Paid Memberships Pro vs. AccessAlly

Are you looking to launch an online course or coaching program? If so, you’ll want to compare Paid Memberships Pro vs. AccessAlly.

These plugins let you launch membership programs on your existing WordPress website. However, they offer different features and price points.

PMPro empowers anyone with a WordPress site to set up a one-stop platform for launching a successful membership program for free.

AccessAlly’s premium tools are geared specifically toward coaches, trainers, and creators. The platform is designed to sell and manage signups for courses, certifications, and coaching programs.

In this post, we’ll cover both Paid Memberships Pro and AccessAlly’s offerings and pricing to help you decide which best fits your needs.

Paid Memberships Pro

Paid Memberships Pro is a free membership platform that integrates directly into your WordPress site. It gives you all the tools to launch, promote, manage, and grow your membership—all for free. One of the biggest strengths of PMPro is that it can be tied seamlessly into any new or existing WordPress site, allowing both you and your members to access all the tools needed without having to manage third-party platforms or software.

With affordable, tiered pricing options available for those who want to do more, including dozens of powerful Add Ons, PMPro offers a service that can be tailored to someone launching their first membership program or a company managing multiple communities—plus everything in between.

PMPro scales with your organization. It also provides the tools and data you need to grow and diversify your content delivery as you see how your audience engages with it.

Features of PMPro

In addition to working directly in your WordPress site, PMPro offers other features crucial to launching a membership community. Those features include:

Format Options

What content do you want to give your membership community? PMPro can support it! Whether you want to provide your community with blog posts, courses and coaching, directories, podcasts, videos, paid newsletters, or all of the above, PMPro allows you to do so. Regardless of the type of community or the content you want to offer, you’ll be prepared for now and the future.

Content Restrictions

You can restrict as much content as you want in as many ways as you want. PMPro gives you the tools to restrict posts, pages, or even individual sections of pages. You can also release content selectively to an unlimited number of membership levels and create personalized content for your membership based on their preferences.

Member Management Tools

Everything you need to manage a membership community of any size is available within a few steps on PMPro. You can import or export member lists, customize roles among an unlimited number of members, and see how your audience is engaging in real time. Having all of these tools available in one plugin that integrates directly with WordPress is a huge time-saver for PMPro users.

Full and Detailed Reports

Fully customizable and easy-to-read reports are available anytime. Detailed reports contain everything you need to know about your membership, including sales-tracking data, engagement rates, membership feedback, and exit surveys to help you improve your offerings.

Payment Options

PMPro integrates with many of the popular online payment processors, including Stripe, PayPal, Apple Pay and Good Wallet. PMPro is able to handle payments for one-time or recurring intervals.

Unlimited Scaling

Many similar services charge based on the number of members, or they take a portion of every payment. But PMPro offers unlimited member signups, all in the free plugin.

The User Experience

You might think that managing a growing membership program would mean a lot of extra paperwork, but PMPro allows users to control everything they might need, all from their end. Without leaving your site, users can easily sign up, create a profile, and join your community.

They can then manage all aspects of their account and membership, including:

• Updating their membership tier or canceling their subscription
• Updating their payment and contact information
• Resetting their password
• Viewing all current and past invoices
• Updating their profiles with custom user fields

All these functions are managed in one simple dashboard. Trends, feedback, and updates are included in regular admin reports, giving you as much information as possible about what works for your membership program.

Pricing Plans for Paid Memberships Pro

PMPro is free. The quick-install plugin is the perfect way to launch your first or 10th membership program. There are more than 30 Add Ons that come with the free plugin that are designed to help you create, promote, and grow your community.

If you’re looking to offer additional features, there are paid upgrades for PMPro that increase your customization options, support level, and number of specialized Add Ons available.

PMPro has two primary paid plans:

1. Standard. When you’re ready to add more features for a growing community, the Standard package is $347 a year and offers more Add Ons.
2. Plus. The Plus package includes everything in the Standard package with additional premium Add Ons and costs $597 a year. This plan is designed for advanced membership sites or companies managing multiple membership programs. It includes two site licenses.

AccessAlly

In comparison, AccessAlly is a WordPress plugin designed to help businesses that offer online courses or coaching. It includes tools that help you create and schedule events, and it allows users to sign up and pay for courses or coaching.

Subscribers to AccessAlly have access to member management tools, affiliate tracking, promotion and discount offers, and features aimed at increasing sales, like abandoned-cart follow-ups, and the ability to set up one-time, recurring, or discounted payments.

It also offers tools created exclusively to facilitate online courses. These tools include a flexible course builder that can include modules, lessons, or quizzes. AccessAlly lets you offer and release classes and modules at your designated pace. In addition, you can provide individual notes to users who purchase a course.

AccessAlly Features and User Experience

AccessAlly features are aimed at their target audience of instructors and coaches offering online courses. They include:

Unlimited Content

There is no limit to the number of courses, membership levels or member signups.

Content Restrictions

Content can be customized across your offerings, from one-time purchases to recurring payments. You can restrict content behind completing other courses or drip additional content over time to your audience.

Sales Tools

AccessAlly focuses on helping its users make sales. Some of these tools include conversion-focused order forms, trial offers, one-click upsells and order bumps, abandoned cart follow-up, and affiliate tracking.

Payment Options

Payment options for Stripe and PayPal are built into the AccessAlly plugin.

Course Building

All versions of AccessAlly include a flexible course builder that helps you design high-level offerings for members. Higher paid tiers include progress tracking for users, as well as video bookmarks and additional quiz options.

Regular Support Calls

All versions of AccessAlly come with access to three Monthly Tune Up Calls, which are joint conferencing sessions with other subscribers to share information and inspiration.

Seamless User Experience

Visitors to your AccessAlly offerings can browse, sign up for free membership levels, complete a free mini-course, or download before deciding whether to make a purchase or sign up. Users can upgrade or downgrade services with just one click and manage their own subscriptions or recurring payments.

Pricing Plans for AccessAlly

AccessAlly doesn’t have a free version, but all purchases come with a 60-day money-back guarantee. There are three pricing levels, which begin at $99/month and go to $149/month. They’re available at a discount if purchased yearly. All packages come with one site license.

AccessAlly packages are:

1. Essentials. The Essentials package allows you to create as many courses and sign up as many members as you can. The cost is $99/month and also includes content restrictions, access to the sales tools, and three Tune Up training calls each month.
2. Pro. Priced at $129/month, the Pro package comes with everything included in the Essentials package, as well as built-in integration with AccessAlly’s Learning Management System. The LMS personalizes the learning experience for members with multiple quiz designs, progress tracking, and certificates for members upon completion of tasks.
3. Community. $149/month, the Community package is the top end of AccessAlly’s pricing. It includes everything in the previous tiers, as well as unlimited community groups, discussion threads, and the ability to set up automated email and web notifications.

Why Choose Paid Memberships Pro?

PMPro integrates directly with your existing WordPress site within minutes and provides all the tools to create, launch, and manage a successful membership community. AccessAlly offers specialized tools for instructors and coaches, while PMPro is designed to grow and evolve with any organization, allowing you to provide various content types to unique audiences who want and need it.

PMPro is also free. While many other membership services, including AccessAlly, offer only paid options, the free plugin PMPro offers is the perfect way for a growing creator or organization to get started on their journey.

Ready to find out more? You can read case studies from some of our partners, then choose the right plan for you.