Introduction to WooCommerce Memberships
Hey party people, my name is Daryl. In this video, I'm gonna show you all how to use the WooCommerce Membership plugin for your WordPress websites. Now the membership WooCommerce plugin does various things and it can be used to accomplish different goals for your website. So for example, right here I have this product. Now there again, there's various ways now you can use this plugin. So you can either use something like a membership discount where someone gets 20% off every product on your entire website. So you can achieve something like that with WooCommerce memberships, or you can restrict content.
So for example, right here if I go to something like my About Us page, if I go to this on a different browser when I'm not logged in, people are going to have to purchase a specific product in order to get access to the About Us page or purchase a membership. So for example, right here I'll go to my website right here and go to the About Us page, and you're gonna see that it's going to not allow users to go in because they need to actually purchase the product and it's only available for members. So if you want to achieve something like that, you can do that as well.
Also, what you can do is you can have additional memberships that you need to have in order to obtain an additional membership. So let me explain. So for example, I have two plans here, right? The gold and the silver. Now the gold will give people 30% off my entire website. The membership will only give people a 20%. Now if I go over here to my shop page, and I'm gonna go ahead and find my memberships. So right here, I'm gonna go to my product categories and go to memberships and go to the gold membership right here. If I want to purchase the gold membership, I need to actually go ahead and purchase the silver one first.
So for example, right here I'll go to shop on a browser I'm not logged in, of course, and then I'll go here to membership and go to the gold membership. And now you can see that this product cannot be purchased because I need to purchase the other product in order to get access to this membership. So there's various ways on how you can use the membership.
Also, what you can do is you can restrict certain products. So basically, if you are a member, you are allowed to purchase products on the websites. If you are not a member, then you cannot purchase products on the website. And what you can also do is you can have it restricted to all the products or just some products. So for example right here, if you want to restrict, you know, if you want to restrict a shirt like this, you can say if you want to purchase this shirt, then you need to become a member first. So you can also use the plug-in in that situation as well.
So in this video, I'm gonna run you through a step-by-step on how you can achieve this for your website or add a, you know, a membership website or whatever you want to achieve here. So with that said, let's just go ahead and get started with this tutorial.
Where to Get the WooCommerce Memberships Plugin
So let's go ahead and go back to my website right here. Now I realized that WooCommerce Memberships plugin is very expensive. I think it's like $200. So if you guys want, you guys can go to GPL Mall. You guys can buy it there. You only pay $15 and you get access to 190 Plus plugins, only for WooCommerce. It is a GPL website, so it is looked down upon in the community, but then again, I used these websites back in the day, so I can relate. So I didn't have the money to spend $200 on it. But if you go to their search right here and you go to memberships, you can actually get access to all their plugins for 15 bucks. So you can see how there's like almost 400 sales. So it's just a place on where you can get it, or you can go to WooCommerce.com and you can buy it there. But then again, those plugins there are pretty expensive. But if you have the money and you want to do it, that is your business.
Plugin Dashboard & Membership Plan Overview
So once you install the plug-in, I'll go ahead and just run through this tutorial. You get your memberships right here. So you get a little this little dash right here for memberships, and you can just go ahead and click on that. Now the first thing that you need to do is you need to create a membership plan. So you have members right here where you can manually add members, and anyone that purchased the product will actually display right here as well. You can also go ahead and import and export settings if you choose to do that as well. I'm going to click on there. So yeah, you can actually go ahead and export the members as well to a different website if you ever create a new website in the future.
So right here with membership plans, now you can see right here that I have the gold plan and the silver plan. Now these both grant different things. So let me just go and click on edit right here and just show you first before we create it from scratch. So right here I have this silver plan and the silver plan, you have different options. So grant access upon what? So people can actually get this plan if they purchase a specific product, if they make an account, or manually assignment only. So only people that purchase the plan will basically get access to the membership.
And then right here you have membership length. So you can have unlimited, you can have a specific length, or you can have fixed dates. Now, in order for someone to renew their membership in their My Account section, they can renew it by themselves. So you don't even have to intervene, you don't have to do anything, but they will have to renew it themselves in their My Account. It is not automatic. If you do want an automatic subscription, which most of you probably do, I will be having a second tutorial on the WooCommerce Subscriptions plug-in, and that works perfect with memberships. Again, you combine both from this website and in fact, it's 15 bucks and you get access to like all of them. But um, here we go.
Deep Dive: Restricting Content, Products & Discounts
So we have the membership length grain access to and then the slug. So this is basically the permalink in the browser. And then right here we have restrict content. So right here you can say, I want to restrict the contents, and this right here is not available for people until they purchase the silver plan. So if they purchase the silver plan, then they will get access to a restricted content. And then you can go ahead and put any other page you want right here. It'll all display right there. You can put the time as well. So when will members get access to this content? You should just put immediately, guys, because it makes sense to do that. Someone pays for something, you want to get it right away.
Right here we have restrict products. Now right here, you can also go ahead and restrict certain products if they have purchased that membership. So right here we can put add a new rule and then right here I'll just put like t-shirts or something like that. And you know, this obviously would be something related to your niche, but the products that you create with WooCommerce will be displayed right here. So right here we have a product and then we have the title, Members can view or purchase, and then right here we have accessible. So when will members gain access to the products? And then you can put something like immediately or something like that. So that's an example of how you can grant access to products as well.
Here we have purchasing discounts. So this is also a bonus right here. So what I'm saying is we can do something of products or even product categories. So if someone purchases this membership, they will get a percentage discount or a dollar discount off of their entire cart. So basically saying all the products in the entire store will be discounted 20% if they purchase the silver plan. Or what you can do is saying if you purchase the membership, only these product categories will have a percentage discount off of that, off of those product categories. So I think something that would make more sense would be the products, right? Because getting a membership would make more sense to give them a discount instead of just product categories. But hey, it's your store, you do whatever you want.
Here we have Members Area, and then Members Area is a portion of their Accounts page where they can view available content, products, discounts, or memberships, etc. So right here, content, products, discounts, notes, and manage will all be displayed on their Account page as well. So when they go into their Account page, they can see different, they can see different information that's only available for members.
Email contents, you can go ahead and assign different WooCommerce emails once they get access to the email, or I'm sorry, the product, etc. So that's just a quick little overview of these settings right here, but once you actually create the membership, you need to actually assign it to a product.
Creating a New Membership Plan From Scratch
But let's first create a membership from scratch just to give you, you know, general idea. So this would be the first thing that you would do. So I'll just do something like beginner membership right here. Beginner membership. Right now, right here you have product purchase. Now what you can also do is if somebody purchases another product, they can also gain access to this membership. So let's say, for instance, right here I'll just go ahead and put something in here like girl's shirt. If somebody purchases the girl's shirt, they will also be added as a member on our website if they purchase the girl's shirt. Now right here, you can see that's only if they purchase the product. So that's up to you if you want to either do that. You can have account registration or manual assignment, etc. But this is just an additional way on how they can become a member for your websites.
And then right here, membership length, we can do something for like 30 days, right? But I'm just gonna do my no assignments. I don't want to do that. But that would be a good idea because you know how you have like those like a sale or something like, oh, if you buy this, you're automatically a member for, you'll get 10% off your future purchases. Oh, that's a good one. 10% off your future purchases if you buy the girls shirts and then you're a member for 30 days or you're a member for one year, something like that. So you get the point, right?
Restrict content. I'm gonna go ahead and say right here we have, there's no rules right now, but I'm gonna say, look, members that purchased this right here will get access to the Contact Us page. They will be allowed to contact me if they purchase this.
Restrict products. So what products will I be, what products will I be allowed to purchase if I get this membership? Well, I'm gonna say all the products, or we can do something of product categories and then do, see, will do women's shirts or see I don't have any. What's a good category I have on my website, on my demo website? There we go, woman's, I knew it was right there. So right here we get only members can only... we'll do something like, okay. So, or maybe that's a little bit too strict. I'll just do, I'll do view. Yeah, view is better. So right here we have if they're a membership, if they're a member of the beginning membership, they can purchase women's products, right? And they can purchase it immediately right here.
Purchasing discounts. We can give them an also a discount of 12% off the entire website if they become a membership of the beginning membership.
Members area, this is where users are going to have their own personal information, etc. And then right here, have email content, etc. So let's go ahead now and publish this. So I want to now publish this membership right now. Let's go ahead and publish it.
All right. Now right here, that gave me a little warning, and that's because I've already created other memberships that grant access to all the products. So they're basically saying, look Daryl, you already made other plans that contradict this. So if they purchase the silver plan, they'll get access to all the products on the entire website, but I created another membership that gives access only to girls shirts. So I do have conflicting membership tiers. So when you do create your memberships, you want to make sure that they're not conflicting. And if they are, just change it. You know, it just says here, hey, just, you know, you have another membership that's also granting access to women's shirts. That's basically all they're saying.
Creating and Configuring the Membership Product
So let's go ahead and go to plus new and go to product. All right, and then right here I'll add in the product. So beginners membership plan. And then right here you'll put in a description. I'm sure you guys have seen this before. I'll close Yoast, we don't need it. I'll add this to the memberships right here. How much is your subscription cost? Well, I'm gonna say this cost three hundred dollars, and you can also do it on sale for two hundred and forty-nine dollars. Oops, there we go. Taxable, no. Whatever, whatever, we all know that stuff.
Yeah, so and then right here you can select the product image. So this is the beginners one so I'll just grab a random image here. I don't really know what to do so let's see here. What would be a good membership one? Here we go. There we go, summer. Here we go, summer. Everyone's having fun time in summer. And then right here you talk about your membership. So this grants access to the Contact Us page and also gives you 12 percent off all purchases on the entire website, too. That sounds like a deal to me.
And then right here you can do restrict content. So here you can do, this product can be viewed and purchased by all customers. Yeah, I want that. You know, now if you want this to be like we talked about earlier, if you want this to have a tier membership, so basically saying they need the gold membership in order to buy this, you would just add the rule and then you would go ahead select gold. So this right here is basically saying if they have the gold membership, then they can buy this product. But if they don't have the gold membership, they cannot purchase this product. So that's just a way of how you can have tiers of membership. But personally, if this is a beginning, a beginning one, then obviously I wouldn't want to have a tier, right? Because this is the first tier. So that's basically what this is referring to right here.
Finalizing Product Rules & Important Settings
And then right here you can use a custom message and you can also do, you know, etc. So you can just give them custom messages and that'd be something that you'd want to do. Grants access to what? So purchasing product grants access to... and then right here you'll go ahead and put in the membership. So right here I'll put in beginners membership right here. So purchasing product grants access to the beginning membership that we just created. And then right here, discounts. Now the discounts right here are already applied automatically because this right here is already established. We already created that rule already. So that's basically what that's referring to. So these rules cannot be edited, etc. So because we already created the plans, the discounts already being applied. Do you see that? So I'm just making sure you understand that we've already created the discount, so we can't change it here. If you want to change it, you'll have to go back to the membership, you'll have to edit the product or edit the membership and then you can edit it from there, etc. So that's just an example, you know, with that they'll get the discount. And then once that is all set and done, just click on publish.
Now you can always test your memberships as well to see if they're working, because some of the times they might not be working. So you might want to just go ahead and just run a test run on it, see what that does, etc. So right here we have the beginners membership plan, here is the price. This grants access to the Contact Us page and also gives you 12 percent off purchases on the entire website.
So let's go ahead now and test this out. Now just a heads up here, when you make these products, you want to go ahead and put virtual product. I did leave that out, but I'm not sure if you want to send them like a book, because with the virtual right here, users don't have to put in their shipping information and it won't be charged shipping tax, etc. So usually for memberships, you probably want to select virtual because they don't have to again fill in any shipping information as well.
Also, remember that when you create your memberships and you go to the purchasing discounts, you must have active checked or else it will not work. It'll use a member, it'll use a discount from either another membership or it won't apply it. So when you do create these memberships, just make sure that you need to actually go ahead and put that it's active, etc. So I went ahead and I changed my settings right here. So now I have my my discount being applied to everything and it's a virtual product.
Testing the Purchase and Viewing the Member's Area
So I'm gonna go over here now and go ahead and purchase this product. I'm go ahead and put in my secret code here, three nine nine nine. So you can see right here how there's no shipping and that's probably because you want to change it to a virtual product. Right here I'll apply the coupon code and I'll place the order. Now I'm just doing this for tutorial purposes. I'm not telling you to give your product away for free, okay? But I'm just giving you an example. So now I am a new member of this website.
So let's go ahead and out and see what I can do here. Well first off, can I go ahead and check out the Contact Us page? Yes, yes I can. So now I'm allowed to visit the Contact Us page. And it's really cool because all of your members will have, like right here we have discounts, so they can see all of the discounts they have now on these really cool product, which is really cool. Now this right here is done with Flatsome. So by default, I don't know how it would look without Flatsome, but I've actually made a custom portal right here for users.
Also right here we have content, and you can see here, now I now have access to the Contact Us page. And users can view it and they can go ahead and go to that page, etc. So users now have the ability to see stuff. Also right here we have notes. So you can go ahead and leave notes for members. So you want to say, hey man, good job, blah, blah, blah. And then here we have the membership where users can go ahead and they can cancel it themselves or they can go ahead and renew it once it expires.
Final Thoughts & Conclusion
Now again, if you do want a renewing subscription, I will be having a follow up tutorial called WooCommerce subscriptions. I know you have to use both and that's the biggest flaw with this, but that's unfortunately how commerce works. But I hope this video was helpful. I think by now I've covered everything. So just go ahead and you know make a membership and then you can go ahead and, you know, put whatever you want, etc.
So it's a very easy plugin to use and I find that if you do want to run a membership website, I feel that WooCommerce Memberships is a very good choice. It's, it's really, it's a solid plugin. I just wish they'd put the subscriptions with memberships. I think that's kind of cheesy, you know, what they did. But unfortunately that's the best way to have memberships on your website without the subscription model. So again, if you want to learn how to make this same website, I will go ahead and leave that tutorial in the description below. I do have videos on e-commerce for Divi, Elementor, and Flatsome. So it just depends on what you want to use, but I think all three page builders and themes will work just fine.
So again, my name is Daryl Wilson and I will see you all in the next video guys. Take care.
