How-to › Selling special products
How to Sell Membership Content on WordPress
Sell access to members-only pages, videos or downloads. You create a membership product, limit a page to it, check it as a visitor and test a purchase. 14 parts.
Quick links
Where to find it:WP Admin › EasyCart › Users › Limit Access
Before you start
What you are building
What membership means in WP EasyCart and what you need before you begin.
How membership works
What you need and what unlocks a page
What you need. Limit Access is in the free plugin, and works with any product. To sell a membership that bills every month or year you need WP EasyCart PRO or Premium and Stripe, because subscriptions bill through Stripe. Every member needs an account on your store, and checkout makes one.
The idea. You sell a product. You limit a page to customers who bought it. A member who signs in sees the page. Everyone else is asked to sign in or shown what unlocks it, with a button to buy it.
Two ways to protect content. Limit a whole page with the Limit Access switch, or wrap part of a page in the membership shortcode so members see one thing and everyone else another. You can use both.
Set it up
Five steps
Create the product, connect Stripe, limit a page, give members a way back and test.
Step 1. Create the membership product
A subscription product with a Membership URL
Go to EasyCart › Products and press Add product. Enter a title and a price, choose Membership from Product type, and press Create & open editor. The price is what the member pays each billing period.
In the editor choose Type settings and set up the Subscription card:
Subscription Interval: how often you bill, such as 1 Month(s).
Enable Billing Duration?: Bill Customer Forever for an open-ended membership, or Set Max Number of Payments for a fixed term.
Trial Days and Initial Fee: an optional free trial and sign-up fee.
Membership URL: the full address of your members page. Members get a link to it after they buy.
Press Save. You pick this product by name in the next steps.
💡 Note: A membership is billed by Stripe, so the price you enter is charged every period. To sell lifetime access, use a one-time product instead, as described under Other ways to sell access.
The Subscription card
Billing, trial and the Membership URL on the product
This is the card you just set up. Leave Subscription Plan on No Plan unless you sell several tiers that members can move between. Plans live under Products › Subscription Plans.
Step 2. Connect Stripe
Subscriptions bill through Stripe, and Stripe reports back
Open EasyCart › Settings › Payment and connect Stripe. Until Stripe can bill, the Subscription card shows a notice and the product cannot be bought.
Then add your store’s webhook in the Stripe dashboard. Access follows what Stripe reports through it. The Stripe card shows the Webhook URL, https://yourdomain.com/?wpeasycarthook=stripe-webhook. Enable at least invoice.payment_succeeded, invoice.payment_failed, customer.subscription.updated and customer.subscription.deleted.
Step 3, method A. Limit the whole page
The WP EasyCart Limit Access box on any page or post
Open your members page in the editor. The WP EasyCart Limit Access box sits in the sidebar of every page, post and product page. In Elementor it is in the page’s Settings tab.
Turn on Limit who can see this page. Then, under Who can see it, choose who gets in:
Customers who bought: search for your membership product by name. Pick several and any one of them opens the page.
Customers with a role: tick a role you created under Users › User Roles.
These customers: search for named customers.
Any signed-in customer: anyone with an account on your store.
Choose more than one kind and Customers need appears: Any one or All of them. Update the page. The status at the top of the box reads Members only and says who can open the page and where everyone else goes.
Where everyone else goes
Defaults that need no address, and the buy button
Under Where visitors go the defaults already work, so you do not have to enter any address.
Signed-out visitors: Sign in, then come back here. They land on your store’s sign-in page, with a line saying Sign in to open and the page name. New customers can make an account there too. Either way they come straight back to the page.
Signed-in customers without access: Show what unlocks this page. Your account page shows Members Area is for members, each product that unlocks it with its price, and a Buy button, or Subscribe for a subscription. When the page is limited to roles or named customers, they see a line asking them to contact you.
Redirects are optional. Either choice can send people to A page on this site or Another address instead, such as your own join page. Another site needs the Send visitors to another site tick.
No redirect loops. Nobody is sent back to the same page or to another limited page they cannot open. They get the sign-in page or the members-only view instead. The account and cart pages are never limited.
💡 Note: The Buy button shows to customers who are signed in without access. Signed-out visitors are asked to sign in first, so a member who already paid never sees it.
Every limited page in one place
Users › Limit Access
Go to EasyCart › Users › Limit Access, or follow All limited pages at the foot of the box. Each row shows the page, Who can see it, where Signed-out visitors and customers Without access go, and its Status: On, Off or Problem.
Filter by On, Off or Problems. Each row has Edit, Turn on or Turn off, and View. Turning a page off keeps its settings.
Limit a page limits any page without opening its editor, whichever builder made it. Your page lists also get an Access column.
Step 3, method B. Show content to members inside a page
The membership block or shortcode
Use this when part of a page is public and part is for members.
In the block editor, add the WP EasyCart block and choose Membership Content. Pick your product under Purchase Required for Access. You can also tick Any signed-in customer or pick User Roles with Access. Any one of these gives access. Type what members see in MEMBER CONTENT HERE and what everyone else sees in NON-MEMBER NOTICE HERE.
Or type the two shortcodes in a Shortcode block or a builder’s shortcode widget:[ec_membership productid="12"]Members only content here[/ec_membership][ec_membership_alt productid="12"]Please join to see this.[/ec_membership_alt]
The number is the product ID, at the end of the product editor’s address (product_id=12). Separate several with commas. Add userroles="Gold" for a role, or signedin="1" for any signed-in customer. A visitor who is not signed in gets your store’s login and register form above the non-member content.
⚠️ Careful: Nothing stops a visitor who has the direct address of a media file or download. Limit Access protects the page, and the shortcode protects only what is inside it.
Preview the page as a visitor
Preview as, in the admin bar
Anyone who can edit the page, administrators and store managers always see it, so page builder previews keep working. To see what others see, open the published page. The admin bar shows Members only. Hover it and choose:
Preview as a signed-out visitor
Preview as a customer without access
Preview as a customer who can see it
A card at the bottom of the page says where that visitor would go, such as A signed-out visitor is sent to sign in and back here afterwards. Edit who can see it opens the box. On a page with membership shortcodes, administrators and store managers see the member and the non-member content together, each under a heading.
Step 4. Give members a way back
Order confirmation, My Account and your menu
Members find their page without an email. After a purchase, the order confirmation page lists the limited pages the order opens, under Your order opens:. If the payment is not complete yet it says Once your payment is complete, your order opens:. The My Account dashboard shows Pages you can open to every customer who can open one.
The Membership URL from step 1 adds a Click Here to View Your Membership Content link there too. Add the page to your menu as well.
Step 5. Test it
Stripe test mode and a private window
Switch Stripe to test mode in Settings › Payment and register the webhook in your Stripe test dashboard. Then open a private window that is not signed in:
1. Open the members page. You land on the sign-in page, with Sign in to open and the page name.
2. Make an account. You come back, and land on the members-only view with the Subscribe button.
3. Press Subscribe and pay with Stripe’s test card 4242 4242 4242 4242, any future date and any code.
4. The confirmation page lists the members page under Your order opens:. Open it. You see the page.
5. In the admin, open Orders › Subscriptions. The subscription reads Active.
When it works, turn test mode off.
Keep it running
Beyond the basics
When access ends, other ways to sell access, and what to check when it does not work.
When a member cancels or stops paying
What ends access, and what keeps it private
Access is checked on every page load, with one rule for the page and the shortcodes. A subscription counts while it is Active, in its free trial, or cancelled but paid to the end of the period. A failed payment ends access until a later payment succeeds. An installment plan counts once paid in full, any other product once its order is paid. A full refund ends access.
Kept private everywhere. A limited page’s content does not leak through your blog lists, search results, feeds, embeds or the WordPress REST API. Anyone who could not open the page sees This content is for members. in its place. Limited pages are also sent with no-cache headers, so a cache does not keep one visitor’s view for the next.
Other ways to sell access
One-time purchases, roles and members-only stores
A one-time purchase. Use a normal product instead of a membership. Limit Access opens the page once the order is paid, and checkout asks for an account for any product that unlocks a limited page, even with Guest checkout on. If you only use the shortcode, turn Guest checkout off in Settings › Checkout, because access follows the account.
By role. Roles are set by you, by hand, under Users › User Roles. Buying never changes a role.
A members-only shop. To close the whole store, hide products or hide prices, see How to Make a Members-Only Store.
If it does not work
The usual reasons a member still cannot get in
The page opens for everyone. Check the switch is on and someone is chosen under Who can see it. The box says Until you choose who can see it below, everyone can still open it. Check Settings › Accounts too: Pause every Limit Access rule opens every limited page. And you see every page as staff, so use Preview as or a private window.
A member sees the Buy button. Open Orders › Subscriptions and check the subscription is running. For a one-time product, check the order is paid. Check they signed in with the account that bought it.
Users › Limit Access shows a problem. The banner names the page and what is wrong, such as a page that is missing or not published. Fix it there.
An older page is off. A page set up earlier without a redirect address never limited anything, and its box says so. Turn it on.
The shortcode shows nothing. Check the product ID. The member shortcode shows nothing to a signed-out visitor.
Keep going
Related panels
Product types and the Subscription card in Type settings.
Manage your members’ subscriptions.
Settings › Accounts, where every limit can be paused.
Create the roles a page or shortcode can be limited to.
Ready to run your store on WP EasyCart?
Everything in this guide works with the free plugin. PRO and Premium add subscriptions, memberships, wholesale pricing and more. Try every PRO feature free for 14 days.
