We wrote an in-depth article teaching you how to create membership and community sites with WordPress. It includes a dozen plugins and themes to create membership sites, but we want to provide you more alternatives. Consequently, we compiled a list of the best WordPress membership themes.
Without any further ado, here are our suggestions. It’s a nice mixture of well-known and less-known themes; some are multipurpose while others are specially designed for this niche.
Membershiply
Membershiply is a simple and effective theme for membership sites. It doesn’t come with useless features and it completely focuses on member satisfaction. Not only the members but also the webmasters will appreciate its simplicity. The theme has registration and profile pages, which are mandatory for these membership sites.
Use the full image homepage to make users understand the purpose of your site. For example, upload an image of the members, a meeting group, or a community symbol. Please don’t ignore the call-to-action button; it should drive people to become members of your community.
We used the latest technologies to develop Membershiply and we respected the coding standards. As a result, the theme is super fast and search engine friendly. Go to the WordPress repository, download and install the theme, customize it, and let us know your impression.
Creativity Hub
Creativity Hub shines within the Best 15 WordPress Membership Themes, providing a sophisticated platform for membership-based sites across various niches. Its elegant, minimalist design ensures that members enjoy a premium, uncluttered user experience, whether for exclusive content, community forums, or educational resources. SEO optimization propels your membership site up the search rankings, essential for attracting new members and growing your community. The theme’s compatibility with leading page builders like Elementor and Divi Builder means you can craft a membership site that perfectly aligns with your vision and brand. With WooCommerce support, managing membership subscriptions, or selling exclusive products becomes straightforward, adding value to your membership offering. Creativity Hub’s responsive, mobile-friendly design ensures members can access your content anytime, anywhere, enhancing user engagement and satisfaction.
Divi
Divi doesn’t need any intro; you have been living under a rock unless you’ve heard about it. The particularity of this theme consists of the unbelievably powerful duo—theme and visual page builder. This combo is enough for average WordPress users to design the desired website hassle-free.
You don’t need to start your website from scratch. Divi comes with a huge library of ready-made websites, and some of them are fit for membership sites. Pet Supply and Movie Theater are two examples of cool membership templates. Other templates need some customization work and are suitable for a membership site.
The visual builder is powerful and user-friendly, so it satisfies both beginners and experienced users. We published a complete Divi review; check it to get a complete idea about this outstanding theme.
Neve
Neve proves that a multipurpose WordPress theme can be lightweight. It delights its users with its speed because Neve takes 0.6 seconds on a default install to load. At the same time, Neve packages a large array of customization options.
A cool advantage of this theme is that Neve has a free version available on the WordPress repository. 200,000 active installs and a 4.9 out 5 stars rating isn’t bad at all. You can evaluate the free version, decide if it’s suitable for your membership site, and eventually buy a premium subscription.
All site demos look great, and some of them work for membership sites. For instance, the Online Courses demo is perfect for experts selling courses based on a subscription model. News Magazine is a self-describing name, and it works for a membership blog or magazine news. Some articles might be free for everyone, but you may provide premium content to paying subscribers. Are you interested in this theme? Read our Neve review for more details.
Astra
2020 was a complicated year for everyone, but Astra’s creators might have a different opinion. Astra became the first non-default theme from the WordPress directory that hit the one million installs milestone in the middle of 2020. Unfortunately, Astra was delisted from the WordPress repository a month after reaching one million installs. Allegedly, Astra violated the guidelines related to affiliate links. What really matters is that Astra is currently available on the WordPress repository.
Astra is fast loading, and users have countless options to style their sites. The premium version provides even more features and starter sites. The theme is compatible with all major page builders. Therefore the sky’s the limit with Astra. We love this theme, and we wrote a complete Astra theme review.
OceanWP
This is another theme that captured our attention, and we wrote an Ocean WP review. There are a couple of benefits to using OceanWP. First, the theme is free of charge; visit the OceanWP website and fill out the form with your name and email address to download it. Second, OceanWP satisfies the users with a multitude of customization options. It’s a genuine multipurpose theme suitable for every project. Third, the premium extensions bring real value and are pretty affordable. OceanWP developers didn’t create a free and a premium version. Instead of releasing a premium version with tons of features that slow down the theme, they go for premium extensions. Users buy only those extensions needed for their project.
Avada
Avada is the best-selling theme on ThemeForest. Hence we couldn’t miss adding it to the list of the best WordPress membership themes. It enthuses people with endless customization options. You have control over each pixel of a layout with Avada. Go to Avada’s website and check each design element. There is a huge list of items, and each one is thoughtfully presented. Clearly, you have plenty of options to create a good-looking membership site.
Blockchain
Blockchain and Bitcoin are hot topics these days, and certainly, these will stay with us for many years. Fintech experts and entrepreneurs interested in creating membership sites should look at the Blockchain theme from CSSIgniter.
This theme is perfect for a blog or magazine news focused on fintech topics. Passionate readers would accept paying for a subscription and become members to get exclusive content. It’s everything you need to create an authoritative website and an active community in this space. Read more here.
Gazek
Plenty of business owners and entrepreneurs want to know the past of contractors. They accept paying a monthly subscription to get access to objective business reviews to find out more about the potential partners. Gazek suits this kind of project that generates income through paid membership. It allows publishing complete reviews, filtering these reviews, and classifying the businesses.
The design is simple and unobtrusive, and it ensures the perfect reading experience. It’s translation-ready so that you can use it in your native language.
Sweet Date
A dating site is, in fact, a particular type of membership site. Take a look at Sweet Date if you plan to create a dating site. It allows the creation of user profiles, featuring top members, and restricting content to particular users. It’s BuddyPress and WooCommerce compatible, so you can create unlimited user-profiles and sell services and products.
Sweet Date is mobile-friendly and optimized for speed to benefit from a good user experience.
Aardvark
Aardvark is one of the most complete membership themes. It works for a lot of purposes, like:
- selling premium and free courses to members;
- offering premium content to subscribers;
- writing professional reviews;
- creating a community of people who share the same hobby.
The theme includes several premium plugins, like WPBakery Page Builder, Layer Slider, and Ultimate Reviewer. The page builder lets non-coders build the desired website, Layer Slider creates cool slideshows, and the Ultimate Reviewer is the perfect tool to publish cool reviews and provide ratings.
Vayvo
The developers created this theme for video consumption. It’s the ideal theme to sell subscriptions to get access to videos. The design is outstanding—all webpages are clutter-free and the black nuances delight viewers. This approach makes Vayvo more suitable for technology, fintech, and luxury projects.
The simple menu is another plus of the theme. It includes a video library—a place to host your videos or online courses, as well as restricted content—a webpage for premium clients and pricing plans.
Altogether, Vayvo sails with many features and premium plugins included, like AR Membership and Boosted Elements. Additionally, it includes a built-in video player, and users may rate the videos and create playlists.
Ink
You can easily mistake Ink for an ordinary WordPress theme for blogging. In fact, Ink might be one of the best membership themes for WordPress. The theme is suitable for blogging but also for creating a community around. Its design is simplistic, warm, and inspires calmness. Ink is not for sharing news but rather for sharing personal stories. The intimate feeling generated by the Ink design convinces people to open their wallets for a premium subscription.
Yogi
Yogi is a theme for yoga that allows the creation of membership subscriptions. As a result, Yogi may be more than a yoga theme; it can be the root of a yoga-related community. You have to pump up quality and original content to delight yoga lovers, and Yogi is all you need in this respect.
Like Ink, the previous theme, Yogi creates an intimate feeling, and people love it.
CB Kit
One of the most effective solutions for monetizing your online courses is through selling premium subscriptions. CB Kit is gifted with plenty of options to sell courses and ensure the greatest experience for buyers.
Depending on your membership plugin of choice, you can sell subscriptions or individual courses or mix both alternatives. The theme uses the LearnPress plugin, a highly rated plugin, to create online courses.
The possibility of selling tickets to your events is a stand-apart feature of this theme. Of course, you can create free events to feature your courses and nurture relationships with the members. In both instances, these events make the community behind your business stronger—a much-needed trait to scale up your business.
Villenoir
You can sell with wine Villenoir, but you also can create a wine club and delight the members. Clearly, the latter alternative is a better approach. Villenoir is the theme helping you to create a wine club. For instance, give access to your most useful suggestions only to the premium members. Besides this, it’s WooCommerce compatible, so it works to create an online shop.
If you are in the wine industry, this theme might be the solution to sell more and delight the customers.
Over to You
I tried to cover as many as possible types of membership sites— from dating to wine clubs, however, the list isn’t exhaustive, so we are waiting for your recommendations. Online courses, blogs, and magazine news are the most common membership sites and here are more suggestions in this respect.
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