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Membergate to Wordpress

by jbsmith
6 replies
Anyone had experience moving a fairly well established Membergate membership site over to Wordpress - thinking something like OptimizePress + Wishlist (or similar).

Understand this would likely be a mostly manual process - if I have 200+ pages of content (mix of video and text) that there is unlikely to be an automated way to bring that content over?

Download files would be manual as well - but that shouldn't be too bad.

Looking to outsource is possible. But curious if anyone has gone through this?

While I like Membergate, I find they are constantly behind on features and when I want one thing (Ex updated FLV/HMTL5 player or Responsive for the latest Google update - they bundle it with a larger feature update and force you to spend > $500 when I could get that feature on WP for < $100.

Two issues really - available options when new feature is available - WP community makes them available more quickly with more options and price flexibility of buying either theme extension or plugin versus an entire software update release where I don't really need 3/4 of the features.

Jeff
#membergate #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author Ron Killian
    Never did that kind of move, but wanted to say, I personally wouldn't use Wishlist. I've had it and used it and moving away from it. Poor support and everything is too locked up. Really like S2member myself and seems to be updated quite often. Free version actually does everything I need.
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  • Profile picture of the author jbsmith
    Thanks Rob - appreciate the input.

    J
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    • Profile picture of the author OnlineStoreHelp
      I am a huge fan of DAP myself. Personally think its much more powerful than Wishlist and Ravi and Veena who created it are always expanding it and are the ball with support. They even have a $40/month program with unlimited sites and an hours worth of support from them a month (i.e. they will go into your site and fix things).

      As for member gate, I haven't used it so I can't say what its good for. But, have you also considered the way you are doing things? For example, for Video, I used Vimeo Pro as it is responsive out of the box, works on all devices and I can point it to only play on particular domains. So much easier to upload all your working videos to Vimeo and when the new pages are created, go ahead and add the embed code. I feel it streams much better than stuff sitting on S3.

      The other thing you have to worry about, is if you have recurring monthly charges as you may have to start those over with a different cart. If you don't, its as easy as downloading your customer list and uploading it (for me, DAP) into your member program which will create new member ID's for them.
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  • Profile picture of the author roblawrence
    Speaking from experience, there is no easy way to do this. Honestly the transfer costs to hire someone would be about the same or more of what you would spend to upgrade Membergate. Someone would have to manually update your site. If you think the cost is worth it and plan to have your site open long enough to recoup the costs, then go for it. Or, it might be better for you to start fresh and move the content over a few articles a day at a time. Membergate is a secure solution and from what I see version 9 (to be released soon) has a lot of great features. Just curious what your site is? Can you earn enough money from it to justify the expense? Is it a business or hobby site?
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  • Profile picture of the author jbsmith
    Hi Rob - thanks for the response. Yep, guess I realized all along that the transition would be rather manual and onerous. I do generally like membergate - the problem is that each release over the last few years includes perhaps 1 feature that I really need that I could find for $50 or less on a Wordpress theme or WP-based membership product and yet I have to pay $600-$1000 for an upgrade. For example, how long have we had video players built into blog themes that look good OR that we can get through something like Easy Video Player - they finally upgraded them in Membergate R9 and STILL the options are very basic. Amazes me given membergate was started by Bill Myers who has used video for nearly a decade!

    Support for payment processors sucks - if I want to use CB or Paypal - they are not well integrated - for example if someone wants to cancel their recurring payment then I have to go into Membergate manually and cancel their subscription - come on!

    These basic (but very important) things drive me crazy and you can get them with pretty much any other membership software such as DAP or amember.

    Guess I am finally hitting a wall wrt my patience. I will be making a major push on my membership site this Fall and want to be solid on one platform or another by then. Already have several subscribers I will have to migrate - but it will only get worse in the Fall.
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    jeff
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    • Profile picture of the author roblawrence
      Jeff you can check out the Membergate 9 features here:

      Membergate9

      The new features look impressive. The mobile version is OK but could use some more polishing. I noticed on the paywall-login page that the member benefits section disappears on the phone because the screen is too small. Seems like you lose some of the ability to sell someone who is accessing your site via the phone. They get to that page and aren't enticed enough. Perhaps there is a way to keep it on there? Not sure. I haven't seen the inside of Membergate 9 yet.

      Overall, I would say this is a major step in the right direction. Wordpress just seems to move a lot faster and has more features, but Membergate is a good solution although expensive.
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