Really GOOD Membership Software

I’ve looked all over the place for a GOOD general purpose membership script, preferably for WordPress.  Have I found one?

I’m still looking.

A weakness I’ve noticed in many of the membership scripts is you’re either IN the membership, or you’re OUT of it.  It doesn’t seem like there’s been enough thought given over to all the different methods of actually handling members.

Even the the one I’ve found that has considered that you might not actually want members to be just in or out is flawed.  The assumption is that it’s a drip fed membership concerned with supplying content as learning rather than as products.

Here’s the specific scenario I’m thinking about where the content is product, as with PLR Code Mine.

Someone joins a membership today.  They’re a member for three months and then for whatever reason they drop out.  Two months later, they rejoin.  What would you expect to have happened in this scenario?

What I expect from a really good membership script is that if someone has been a paid member for 3 months, then they should ALWAYS have access to that content, even during the times they’re not a paid member.  So if the content they’ve purchased is updated, they get the benefit of it.

If they then drop out for two months, then as administrator I should be able to specify that they shouldn’t get access to that two months worth of content.  They’ve missed the boat.

I may also wish to sell it to them at a much higher price than if they’d been a regular member, to allow them to catch up.

So when they rejoin at month 6, they now have access to months 1-3 and 6, but not to month 4 and 5.  They can purchase month 4 and 5 at say three times the regular membership price if they wish to, at which point they then have perpetual access to it, even if they drop out of the membership again.

To me, that would be a perfect membership solution.  But I’m damned if I can find anyone that does such a script.

I have found one where a lot of thought has gone into membership as learning, but not where membership involves a product.  What happens there is that when the member rejoins at month 6, then they get access to month 4, not month 6.  And the workaround suggested by the very helpful developer / owner involved just doesn’t cut it.  Grrr…

There’s nothing for it, I’ll have to get my own done.  I can see from other sites that I’m a member of that there’s a real need for such a script, as they all have the same issues.  I’m either in or out, and once a month has gone by, the back products get removed.

I just find it difficult to believe that no-one has ever sat down and thought about this.  Fortunately for me, it’s such a glaring omission it leaves the door wide open for a BETTER membership script than the rest of the stuff on the market, doesn’t it?

Watch this space.

-Frank Haywood