A question I get asked a lot is about what kind of software is best for running a membership site.  You may already know that I run several membership sites – 6 at the moment – and highly recommend membership sites because they provide a nice recurring income if your site has good content.

The first one I always mention is the Amember script – available at www.amember.com.

I use this script on all of my membership sites and highly recommend it.  It is very flexible and easy to use once you get it installed.

Pros of the Amember Script:

Here are a few of the benefits of this script.  There are many more, but these are some of my favorites.

  • Completely template driven – you can make the members area look just like the rest of your site, just edit the templates and you’re ready to go.
  • Integrates with WordPress – this is a plus for those who don’t like working with HTML but prefer the WordPress platform.
  • Has a built in affiliate program, and you can set it so every member is automatically an affiliate so they get their affiliate link right away.
  • Integrates with a ton of payment gateways, so you should be able to use it with whatever payment processor you want.
  • Provides pretty good member stats – including how many paying members you have, how many upcoming payments you have coming, etc.
  • You can drip feed content to members

Cons of the Amember Script:

You’ll notice there are not a lot of cons here . . .

  • You need a separate license for each domain, and each license is about $180.  If you ask me, its worth it because its so easy to use, but could be a deterrent for some.  You can use one install of the script to run multiple membership sites if you want, but this takes a little more time to set up.
  • The script doesn’t have an OTO feature built in, but there are plugins that you can buy to make up for it.  Still would be nice to have that built in already.

Take a look at their list of features to get a feel for what it can do.  They used to have a free demo version, but I’m not sure if they still do.

Another scrtip I’ve been looking at but haven’t tried yet is Easy Member Pro – available at www.easymemberpro.com.  It has many of the same features as Amember, and is cheaper as well.  It looks pretty good, but I haven’t tested it out yet so I can’t say if it works as advertised.  I hope to be trying it out soon.

There are many other good options available – I’ve heard good things about Wishlist (WordPress plugin) and s2Member (a free WordPress plugin), but I haven’t tried those either.  But do some research to see if they fit what you want to do.

Hope this helps.