12 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
12 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

Yet Another "best membership plugin" thread :)

by aspiepower
10 replies
Hi

I've got simple needs for a membership plugin and need a steer in the right direction.

I don't want to charge my members anything, ever. I don't want to sell anything to them, nor cross sell, upsell or anything.

I just want people to register and be able to send them emails/newsletters. They must be double opt in, and I don't want to use expensive auto responders.

I am not trying to set up an auto-deluge-with-emails system, I'll occasionally handwrite a nice email/newsletter that's relevant to members. All nice and laid back. Mailchimp is on my "Must look into" list though.

I've already got this horribly wrong in the past (think: double opt in list of 50,000 members I have never been able to email) and so am starting from scratch

So ... what're your opinions?

I need to get this resolved in the next few days and get it dealt with once and for all, properly.

Cheers!
#best membership plugin #thread
  • Profile picture of the author AndreVas
    Use Delavo free: it's membership features excel every membership script I've looked at in detail since 2007. See here comparison chart: Comparison Table

    Used Delavo since 2007 to manage 100K+ paying customers from our hosting company until mid 2010. And no business model in the world demands more flexibility and list-management features than hosting (especially when you're doing a free to paid model whereby they can upgrade from free/paid to higher plans).

    Delavo also has a followup autoresponder system for unlimited lists, or supports any external AR (MailChimp in your case if you wanna use it).

    Could write pages of benefits why Delavo over others. See if it's free core plan suits you.

    Otherwise side note: don't use Amember (too unflexible and limited in demands that become obvious in cases of large lists).

    Might as well start RIGHT, right at the beginning instead of going through frustration of changing your script in future as you notice your existing script is revealing limited features that are consequentially loosing you money.
    Signature

    "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." - W. Shakespeare

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4213274].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author rbarnhart1
      @AndreVas

      I was just looking at Delavo and based on what I'm seeing...it looks exactly as you describe (I've known about this product for awhile now...but never thought about it in the context of membership sites).

      I've looked at quite a few things and found lots of advice here at WF about starting a membership site. So, I've got a few questions.

      Before I started looking at Delavo, I was going to go with a setup recommended by another Warrior...

      • Optimize Press theme
      • DAP member manager (they actually recommended Wishlist, but this seems more what I need)
      • SimplePress
      • Aweber
      • Amazon S3 (with a free plug-in to secure it)
      If I get Delavo, do I still need all of the above (I'm sure I still need the theme)?

      If I use Delavo with WordPress...do you recommend installing Wordpress at root or under it's own directory?

      Any additional advice for using Delavo with Wordpress? Thanks for any info you can provide.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4296932].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Glenn Pegden
    Sounds like a perfect fit for Your Members using the "Free" payment gateway and the MailChimp mail gateway.

    Most of the others membership plugins just use MailChimp as a simple autoresponder, but thanks to a grant from the MailChimp themselves, we've implemented huge amounts of their functionality right into the plugin (including proper list segmentation support, template management, unsubscribes, double opt-in etc)

    Link to info about our MailChimp integration => Mail Chimp Integration « Your Members – Wordpress Membership Plugin

    We're also MailChimp experts so are more than happy to quote for custom MailChimp integration work.

    Oh and something I'm only tipping Warriors off about, next month we're releasing our extension to Your Members that allows you to both view and sell content in Facebook (as well as letting people buy for Facebook credits and set up "LikeWalls"), if you buy now, you'll get the FB stuff for free when it's launched, if you get it later you'll pay more
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4299202].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author rbarnhart1
      Hi Glenn,

      Thanks for the info. I've seen a few people mention YM in other posts. Sounds interesting.

      I think I'm either going to go with the original configuration I mentioned or the the Delavo configuration.

      I'm still trying to figure out how Delavo integrates with Wordpress to provide the functionality. I saw that it links to the member database in WP. So, that explains how it manages the users. But, I'm curious how it will restrict access to the membership area (if it does).

      The WP plugins operate from inside WP. Delavo works from the outside. So, it almost seems like we're taking all of the functionality out of plug-ins and putting it in the Delavo system. Is that an accurate description of how it works?
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4299393].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author ravijayagopal
    Using DigitalAccessPass.com (DAP), you can create a "Free Signup Form" to sign up registered members, who must double-optin (optional) and log in before they can view/download content that you've designated to be a part of that free product.

    And the content in this free product, can either be dripped, or made available right away - your choice.

    And since they're registered users with a valid email id in the system, you can then use DAP's built-in autoresponder system to either send them pre-scheduled emails, and/or you can send them broadcast emails on demand. And you can send HTML emails too, not just text. No need to sign up for any email service if you don't wish to.

    And you can even set up the affiliate program such that you can offer to pay your free members for referring other free members ("Pay Per Lead"), and thus build your list too.

    - Ravi Jayagopal
    Signature
    Secure Video & Audio Player for S3 & CloudFront
    S3MediaVault.com
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4308383].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author rbarnhart1
      @Ravi

      Thanks for the info. I should mention that I've been to your site and reviewed the DAP plug-in. The feature list is very impressive.

      My concern is there is a lot of conflicting information about all the different options that are available. The larger problem is that I'm so new to all of this, I don't know who's right and who is wrong. For that matter, I don't even know what functions I'm going to need (aside from the very obvious ones that all of the options seem to have in common).

      One of the items in your features list that caught my attention is this one:

      Even use DAP to sell live events and coaching programs!
      That is very close to what I have in mind. In particular, I eventually want to create my own coaching platform...to manage the coaching process. It sounds like your plug-in would be great for this.

      It would also be great if you offered a lite version of your plug-in that has just the basic necessities along with a guide to starting membership sites. With an option like that, I would be able to get up and running, test out the functionality, practice what I learn from your guide...and then upgrade to the full-version when I've got everything up and running. Have you thought of doing anything like this? It would be a great option for someone like me who is just getting started.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4311305].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author ravijayagopal
    @rbarnhart1,

    Yes, we have thought about a lite version. We will probably introduce it at some point.

    However, we do already offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, so the risk is really on us. And you're better off trying the full version anyway, so that you can test it and know right away if it has/does everything that you'll need it to do, now or in the future.

    - Ravi Jayagopal
    Signature
    Secure Video & Audio Player for S3 & CloudFront
    S3MediaVault.com
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4327678].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author rbarnhart1
      That makes sense. I appreciate that. I haven't decided exactly what options I'm going to use yet. I'm leaning towards an external system at the moment. But, I'm trying to keep my options open while I'm doing my research. Thanks for your help.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4329815].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author salegurus
        Originally Posted by rbarnhart1 View Post

        That makes sense. I appreciate that. I haven't decided exactly what options I'm going to use yet. I'm leaning towards an external system at the moment. But, I'm trying to keep my options open while I'm doing my research. Thanks for your help.
        Have you had a look at profits theme? It's become quite popular as a all in one mem site solution.
        Signature
        Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.

        ― George Carlin
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4330636].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author rbarnhart1
          @salegurus

          Yes...I did check that out recently and I'm learning more towards that one now. It does seem to offer more than Optimize Press. My big question at the moment is this:

          Will Delavo WP Instant Points and Devmem plugins work with either one of those themes. I don't want to purchase either unless I know they will work. And unfortunately, neither one seem to have contact info on their site.

          I've asked one or two other places here on WF...but so far no one has responded. Any ideas?
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4334778].message }}

Trending Topics