Description

It should be easy to create a membership site! That’s why we created Restrict Content, a simple membership plugin that enables you to restrict access based on user role so that your posts or pages become viewable by logged-in members only. This gives you full control over who can and who cannot view content on your WordPress site.

With over 10,000 active installs, Restrict Content is one of the most popular membership plugins for WordPress. Restrict Content makes it simple to limit access to posts, pages, media, custom post types, and even API requests.

With Restrict Content to create your membership site, you’ll be able to:

• Protect sensitive content
• Control user access
• Collect emails
• Allow new users to self register
• Clearly separate public content from private content
• Restrict access to entire pages or specific sections
• Let users register and login from the frontend of your site

And if all that is not enough, there’s also a pro version which you can easily upgrade to which enables even more membership features.

An excellent plugin. I didn’t think that it would work out of the box as well as it did – very little configuration required. It just works – brilliantly.
@8mediacentral

Restrict Content features

• Limit access to content with a shortcode. Example: [restrict]This content is limited to logged in users.[/restrict]
• Limit access to content based on user role. Example: [restrict userlevel="editor"]Only editors and higher can see this content.[/restrict]
• Limit access to full content via a simple interface on the post, page, and custom post type editing screens.
• Display a registration form for new accounts on any page of your website with [register_form].
• Display a login form for existing users on any page of your website with [login_form].
• Specify the message shown to users who don’t meet the role requirement.
• Optionally hide content in RSS feeds.

I have been using this plugin on multiple websites for restricting visitors from accessing membership-like pages. It has worked exactly as it is described to. It was very simple to set up and get working. I highly recommend this plugin if you are looking for something to restrict content.
Frank Corso, frankcorso.me

Restrict Content Pro features

If you’re looking for more – like the ability to accept payments – here are just a few of the features included in Restrict Content Pro:

• Self-service account management
• Unlimited membership levels
• Payment processing support for Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.net, and other payment gateways
• Email marketing support for Mailchimp, AWeber, ConvertKit, and other providers
• AffiliateWP integration
• Restrict access to WooCommerce products
• Discount code support
• Complete member management
• Email members membership updates
• CSV data export capabilities
• Detailed reporting
• Developer-friendly for building custom integrations
• Large ecosystem of official and 3rd party add-ons

“When it comes to a fast and clean membership site, nothing is faster for end users than RCP. When it comes to extensible code that a developer will love, nothing is better than Pippin’s code.”
Chris Lema, chrislema.com

By upgrading to Restrict Content Pro you also get access to one-on-one help from our knowledgeable support team and our extensive documentation site.

That’s why so many small businesses and successful membership sites use Restrict Content Pro to manage memberships on their WordPress sites. Check out some examples in our customer showcase.

Want to see what Restrict Content Pro looks like for customers? Check out our live demo and our collection of screenshots.

Who is Restrict Content Pro for?

No matter what kind of membership site or plans you offer, Restrict Content Pro can be adapted to suit your business needs – and set up in many different ways, based on how you want to allow members to access your site’s content.

Here are a few examples:

• Member Blogs
• Group Accounts
• Club Memberships
• Co-operatives
• Job Boards
• Magazine Subscriptions
• Maintenance Contracts
• Private Communities
• Support Agreements

“RCP is always at the top of my list when helping clients choose a membership platform. In addition to being a great plugin ​today​, the pace of improvement is impressive. RCP gets better and better all the time.”
Travis Northcutt, Member Up

Upgrade to Restrict Content Pro now

Read more details about the features Restrict Content Pro has to offer:

Complete membership management

Restrict Content Pro lets you easily keep track of your memberships through an intuitive admin interface. Quickly view active, expired, cancelled, and pending memberships.

Memberships can be added manually, modified in bulk, and easily searched for when you need to locate a specific record. Each membership can also be manually modified at any time.

Unlimited membership levels

Restrict Content Pro allows site administrators to create any number of membership levels that customers can register for. Membership level options are displayed on the registration page and customers can select the one they wish to purchase.

For each membership level, you can:

• Set any price (including free)
• Optionally set a sign up fee
• Optionally set a trial period
• Set the frequency and period
• Specify a user role that will be assigned to members when they register

Customers can also upgrade and downgrade between membership levels at any time. These upgrades and downgrades are prorated based on how much the customer has already paid and how much time is left in their current membership.

Stripe payment processing support

It’s no secret that we believe Stripe is the best payment processor. Stripe currently supports 14 languages, over 35 countries and 135+ currencies. Check support for your country.

Hands down, Stripe has the simplest setup process and highest reliability we know of – and support for Stripe is included in Restrict Content Pro. Stripe has a per-transaction charge which varies by country. See Stripe’s pricing page for more information.

However, if you prefer a different payment gateway or your country does not support Stripe, we’ve got you covered…

Other payment gateway integrations

Besides Stripe, we have several payment gateways available to Restrict Content Pro site owners. Visit the following links to get more details for the payment gateway of your choice.

• PayPal
• Authorize.Net
• Braintree
• 2Checkout
• Build your own (extensive API available)

WooCommerce integration

Restrict Content Pro allows you to easily control who can view and/or purchase products in WooCommerce, the most popular eCommerce plugin for WordPress.

Self-service account management

Restrict Content Pro includes a complete customer dashboard that allows members to manage their account.

Members can easily view their account status, renewal or expiration date, and options to upgrade or cancel their account. They can also access a complete history of payments made to their account including invoices for each payment.

Finally, members are able update their account name, email, and password through an included profile editor.

Prorated upgrades and downgrades

Your membership site can have any number of membership levels and customers can upgrade and downgrade between those membership levels whenever they wish. If a customer chooses to upgrade or downgrade, their new purchase will be prorated based on what they have already paid and how much time is left in their current membership.

Export data to CSV

We firmly believe and stand behind the philosophy of owning your own data. For this reason, all data stored in Restrict Content Pro can be easily exported to a CSV file.

Whether you prefer to maintain your own records of your memberships database, you wish to run your own analysis, or you simply need to import membership records into another service or application, such as MailChimp or Excel, Restrict Content Pro allows you to export all membership records to a CSV at anytime.

Transaction history can also be easily exported to a CSV file, letting you then import the payment data into Excel, QuickBooks, or any other accounting software that can process a CSV file.

Offer discount codes to customers

Discount codes allow you to provide your customers with special promotional codes that give them a discount on the purchase of a membership.

Restrict Content Pro supports various kinds of discount codes and site administrators can easily create any number of discounts from the admin interface. Discount codes can be set up to provide a percentage discount or a flat rate discount. Each discount code is created with a name, description, unique code, maximum uses, and optional expiration dates.

Email members membership updates

Keeping your customers informed about their membership is highly important for membership websites. Restrict Content Pro includes a number of automatic emails that can be configured to be delivered when a customer’s membership is updated.

These emails are configured by the site administrator and can be sent during the following events:

• New paid membership is activated
• New free membership is activated
• New trial membership is activated
• Membership is cancelled
• Membership has expired
• Membership is expiring soon
• Membership is renewing soon
• Renewal payment is received
• Renewal payment failed

Each of the emails can be configured independently.

Detailed reporting

Restrict Content Pro provides a complete reports section where you can view the earnings of your membership website. You can view total earnings for any given period or drill down to specific membership levels.

Additional reports include account registrations over time and complete transaction tracking of all membership payments.

Member approval workflow

Many membership sites want to strictly control which members get access to premium content. Restrict Content Pro offers a direct integration with WP Approve User, giving site administrators the ability to moderate member registration.

After a member’s account is registered, administrators will be given an option to Approve the account. Only once the account is approved can members access premium content. If a member’s account needs to be disabled, an Un-approve option is available.

Email marketing service provider add-ons

With a Professional or higher license, you can connect Restrict Content Pro to any of the following email marketing service providers. This allows you to add members to your mailing lists for different membership levels as well as synchronize account details.

• Mailchimp
• AWeber
• ConvertKit
• ActiveCampaign

Other pro add-ons

A Professional or higher license also grants you access to our Pro add-ons, which include:

• Group Accounts – Sell multi-member group memberships.
• Drip Content – Release content to members on a schedule.
• Custom Redirects – Specify where members are redirected on a per-membership-level basis.
• WooCommerce Member Discounts – Give members automatic discounts on purchases in your WooCommerce store.
• Site Creation – Allow paid members to purchase sites in a WordPress multisite.
• Restriction Timelock – Keep content unrestricted until a specified date in the future.
• Restriction Timeouts – Specify a date and time when restricted content will have its restrictions removed, making it available to everyone.
• Restrict Past Content – Restrict content published prior to a member’s join date.
• Hard-set Expiration Dates – Allows for a specific expiration date to be assigned to membership levels.
• Help Scout – Display customer’s membership information from Restrict Content Pro inside of Help Scout when viewing tickets.
• REST API – A complete RESTful API for developers and external applications to interact with membership data in Restrict Content Pro.
• Math Verification – Add a math verification field to registration forms.
• IP Restriction – Allow specific IP addresses to bypass content restrictions and ban other IP addresses from signing up for a membership plan.

Even more add-ons

Some more of our free and paid add-ons available to all Restrict Content Pro license owners:

• AffiliateWP – Easily add a full-featured affiliate marketing solution to your WordPress site. We love it, but we are biased. It’s created by us!
• WP Job Manager – Limit job submissions to paid membership.
• EDD Member Downloads – Offer membership plans that grant access to a specified number of free unique downloads (within Easy Digital Downloads) each billing period.
• EDD Member Discounts – Create automated discounts that give your paid members a special discount on all Easy Digital Downloads purchases.
• EDD FES Vendor Limits – Charge vendors to publish products with Frontend Submissions for Easy Digital Downloads and control the number of products they can publish.
• EDD Wallet – Deposit funds into a member’s Easy Digital Downloads wallet account when they subscribe to your memberships.
• Limited Quantity Available – Limit the number of times membership levels may be purchased.
• Download Monitor – Restrict access to your Download Monitor downloads to active members.
• MailPoet – Allow members to subscribe to email lists in MailPoet during registration.
• bbPress – Add support for limiting bbPress forums and topics to paid members and / or members with specific access rights.
• CSV User Import – Import and / or update member accounts from a CSV file.
• Enforce Strong Passwords – Enforce strong passwords during registration.

Besides our official and pro add-ons, there are also add-ons available for Restrict Content Pro created by other 3rd party developers.

Developer-friendly

Restrict Content Pro has been built with developers in mind. That means it is flexible, easy to extend, and chalked full of action hooks and filters, making it easy to modify and tweak to your specific needs.

With clean and simple display options, Restrict Content Pro is designed to integrate perfectly with every theme without any custom CSS being necessary.

Extensive and easy to modify template files are included with Restrict Content Pro. If you have built a theme, for clients or general distribution, you can easily customize the display of registration forms, profile editor, account pages, and more through custom template files added directly to your theme’s folder.

Because of the huge number of action hooks and filters, Restrict Content Pro can be easily integrated with other plugins to help provide a more seamless experience for customers. This also makes it possible to build add-on plugins for Restrict Content Pro that extend its functionality. See our developer docs and code snippet library for more.

Upgrade to Restrict Content Pro now

Get reliable help

Restrict Content is backed by top-notch technical support from our globally distributed full-time support team. We also have an extensive documentation site available. If you’re looking for faster support via email, we encourage you to purchase a Restrict Content Pro license.

Meet the team

Restrict Content is built by Sandhills Development. We make popular WordPress plugins used by hundreds of thousands of people just like you. Get to know us here!

From our blog

Check out some of our popular posts for actionable advice for running membership sites.

• Which membership model is best for your business?
• How to start a membership site on a budget
• The top 8 benefits of running a membership site
• 3 ways to grant members access to protected downloads
• Should you be offering tiered memberships?

Subscribe to our newsletter to get posts like these in your inbox as soon as they’re published.

Contribute to Restrict Content

Development for this plugin happens in a public GitHub repository to better facilitate contributions from an active community of users, developers and designers. If you have a suggestion, bug report, patch, or pull request, please feel free to contribute here or to our code snippet library.

Looking for something else?

If Restrict Content doesn’t quite fit your needs, take a look at some of our other projects.

• Easy Digital Downloads – Sell digital products with WordPress
• AffiliateWP – A full-featured affiliate marketing solution
• Sugar Calendar – WordPress event management made simple
• WP Simple Pay – A lightweight Stripe payments plugin