{"id":107,"date":"2016-05-09T21:19:54","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T16:19:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedevcouple.com\/?p=107"},"modified":"2017-02-03T15:08:22","modified_gmt":"2017-02-03T10:08:22","slug":"best-wordpress-membership-plugin-of-2016-ultimate-member","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedevcouple.com\/best-wordpress-membership-plugin-of-2016-ultimate-member\/","title":{"rendered":"Best WordPress Membership Plugin of 2016: Ultimate Member"},"content":{"rendered":"

The intricacies of the\u00a0world are becoming bigger by the concurrence of social, mobile, cloud, complex data, communities, and other strong sci-fi forces. The amalgamation of these technologies provides a great chance of connecting all the relevant dots together in a new way which has transformed the art of how we live and work.<\/p>\n

The companies and their brands have bridged the gap which once existed between them and their customers. Now they can directly reach out and speak, to honor their values, and to form meaningful relationships with them. But this is only possible if they build one such community which aims to depict\u00a0the values their customer community expects in exchange for their loyalty and purchases.<\/p>\n

Membership Websites Are Trending!<\/h2>\n

Membership is one of the precursors to a lot of social action. You might have heard people saying that membership sites are a way to grow your community while increasing your income at the same time. But let’s think differently beyond financial statistics and care solely about interacting with people online and building vast communities.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, creating a WordPress membership site with plugins was a snappy process till last year in January when the Ultimate Member<\/a> (UM) plugin was launched. It is not just an ordinary membership plugin of its kind. Instead, it helps you build member-based communities, customize member directories, add custom user roles and custom signup forms. There is a lot more to this plugin, though I intend to review its essential features only.<\/p>\n

If you happen to scroll through the WordPress plugin repository, then you’ll find over 400 such plugins.\u00a0But most of them give you ugly looking payment forms, poorly managed member profiles, no control over menus, etc.<\/p>\n

Ingredients of a Membership Website<\/h2>\n

If I talk about the traits of an effective membership-based WordPress website, then it requires proper login forms, front-end registration or user profile pages just as we find on Facebook. There should be extensive user roles and permissions, unlike the default WordPress architecture which allows adding only a few roles like subscriber, editor, etc. Finally, a user must enjoy an advanced control over everything he views.<\/p>\n

The characteristics mentioned above were the reason why Calum Allison(@calumallison<\/a>\u00a0– the man behind UM created) decided\u00a0to create an all-in-one plugin for this very purpose. So basically, Ultimate Member<\/a> plugin caters both the needs of an online community and member directories.<\/p>\n

Reviewing Ultimate Member Features<\/h2>\n

Ultimate Member<\/a> is quite a handy and intuitive plugin which allows you to create sites where users can sign-up and become members. Despite being a feature-rich plugin, it is still very lightweight and user-friendly. At this point, it will be quite unfair if I miss mentioning the bulk of features which the UM delivers.<\/p>\n

\"ultimate<\/p>\n

Though I can create a dot list and mention all the features of this plugin, but I’ll keep my focus on the key benefits which UM offers:\u00a0Front-end user registration\u00a0and login; Front-end user profiles and account page; Registration forms; Drag n drop form builders; User profile styles; Membership directories;\u00a0Additional user fields; and a lot more.<\/p>\n

\"ultimate<\/p>\n

Paid Extensions<\/h2>\n

The list of bulk features isn’t over yet. UM itself is a complete package and offers all the necessary feature-set required to build a community-based website. However, there is an entire range of paid extensions<\/a> which integrates well the plugin’s default functionality.<\/p>\n

\"extensions<\/p>\n

Here are a few names of this list:<\/p>\n