Advanced Developer’s Guide to Learning Paid Memberships Pro

This is a list of the most common advanced development requests we see among membership site owners. Familiarizing yourself with the Paid Memberships Pro platform and codebase will help you become an Advanced Developer.

Explore this guide to build your skills in extending, customizing, and developing for WordPress membership sites.

Where to find the information you may need

• Blog: Contains all of our general content as well as code recipes (most require a premium license) that demonstrate how to customize the platform.
• Documentation: Includes all documentation for the core plugin. A free account is required to access the documentation.
• Action and Filter Hooks: This section outlines all of the core plugin hooks. If you are looking for documentation hooks in an Add On, refer to the individual Add On documentation page or browse the code.
• Add On Documentation: Every Add On has its own information and documentation page on our site. This includes an overview, setup information, screenshots and videos, as well as more technical settings and docs.
• Shortcodes and Blocks: An explanation of the core plugin’s included shortcodes and blocks and how to customize them.
• Troubleshooting Articles: This post category includes some of the more specific guides to troubleshoot common issues related to order creation, user registration, and payment gateways.
• Gateway Integrations: This section includes details for each core gateway as well as other gateways available as a plugin.
• Advice on Caching: Caching is a unique concern for membership sites that need to show content based on access.
• Hosting Recommendations: Our best recommendations for a hosting environment that can handle the unique demands of a content-driven membership site.
• REST API Documentation: Paid Memberships Pro now includes 7 REST API methods for interacting with your membership site data.
• Multisite Options: This mega post details the three unique ways Paid Memberships Pro can be used in a WordPress Network environment.

Open Source Repositories and Code Recipes

• Stranger Studios Organization on Github: All of our code is open source and available on GitHub. You can use these repositories for development projects and testing. We also always welcome developer contributions through new Pull Requests, testing Pull Requests, and creating Issues when appropriate.
• Github Gist: We use GitHub Gist to share code recipes on our blog or for customers. You can learn more about using Github Gist Search in this advanced developer documentation page.

Memberlite Theme

• Theme Homepage and Documentation
• WordPress.org Theme Directory Download: Open Source and available for download in the WordPress.org Theme Directory.
• Memberlite Elements: Recommended plugin for sites using Memberlite. The plugin is available for download in the WordPress plugin repo as well as on GitHub.
• Memberlite Shortcodes: Recommended plugin for sites using Memberlite. The plugin is available for download in the WordPress plugin repo as well as on GitHub.

Most Popular Add Ons

These are the most popular Add Ons that we see in support as well as in requests for extended development. Any developer that will be working with a membership site client should become very familiar with the functionality and customization techniques for these Add Ons.

• BuddyPress Integration (also used with BuddyBoss).
• Import Users from CSV Integration
• Member Directory and Profile Pages
• User Fields API in PMPro
• Roles for Membership Levels
• Group Accounts
• WooCommerce Integration
• Zapier Integration

Another great final reference is this guide for freelancers who want to specialize in membership sites: https://www.paidmembershipspro.com/grow-freelance-business-membership-sites/. This breaks down a few ways to introduce yourself to the Paid Memberships Pro platform and offer services as a technical or non-technical freelancer.