Amember, Wishlist .... or what?

[IM Headlines]

Hi warriors,

I've decided to establish a membership site in the
upcoming months. This is something new for me,
that's why I'm asking for your opinions here.

I heard that the best scripts for a membership
site are amember & wishlist.

What do you think?

I won't need a forum, chatrooms or anything like that.
I just want to create a simple membership site that offers a
bunch of e-books to download & some tutorials maybe.

Any recommendations or advice before I start off with this?

Thanks in advance for your replies.

Regards,
IM Headlines

[alexshelton]

Hey,

I've gone for Wishlist but Amember looks really good too.

Also in the same boat, i'll be following this thread closely.

Thanks

[Fernando Veloso]

I saw InstantMember but it's single license, but the features are insane.

[IM Headlines]

Originally Posted by Fernando Veloso

I saw InstantMember but it's single license, but the features are insane.

Yeah, instantmember seems really good too...

I'm getting very confused on what to choose here...

Some advice from someone who already runs a membership site would be very nice.

Thanks

[nikki82]

i heard amember is the best for membership site, but u have to know what u r doing

[Julian Lockhart]

I have set up a membership site with Yourmembers and it is great.

Your Members Wordpress Membership plugin

I tried wish list first and I did not like the sign up/ checkout Process.

Both are pretty good (it's funny I just remembered that i requested a refund from wishlist and they came back with a friendly "why do you want to cancel?" and I never responded. . . and they did not refund me.)

I guess this post made me a $100 bucks. Now I can go buy something else!LOL

One thing I really like about YM is that it has a member dashboard that give them details about their membership.


Let me know if you need any help setting it up.

I think you can rule out amember due to the cost factor.

Good Luck

[kimothy777]

I use Amember and have found it to be very good. It is reasonably priced too. I heard that this was one of the best.

[Fernando Veloso]

Originally Posted by IM Headlines

Yeah, instantmember seems really good too...

I'm getting very confused on what to choose here...

That's why I am waiting a couple of weeks to decide witch one to buy, cause every discussion here about membership scripts ends with a different winner.

[Tracey_Meagher]

I plan to set up my membeship with Memberwing in the next few days. I like that it integrates with Rapid Action Profits. If anybody has used memberwing, some feedback would be great!

[globalpro]

Hi Tracey,

I beta tested MW and RAP for Gleb the developer. It works great for having RAP for sales processing and affiliate management and MW to control things on your members blog. MW does wonders for the blog. I am very impressed with the way it works.

The only thing is, if you are planning to do recurring billing, you will also need the PayPal add on. I am trying to get Gleb to work up a package for this.

PM me if you have any questions.

For the OP, here's the two I always recommend:

RAP Members Combo

RAP / Member Plus

Simple Member Pro

Membership Script - Simple Member Pro PHP Membership Script

Both work very well for what you are wanting to do and both developers are members here.

Thanks,

John

[IM Headlines]

Hi guys,

First of all, I want to thank you for your responses.
I forgot to ask you another question in my first post.

I would like to include a FREE trial that will last about
7 days. Members will be allowed to view what's inside
my membership site BUT they will NOT be able to
download anything. That way, the visitors will see
the e-books with their own eyes...

Do you know of any scripts that have this feature?

[Fernando Veloso]

If you don't need any fancy stuff as most scripts provide, check this from fellow warrior Big Mike:

EZ Lesson Manager | Online Training at it's best! Create unlimited courses with text and multimedia. Offer paid or free courses...

[Corwinnx]

It's going to depend on what other tools/systems you will be using, like which auto responder and which affiliate program you want. If you're going to have an affiliate program, most affiliate programs either act as a payment processor, or integrate with Paypal, but some, like e-junkie, don't support recurring billing.

Wishlist-

integrates with :
2 Auto responders: Aweber (third party) and Autoresponse Plus (server side)
4 Payment Processors: Paypal, 1 shopping cart, Clickbank and QuickPayPro
*If you plan to offer an affiliate program, you'll need to integrate it with the one of the supporting payment processors.

We wanted to use GetResponse for our autoresponder, but as you can see, it's not supported by the plug-in. We also wanted to use e-junkie or RAP for our affiliate program, but e-junkie does not support recurring billing and we're still unsure whether or not RAP will work.

So you have to look at what you plan to use for your auto responder, payment processor and affiliate program if you're going to have one.

Hope that helps some.

Warmest Regards,
Marcus

[ecoverbox]

i have been using wishlist and it is really good except it is quite expensive. memberwing seems as good and a cheaper option.

[IM Headlines]

Originally Posted by Corwinnx

It's going to depend on what other tools/systems you will be using, like which auto responder and which affiliate program you want. If you're going to have an affiliate program, most affiliate programs either act as a payment processor, or integrate with Paypal, but some, like e-junkie, don't support recurring billing.

Wishlist-

integrates with :
2 Auto responders: Aweber (third party) and Autoresponse Plus (server side)
4 Payment Processors: Paypal, 1 shopping cart, Clickbank and QuickPayPro
*If you plan to offer an affiliate program, you'll need to integrate it with the one of the supporting payment processors.

We wanted to use GetResponse for our autoresponder, but as you can see, it's not supported by the plug-in. We also wanted to use e-junkie or RAP for our affiliate program, but e-junkie does not support recurring billing and we're still unsure whether or not RAP will work.

So you have to look at what you plan to use for your auto responder, payment processor and affiliate program if you're going to have one.

Hope that helps some.

Warmest Regards,
Marcus

I will probably use paypal as my payment option & aweber
as my autoresponder. Most of the scripts that I checked
support those 2 so that won't be a problem.

I don't plan on creating an affiliate program, so that won't
be a problem either...

The only problem here is finding the right script...

I've just finished watching a video tutorial about wishlist.
It has some pretty cool features & it's easy to use but I don't
really like the idea of using a blog as a membership site...
Anyway, I still might choose to buy it if I don't find anything
better because it's not bad at all.

I've just downloaded the amember trial & I'm going to see how good it is...

Just getting a site and tossing up a bunch of downloads is not going to be very productive. I hope you have a plan setup ?

James

[IM Headlines]

Originally Posted by TheRichJerksNet

Just getting a site and tossing up a bunch of downloads is not going to be very productive. I hope you have a plan setup ?

James

Well, it will be if you give your customers
VALUABLE information. BTW I recieved your PM,
I'll look into it later. Thanks.

____________________________________________

I was just searching around on WF & I found out
that Dlguard can also be used for a membership site...

Hmm.. it really got me thinking. Dlguard has a pretty
good reputation & it's well known for downloads.

It might be the ideal script for me since I will be focusing
mostly on putting e-books for download on my membership site.

Also I would like to set up a feature that will enable FREE trial
members to view the downloads & download them only when they
upgrade their account to paid membership.

Will Dlguard be able to do this?

What do you guys think?

Has anyone ever used Dlguard for a
membership site?

Thanks in advance!

[Frank Bruno]

I've used them all over the years (just about) and have sites setup using membership scripts such as BFM,LFM,Amember, Wishlist and currently setting up Memberwing with RAP.

In my opinion Wishlist was my first choice but it is very limited when it comes to intigrating an affiliate program unless you want to use the affiliate module in 1Shopping cart or Clickbank.

The other thing about Wishlist is that if you want to intigrate your own tracking or 3rd party script for an aff program the source code is encrypted so you can't do that. Bummer

Also WL intigrated with RAP that would be freakin cool. Maybe someday they will do that

It all depends on whats important to you....

If you just want to post content and downloads etc, then WL is cool for niches where the average person doesn't know jack about affiliate programs and how they work.

But if you want something more robust I would use Amember but its quite a bit more comprehensive to setup and run, but it rocks and its virtually bullet proof if you have all the lastest upgrades.

Alex has been developing and refining Amember for years and years now. In fact it was my very first membership script back in the day.

Amember All around great script but overkill for simple sites.

Frank Bruno

[KimW]

I already have amember ,had for a few years, but if I was starting out I'd lookk into this:
http://setupamembershipsite.com/mst/index.php

[intromaster]

Amember has been great. I set it up on my brothers website almost two years ago and it's been running fantastic. My brother loves it and has no problems with it. It can handle hundreds and probably thousands of subscribers w/o a hitch.

Take it for a test drive. I think they give you 30 days to try it out too.

I know they update the software constantly making it better with more features each time.

Also, from my brothers experience he says customer support is excellent. They respond to him very quickly. I can attest to that because when I was using it on my own website last year as a test drive I got help right away as well.

[darrin_cooper]

In ranking order this is what you should look at:
1. Amember -- Long history - but difficult
2. MemberWing -- On going & consistent development -- has a lot of features not seen in many. Supposed to be very easy to customize

3. Wishlist - Great product. Lots of features. Only issue is that development is outsourced, so new updates & getting things done quickly simply is not going to happen. Customer support is good sometimes. Customer Support vs. Customized development needs is completely different.

Overall, you need to look at what your "MAIN" payment methods are going to be. Most of these have the integration of PayPal as well as Clickbank, as well as a 3rd party solution. So your are covered most of the time. It really depends on your strategy.

If you have your sites want to be developed with with a Clickbank payment process -- Wishlist & Amember might be best. Memberwing & Amember for Paypal directly

[Stu_M10]

Hey Darrin,

I appreciate your insights for everyone but I just wanted to quickly clarify a couple things...

We actually don't "outsource" our development at WishList Products. It's all done in house and we have a full-time development team which is why we actually have updates happening all the time so I'm not quite sure why you think updates "is not going to happen".

As far as support goes, we are EXTREMELY proud of the way we handle support (and I think you'll find our customers say the same). We have a full-time Support Team available M-F, 9am-5pm to answer any "hands on" questions along with 30+ video tutorials and over 100 pages of step-by-step Support Guides complete with screen shots.

Anyway if you have any questions feel free to ask through our support desk or in this forum as you'll find many of our customers who've bought the product can provide lots of insight.

All the best.

Stu

[jonb]

I'm proud to follow Stu on this thread -- his product has quite literally transformed my business. I've been running Wishlist on my membership site since November and haven't had a single issue. It's an awesome product. And, for $97 -- one time, not per month -- it's a steal.

Jon
The CBI Clubhouse - a Community for Children's Book Writers Writing Picture Books, Easy Readers, Young Adult Books and More!

[acedalright]

Amember is okay as it isn't too price prohibitive.

Personally I'd be interested in finding a few free ones like the wordpress one metioned above

[danielmcclure]

Hey There,

I own a multi-site license for Wishlist Member and I've been happy with it every step of the way. So happy in fact that I've based much of my WordPress development work on it. On the few times that I have had questions I can't resolve the team have always got back to me within 12 hours or less.

In answer to the question about visible posts but protected download links. This is most definitely possible. You would use a [private_membership level name] tag around the links that you need to protect.

My only issue to date has been the lack of options for running an affiliate programs with clickbank and one other being their main methods of setting one up. However I have some inside information that they are working on some great new opportunities in that area at the moment.

Wishlist gets my vote.

[Johnnyk100]

Stu, or any of the wishlist fans, what affiliate software does wishlist integrate with? I'm practically sold on wishlist but I have Jrox already purchased.

Any updates on the new upgrades?

Johnny

[kidino]

I wrote a short list of WP plugins for membership site. Have you guys read it??

5 WordPress Membership Plugins You Can Consider -- MiniSiteGallery.com

And I also implemented a content-drip for LearnPianoOnline.com which uses DLGuard.

And on my simple online course, I use a simple plugin, wp-private. I don't have a huge number of students in my courses, so I manually added the users. But I am sure I can write a simple script that takes in registrations, pay at Paypal, verifies with IPN and activate the students.

http://smartlogix.co.in/wp-private/

[kidino]

I wrote a short list of WP plugins for membership site. Have you guys read it??

5 WordPress Membership Plugins You Can Consider -- MiniSiteGallery.com

And I also implemented a content-drip for LearnPianoOnline.com which uses DLGuard.

And on my simple online course, I use a simple plugin, wp-private. I don't have a huge number of students in my courses, so I manually added the users. But I am sure I can write a simple script that takes in registrations, pay at Paypal, verifies with IPN and activate the students.

wp-private | Smart Logix

Hmm... sometimes you need think simple, get things going and make money ... :P

[Ruddy]

Originally Posted by IM Headlines

Hi warriors,

I've decided to establish a membership site in the
upcoming months. This is something new for me,
that's why I'm asking for your opinions here.

I heard that the best scripts for a membership
site are amember & wishlist.

What do you think?

I won't need a forum, chatrooms or anything like that.
I just want to create a simple membership site that offers a
bunch of e-books to download & some tutorials maybe.

Any recommendations or advice before I start off with this?

Thanks in advance for your replies.

Regards,
IM Headlines

Amember is expensive but go for it. They have the best plugins and customizations if you ask me. Compared to wishlist, amember FTW. They are expensive though.

[Stu_M10]

Originally Posted by Johnnyk100

Stu, or any of the wishlist fans, what affiliate software does wishlist integrate with? I'm practically sold on wishlist but I have Jrox already purchased.

Any updates on the new upgrades?

Johnny

Hey Johnny,

We have full integration with Clickbank and we are actually just finishing our beta testing for our Full Integration with iDev Affiliate Tracking.

With that said, many of our customers have been using other affiliate management tracking systems with WLM.

Essentially, it works just like any other product that you would setup with these programs. You would just give the URL of your membership site as the product URL and then any person that is sent to your site through an affiliate link will automatically be cookied. Therefore if they buy, the affiliate will be credited accordingly.

Hopefully that helps.

Take care.

[dave830]

Originally Posted by IM Headlines

I heard that the best scripts for a membership
site are amember & wishlist.

What do you think?

I've dug in extensively with both of these, IMH.

Lots of things to compare, but I'll share one of the advantages of Wishlist that has made my life much easier- namely, everything is managed from your WordPress dashboard. With aMember, it's a completely different account, your membership levels, customer lists, etc. are stored there.

I log in to my WP site and handle it all there. This makes a huge difference when setting it up.

Also... Stu and the support at Wishlist has been really excellent in my experience. Very responsive, prompt, and patient working through all kinds of issues.

Wishlist wins hands down.

Dave

[ravijayagopal]

Hey guys....

Mind if I throw my hat into the ring? :-)

Please check out Digital Access Pass (DAP) at http://DigitalAccessPass.com when you get a chance.

Definitely something worth considering if you're looking at membership site software.

Thanks for your time.

- Ravi Jayagopal

[TheUltimatePublishing]

You can build a membership site using nothing but WordPress & if you have to choose between WishList & AMember, forget AMember.

For AMember, people must create an account before they can pay, for WishList, people pay first before creating an account. When I removed AMember from my membership site, guess what? Conversions went up!

[UncleHQ]

Hi,

I use Wishlist and there is no need to repeat what has been said above.

As a Delavo owner, I naturally use that to both control access to my WL memberships through a plugin and use it to track affiliates too.

Integration is not a problem - simply insert one piece if Javascript code into the theme header to track the affiliate and another piece of javascript in any post to take the customer to the order link in Delavo with the affiliate code attached.

Setup around 2 minutes.

Once at Delavo (The basic free version handles clickbank and paypal), it takes over from there to collect payment and using the extra WL plugin for Delavo the membership is allocated.

Brian Collins
Delavo Ambassador (UK)

P.S. if you need Delavo - I have Free Promotions running currently

[rsa2000]

Does any of these plugins offer
1. Custom fields. during members registration. I mean collect details usch as DOB, country, interest etc..

2. Do you support protection of a specific folder? lets say swf inside a specific folder from non member even if they have the link

[ravijayagopal]

DigitalAccessPass doesn't do (1) yet, but does (2) with a small difference.

>>swf inside a specific folder from non member even if they have the link<<

It doesn't protect the folder itself, but you can protect individual files within any folder - whether it's .swf, .flv, .jpg, .whatever.

Originally Posted by rsa2000

Does any of these plugins offer
1. Custom fields. during members registration. I mean collect details usch as DOB, country, interest etc..

2. Do you support protection of a specific folder? lets say swf inside a specific folder from non member even if they have the link

- Ravi Jayagopal

[Zanti]

I have RAP and RAP Press, but I'm currently using Digital Access Pass (DAP) I've just started with my membership site and I'm currently making some changes but I do love DAP. I've not had any problems with anything I want to do. Support when I've needed it, has been fast and outstanding.

I can't speak more highly of a membership script than DAP. I've not used some of the others mentioned but I would suggest as you check others out to be sure to check out DAP also.

The other thing I will say about DAP is if you're not a techie, as I'm not, DAP is very friendly to non-techies.

Best of luck to you.

Brian

[Mike Long]

I faced this exact dilemma less than a month ago.

In the end, I went with Wishlist Member, and I'm glad I did.

Why?

1. It integrates very tightly with Wordpress (obviously, since it's a WP plugin).

2. It fully integrates with Aweber - if someone registers as a free member, they are automatically added to my mailing list. If they cancel a membership, they are automatically removed.

3. Easily integrates with Paypal and/or Clickbank.

4. I can create multiple membership levels, and put up free walls, and pay walls anywhere I want on the blog.

5. It's about half the price of aMember.

aMember does all that Wishlist does and much more, but Wishlist does so at a lower price and much greater simplicity. If your needs extend beyond the capabilities of Wishlist Member, then aMember is a great choice.

Otherwise, Wishlist Member does what it does extremely well, and I definitely recommend it!

~Mike

[Troy Trump]

I've had success with both wishlist and DAP. I've also used amember but its a real pain getting it to integrate with wordpress and not worth the hassle in my opinion.

[SeanSupplee]

Instant member is a bit of a pain if you want to customize the site. Everything is encrypted. If your going for a rebrandable ebook then go with launch formula marketing otherwise amember seems to bring the best to the table for a membership script

[Dave Lianelli]

Has anyone thought about using more elaborate options like:

-InfusionSoft Email Marketing 2.0 | Infusionsoft
-Cheddr Cheddr
-Nanacast www.nanacast.com


I'd rather have an all-in-one solution for memberships, payments, reporting, securing downloads, email marketing, offline marketing and product delivery...

But they will be more pricey than just a one-time fee for a membership script. Personally I use Amember. Might be confusing at first and the interface of both the administration panel and user control panel lacks in usability.

[ravijayagopal]

Dave,

>>I'd rather have an all-in-one solution for memberships, payments, reporting, securing downloads, email marketing, offline marketing and product delivery...<<

DigitalAccessPass (DAP) does all of the above (except not sure exactly what you mean by "offline marketing"), and at the time of writing this, a 1-site license costs just a one-time payment of $97.

Definitely will be worth your time to check it out.

- Ravi Jayagopal

Originally Posted by Dave Lianelli

Has anyone thought about using more elaborate options like:

-InfusionSoft Email Marketing 2.0 | Infusionsoft
-Cheddr Cheddr
-Nanacast www.nanacast.com


I'd rather have an all-in-one solution for memberships, payments, reporting, securing downloads, email marketing, offline marketing and product delivery...

But they will be more pricey than just a one-time fee for a membership script. Personally I use Amember. Might be confusing at first and the interface of both the administration panel and user control panel lacks in usability.

[Dave Lianelli]

Originally Posted by ravijayagopal

Dave,

>>I'd rather have an all-in-one solution for memberships, payments, reporting, securing downloads, email marketing, offline marketing and product delivery...<<

DigitalAccessPass (DAP) does all of the above (except not sure exactly what you mean by "offline marketing"), and at the time of writing this, a 1-site license costs just a one-time payment of $97.

Definitely will be worth your time to check it out.

- Ravi Jayagopal

Ravi,

with offline marketing I mean integration with companies like Kunaki for CD/DVD production and shipping. Or mailing companies to mail letters, postcards and other stuff to leads - on autopilot.

-Dave

[MatthewGreen]

I am switching to amember today for my membership website. Wishlist had problems with integration. I have had a ticket open for a week and very little response.

[AsaHersh]

My experience with WishList has been horrific.

• Six hours spent trying to get their "page redirect" feature working. Eventually support told me that their was a bug in their latest vesrion, and fixed it. Thanks.
• Integration with MailChimp does not work, as admitted by their tech support, though they advertise differently. I have had to add 30 people by hand, compare lists.. etc.
• You cannot customize your Log in (they dont even tell you have to create a login PAGE, though it is possible, and the widget is missed by most users).
• Password problems abound (over 150 password changes the first couple weeks, with my small list).
• Registration page needs specialized CSS knowledge, as opposed to having WYSIWYG options for customizing it.
• The control panel is very ambiguous and uneccessarily convoluted, with several different areas doing the same thing and conflicting with each others.
• The automatic creation of about 10 "system" pages (Oops, you do not have access, etc.) actually puts these tabs on your site, forcing you to find each page and change it to not be indexed...
• Support: no voice support-24 hours to answer an email, and the response asks some question, then another 24 hours for the next response. That is a joke.

Their advertising is slick though.
The tricky "Upsell," is their $20 per month Insiders group. Support even told me to join, rather than answer my question! They will also customize for you at significant charge, to do things the program should do in the first place.

Do some research and see the number of complaints and frustrations. I spent many many hours searching the internet for solutions to problems that came up (many with no solution). Their training videos are like those bad translations of Japanese electronics. They tell you everything except for those crucial missing bits that make it impossible to implement things properly. Search Google and you will see the only people happy with the program are marketing affiliates. it is not a professional piece of software. In fact the worst I have encountered in 30 years of computing.

[Paul Gram]

We have had nothing but great results with Wishlist Member and we have used it with more than a few membership sites including one with lots of members. No issues at all, love it.

[Marco Scabia]

I have Digital Access Pass, and can vouch for it. It has worked very well for me so far.

[BeechHill]

Ciao Marco!

I'm finding most people are moving towards DAP, although there are less complicated and expensive solutions available that may fit most requirements. The fear comes from features that maybe needed later and DAP seems to have that covered.

[mikecorso]

This thread has thrown me off course--was headed to wishlist but one scathing review bummed me out. Funny, no one has mentioned Traindom.com

Mike

[Msindependence]

I have Wishlist and need a good, reliable affiliate program, I am thinking of going with 1 Shopping Cart, though I think they are expensive. Can anyone recommend anything better that works with Wishlist for tracking payments and affiliate referrals?