October 2026 that “our MemberPress subscription had lapsed and we’d been running on ‘half steam’ so to say for a couple of years”.
What MemberPress’s own docs and terms describe, step by step.
The fee sits in the terms. MemberPress’s terms say that if your licence is inactive and you keep taking payments, “an additional transaction fee will apply”.
The clause sits in MemberPress’s terms, next to the line saying rates are “disclosed on the MemberPress Site”.
The backend deactivated doc adds 3 details. A “Reactivate Backend Instantly” button gets your admin screens back without a licence, MemberPress then “applies the Expired License Transaction Fee to all future transactions”, and those fees are non-refundable. It also says “A Launch plan site with an expired license pays both fees together.”
So what is the rate? I could not find one on MemberPress’s site, and the current doc names the fee with no percentage. 2 other sources give a number, and they differ:
- A copy saved in June 2026 said “MemberPress will apply a 5% fee”.
- A 1-star reviewer in October 2026 says “they levy 3% of all transactions” after a late payment.
A $29 payment on a lapsed Launch site loses $1.42 to the 4.9% and $1.14 to Stripe, then $1.45 at 5% or $0.87 at 3%. You keep $24.99 or $25.57, down from $26.44.
At 5%, the fee alone passes Launch’s $399 renewal once member payments reach about $665 a month. At 3%, that point is about $1,108 a month. Either way you are also running with no security updates, so paying the fee is a short-term patch at best.
Paid Memberships Pro takes 2% on its built-in Stripe setup without an active licence, so ask any tool what happens on the day you stop paying. Get MemberPress’s rate in writing from support before you rely on it.
Which MemberPress plan does each job, and where CartMango fits
Growth is the first plan with PayPal, dripping, quizzes and community and no cut of payments, at $699 a year from year 2, and Scale adds Zapier, affiliates and Beta upsells for $300 more.
| Option | Paywall | Billing | Order bumps, upsells | Courses, community | Billed yearly, from year 2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MemberPress Launch | Yes, no dripping | Stripe only, 4.9% cut | No | Courses, no quizzes or community | About $33 a month ($399 a year) |
| MemberPress Growth | Yes, with dripping | Stripe, PayPal, Square, 0% | No | Quizzes, certificates, community | About $58 a month ($699 a year) |
| MemberPress Scale | Yes, with dripping | Adds Authorize.net, 0% | Yes, labelled Beta | Adds gradebook and live chat | About $83 a month ($999 a year) |
| CartMango | No | Stripe and PayPal, 0% | Order bumps on all plans, upsells from $20 a year | Not yet, planned for October 2026 | About $0.83 to $2.50 a month ($10 to $30 a year) from November, free right now |
I run CartMango, so read its row with that in mind. It is a checkout with no way to lock WordPress pages, so it only overlaps with MemberPress on billing and checkout offers. Course hosting and community are not live yet, and they will arrive on its $30 a year plan.
MemberPress review verdict: who should buy it
MemberPress is worth buying if you run WordPress, need a real members area and will use the courses or community tools. Most of those sites should start on Growth, because it removes the 4.9% and adds PayPal and dripping. Launch makes sense only while member payments stay under about $255 a month in year 1, or about $510 a month after that. Scale earns its extra $300 if you want Zapier, the affiliate program or its Beta order bumps and upsells.
Skip it if you don’t want to look after WordPress, or if a yearly bill of $699 is too much for what you sell. Here is where those readers should look instead, all billed yearly:
| You want | Pick | Cost | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| A WordPress membership on a smaller bill | Paid Memberships Pro | $0 for the core plugin, about $42 a month ($499 a year) for Standard | 2% on its built-in Stripe setup without a licence or your own keys |
| Courses first, on WordPress | LearnDash | About $29 a month ($350 a year) for 1 site | You still run WordPress yourself |
| No WordPress to look after | Podia | $42 a month ($504 a year) plus 5% on Mover, $84 a month with 0% on Shaker | Your site lives on Podia |
| Only a recurring charge, or a file | CartMango | About $0.83 a month ($10 a year) from November, free right now | No members area, and video stays on a host like Vimeo |
FAQ
What is the annual fee for MemberPress?
MemberPress costs $199.50, $349.50 or $499.50 for the first year on Launch, Growth or Scale. Every plan then renews at full price: $399, $699 or $999 a year. Launch also takes 4.9% of each payment, and your payment processor charges separately on all 3 plans.
What is MemberPress?
MemberPress is a paid WordPress plugin that turns a site into a membership business. It locks content, bills members through Stripe and other gateways, and adds courses, community and coaching tools depending on the plan. Caseproof, LLC owns it. You supply the WordPress site and the hosting yourself, and the plugin sits on top, which is why the yearly price is only part of your running cost.
What is the best WordPress membership plugin?
For a site selling memberships and courses together, MemberPress Growth is where I would start, because courses, community, dripping and PayPal are all in 1 plan with no cut of payments. Paid Memberships Pro suits a smaller budget, since its core plugin is free. On its built-in Stripe setup with no licence it takes 2% of each payment, and your own Stripe keys remove that. LearnDash suits a site built around courses.
Does MemberPress have a free version or a free trial?
No. MemberPress’s refund policy says its products “aren’t available as a free version or with a trial period”. You get a 14-day refund window instead, and it covers new subscriptions only. You pay first, then ask for your money back within 14 days if it does not fit.
Does MemberPress charge transaction fees?
Yes, in 2 cases. Launch takes 4.9% of every successful payment, and it does so whether your licence is active or not. Any plan with a lapsed licence pays an Expired License Transaction Fee if it keeps taking payments. Growth and Scale take 0% while the licence stays active.
Can I get a refund on a MemberPress renewal?
MemberPress’s written policy says no: “no refunds are given for renewal charges”. In practice it has told 1 Trustpilot reviewer a renewal refund was issued, and told another in 2025 that refunds run up to 14 days after renewal. Don’t plan around that. Cancel before the renewal date.
Billing members without a plugin to renew
Some readers will finish this MemberPress review and realise they never needed a paywall. They sell a monthly download or a paid email, and what they want is a recurring charge that keeps running. Drop the plugin and the licence, the grace period and the lapse fee all go with it.
So where does the recurring charge live instead? CartMango does that job: subscriptions on every plan, no cut per sale, and your subscribers keep paying you if you ever leave. CartMango is free right now, and paid plans start in November 2026 from $10 a year.
About the Author
👋 I’m Welly, founder of CartMango (the site you’re on), a checkout platform for digital product sellers. We’ve previously processed $179M+. I also run BirdSend (email marketing tool, 3.1B+ emails sent). On the side I show other non-techie digital sellers how I use AI workflows to automate 50%+ of my operations. Find me on LinkedIn.
Related Reading
- MemberPress pricing: the 4.9% fee on Launch, and where Growth gets cheaper
- MemberPress coupon code: the WELCOME offer, and what year 2 costs after it
- Paid Memberships Pro pricing: the free core plugin and its 2% fee
- What a membership site platform really costs: 8 platforms priced at 100 members
- How to sell subscriptions online: the 5 jobs a recurring product has to get right