# Paid Memberships Pro review (2026): is the free plan enough? > Open-source WordPress membership plugin with managed hosting Checked Nov 12, 2026 ยท graded Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA. Paid Memberships Pro (PMPro) is a WordPress plugin for restricting content, registering members and taking recurring payments. The core platform is free and open-source. Paid tiers add premium add-ons and support, or hosting, migration and development credits on the vendor's Max plans. - **Category:** Courses & Communities - **Made by:** Paid Memberships Pro - **Website:** https://www.paidmembershipspro.com - **Runs on:** Web - **Who should skip it:** Skip it if you don't want WordPress, because it only runs there. - **Facts last checked:** Nov 12, 2026 ## Pricing As of Nov 12, 2026, Paid Memberships Pro has a free plan, and paid plans start at $49 per month for Standard (self-hosted), or a free self-hosted core. - **Pricing model:** Free plan - **Free plan:** Self-host the open-source PMPro platform with the core plugin, 25 free add-ons and payment gateways; no support or premium add-ons. - **Free trial:** None listed. | Plan | Price | What you get | | --- | --- | --- | | Free | $0 | Open-source core plugin and 25 free add-ons that you host yourself, without support. | | Standard | $49 per month, billed monthly ($499 billed yearly) | 1-site license with all 54 premium add-ons and support; you host the site. | | Max | $99 per month, billed monthly ($999 billed yearly) | Managed hosting, free migration and 25 credits a month; the page crosses out a normal price of $149. | | Max 2x | $299 per month, billed monthly ($2,999 billed yearly) | Twice the server and 50 credits a month, for busier sites. | Read from https://www.paidmembershipspro.com/pricing/ on Nov 12, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Paid Memberships Pro before buying. ## Ways to pay less - **Pay annually, save about 2 months** (Annual discount): The pricing page lists yearly totals of $499 for Standard, $999 for Max and $2,999 for Max 2x against monthly plans of $49, $99 and $299. Source: https://www.paidmembershipspro.com/pricing/ ## Key features - **Restrict content:** Limit pages and posts to members by level, with registration, subscriptions and member emails built in. - **Payment gateways:** Gateways listed include Stripe, PayPal, Paystack, CCBill and manual payment. - **Add-ons:** 25 free add-ons come with the free plugin and 54 premium add-ons come with paid plans. - **Managed hosting on Max:** Max plans run on a dedicated server with caching, daily backups, a CDN and free migration from other platforms. - **Do It For Me credits:** Max includes 25 credits every month for custom code, add-on setup and design changes, which the vendor quotes per request. - **Use cases:** Pages cover courses, paid newsletters, private video, podcasts, member directories and communities. ## Good for - WordPress site owners who want an open-source membership base - Teams who would rather pay the vendor to host and build ## Worth knowing - It runs only on WordPress; Free has no license key or support. - Standard covers one site and does not include hosting. - Max plans are billed per server, with the vendor saying a 100-day money-back guarantee applies. ## ToolGPA grades **GPA: 2.4 out of 4**, graded Nov 12, 2026. Paid Memberships Pro is an open-source WordPress membership plugin with paid support tiers and managed hosting. The free version has no license key or support, Standard covers one site and no hosting, and it only runs on WordPress. - **Value for money: C.** The core is free but needs your own WordPress hosting, so it counts as a middle price. Standard is $49 a month and Max $99. - **Free plan and trial: B.** Self-host the core plugin with 25 free add-ons and payment gateways at no cost. There is no support and no premium add-ons. - **Features: B.** Restricting content, payment gateways and many add-ons, with managed hosting on Max. Nothing in the listing is missing from the job. - **Ease of use: D.** It runs only on WordPress, which you host, unless you pay for Max managed hosting. - **Platforms and integrations: B.** Web only, with Stripe, PayPal, Paystack and CCBill gateways. These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Paid Memberships Pro's own pages on 12 November 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. ## Where it stands among course and community platforms - Paid Memberships Pro's GPA of 2.4 is higher than 26 of the 41 other course and community platforms we grade, and level with 8. - It stands best on free plan and trial (B, above 35 of 41) and worst on ease of use (D, above 0). - Its paid plans start at $49 a month, against a middle price of $49 for the category: 17 of the 36 others that charge start lower. - On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.3 out of 4. 7 tools score higher and cost less. The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/courses-communities ## Keep it, or make your own? **Your call.** You could make the core of Paid Memberships Pro for yourself: paid newsletters and templates. What you would give up is listed below. Whether that is worth the price is your call. It costs $588 a year. Paid Memberships Pro is open source, so there is a third way: take its code and run it yourself. - You could make: Paid newsletters and templates: an app builder makes these well. - You could make: It runs in a browser, which is where something home-made would run too. - You could not: A members' space with posts, chat and events that people keep coming back to. - You could not: The depth: we grade its features B, which means it covers the whole job. A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it. ## Works with Stripe, PayPal, Paystack, CCBill **Tags:** Open source, Self-hostable, Paid newsletters, Community, Templates ## Alternatives - [MemberPress](https://toolgpa.com/tools/memberpress): WordPress plugin for paid memberships, courses and communities. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/memberpress-vs-paid-memberships-pro) - [AccessAlly](https://toolgpa.com/tools/accessally): WordPress plugin for courses, memberships and communities. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/accessally-vs-paid-memberships-pro) - [LifterLMS](https://toolgpa.com/tools/lifterlms): WordPress LMS plugin with a free core and paid bundles. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/lifterlms-vs-paid-memberships-pro) - [MemberSpace](https://toolgpa.com/tools/memberspace): Add memberships and gated content to a site you already have. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/memberspace-vs-paid-memberships-pro) - [Outseta](https://toolgpa.com/tools/outseta): Memberships, billing, CRM, email and help desk in one platform. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/outseta-vs-paid-memberships-pro) ## Sources The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Nov 12, 2026: - https://www.paidmembershipspro.com/pricing/ Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/paid-memberships-pro Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).