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MemberPress Alternatives (2026): What They Cost at Renewal
Most lists of MemberPress alternatives are written by companies selling a competing product, and all of them quote first-year prices. Here is the part that decides your bill: MemberPress advertises $199.50 but renews at $399 — and that entry plan takes 4.9% of every payment you collect.
- MemberPress renewal
- $399 to $999 a year
- Entry plan fee
- 4.9% per payment
- Genuinely free option
- Paid Memberships Pro
- Cheapest lifetime
- SureMembers — $599 once
The short version
Two things decide this, and neither is the headline price.
- Renewal, not year one
- MemberPress Launch is $199.50 for the first year, then $399. Growth is $349.50 then $699. Scale is $499.50 then $999. SureMembers does the same thing and says so plainly: “all renewals are at full price”.
- The transaction fee
- MemberPress Launch charges 4.9% of every payment. Growth and Scale charge nothing. That single line moves more money than the price difference between most of the plugins below.
Affiliate link. See disclosure.
The price you are quoted is not the price you pay
Every MemberPress price you have seen advertised is a first-year price, discounted by half. The plans renew at $399, $699 and $999 a year respectively, and the pricing page says so — it is disclosed, not hidden. It is simply never the number that ends up in comparison articles.
So a two-year view of MemberPress Launch is not $399. It is $199.50 plus $399, or $598.50. Three years is $997.50. The plugin costs roughly twice what the comparison you read last week told you.
This is not unique to MemberPress. SureMembers states outright that its $69, $149 and $199 tiers are “special introductory pricing, all renewals are at full price” — meaning $99, $199 and $299 from year two. WooCommerce Memberships, by contrast, publishes a flat $199 a year with no introductory discount to expire.
When you compare MemberPress alternatives, compare year two. Year one tells you almost nothing about what the software costs to keep.
The 4.9% that makes the cheap plan expensive
This is the calculation that matters most, and no page currently ranking for this search performs it.
MemberPress Launch costs $399 a year at renewal and takes 4.9% of every payment your members make. Growth costs $699 and takes nothing. So the cheaper plan is only cheaper while your revenue is small enough that 4.9% stays under the $300 price gap.
That threshold arrives fast:
| Yearly membership revenue | Launch — $399 + 4.9% | Growth — $699 + 0% | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| $2,000 | $497 | $699 | Launch |
| $6,122 | $699 | $699 | Level |
| $12,000 | $987 | $699 | Growth |
| $20,000 | $1,379 | $699 | Growth, by $680 |
The crossover is about $6,122 a year — roughly $510 a month in membership revenue. Below that, Launch is genuinely the cheaper plan. Above it, the plan advertised as the budget option quietly becomes the expensive one, and at $20,000 a year it costs nearly double.
A membership site turning over $510 a month is a small one. Most sites worth building pass that threshold, which means for most buyers Launch is the wrong plan and the real MemberPress price is $699 a year. That is the number to compare the alternatives against.
Our arithmetic on MemberPress’s published renewal prices and its stated 4.9% Launch transaction fee, read on 19 September 2026. This is the platform’s own cut and sits on top of whatever Stripe or PayPal charge you separately.
What each alternative actually costs
| Plugin | First year | Renewal | Sites | Free version |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MemberPress Launch | $199.50 | $399 + 4.9% fee | Unlimited | No |
| MemberPress Growth | $349.50 | $699, no fee | Unlimited | No |
| MemberPress Scale | $499.50 | $999, no fee | Unlimited | No |
| Paid Memberships Pro | $0 — or $499/yr | $0 — or $499 | Unlimited free / 1 paid | Yes, genuinely |
| SureMembers Starter | $69 | $99 | 1 | No |
| SureMembers Business | $199 | $299 | 100 | No |
| SureMembers Lifetime | $599 once | Never | 100 | No |
| WooCommerce Memberships | $199 | $199 | Not stated | No |
Read from each vendor’s own pricing page on 19 September 2026. Paid Memberships Pro also sells Max at $999/yr, which bundles managed hosting rather than being a plugin licence, so it is not like-for-like. WooCommerce Memberships does not state a site count on its pricing page. Guarantees differ sharply: Paid Memberships Pro offers 100 days, WooCommerce 30, MemberPress and SureMembers 14.
The one genuinely free option
Of everything above, Paid Memberships Pro is the only one with a real free version — the open-source core plugin, self-hosted on unlimited sites, with 25 free add-ons. Not a trial, not a crippled tier that stops working at ten members.
That deserves stating plainly, because it is exactly the option a page written by a competing vendor will bury. If you are building a first membership site and do not yet know whether it will work, the honest recommendation among MemberPress alternatives is to start free and pay when the site earns it.
The paid Standard tier at $499 a year buys the 54 premium add-ons and support, and covers one site — worth noting against MemberPress, which covers unlimited sites on every plan.
If you would rather not run a WordPress plugin at all, a hosted platform is a legitimate third path. Systeme.io has a free tier that includes membership sites, and our ClickFunnels alternatives page covers that category properly.
Where MemberPress is the right answer
A fair comparison has to say where the incumbent wins, and on one dimension MemberPress wins clearly.
Every MemberPress plan covers unlimited sites. SureMembers Starter covers one site, its Business tier 100. Paid Memberships Pro Standard covers one. For an agency or anyone running several membership sites, $699 a year across unlimited installations is genuinely competitive — and on a per-site basis it beats most of this table outright.
Scale at $999 also bundles the complete Easy Affiliate platform, REST API and Zapier access, Amazon S3 hosting and corporate accounts. If you would otherwise buy an affiliate plugin separately, the bundle maths changes again in MemberPress’s favour.
What we would avoid is Launch, bought as the budget option, by anyone who expects the site to earn more than about $500 a month. That is the plan most likely to cost you real money while feeling like the careful choice. Our MemberPress review covers what the plugin does well beyond price.
How to choose
Look past MemberPress if
- You are building your first membership site — start on Paid Memberships Pro free
- You run exactly one site and want the lowest ongoing cost
- You would rather pay once — SureMembers Lifetime is $599, less than a single year of MemberPress Growth
- You already sell through WooCommerce and want one checkout
Stay with MemberPress if
- You run several membership sites — unlimited sites on every plan is the standout term here
- You want courses, quizzes, certificates and dripping without assembling plugins
- You would otherwise buy an affiliate platform separately — Scale includes one
- You are past $510 a month in revenue and budget for Growth at $699, not Launch
Frequently asked questions
What is the best MemberPress alternative?
It depends on how many sites you run. For a first membership site, Paid Memberships Pro is the strongest answer because its core plugin is genuinely free on unlimited self-hosted sites. For one established site where you want to pay once, SureMembers Business Lifetime at $599 costs less than a single year of MemberPress Growth. For several sites, MemberPress itself is hard to beat, since every plan covers unlimited installations. Prices read from each vendor’s pricing page on 19 September 2026.
How much does MemberPress cost after the first year?
Launch renews at $399 a year, Growth at $699 and Scale at $999. The advertised $199.50, $349.50 and $499.50 are first-year prices only. Two years of Launch therefore costs $598.50 rather than $399, which is the figure worth using when you compare MemberPress alternatives.
Does MemberPress charge transaction fees?
The Launch plan charges 4.9% of every payment. Growth and Scale charge nothing. That fee is MemberPress’s own cut and sits on top of what Stripe or PayPal charge you. Above roughly $6,122 a year in membership revenue, Launch plus its fee costs more than Growth with no fee — so for most working membership sites the real entry price is $699, not $399.
Is there a free MemberPress alternative?
Yes. Paid Memberships Pro publishes a free, open-source core plugin you can self-host on unlimited sites, with 25 free add-ons included. It is not a time-limited trial. MemberPress, SureMembers and WooCommerce Memberships have no free version at all. If you want a hosted platform instead of a plugin, Systeme.io’s free tier also includes membership functionality.
Which has the best money-back guarantee?
Paid Memberships Pro, by a wide margin, at 100 days. WooCommerce Memberships offers 30 days. MemberPress and SureMembers both offer 14. On a membership plugin the guarantee matters more than usual, because migrating members and recurring subscriptions between platforms later is genuinely painful — a longer window buys you time to find that out.
How we compiled this
Every price, renewal rate, site limit, transaction fee and guarantee length on this page was read directly from each vendor’s own pricing page on 19 September 2026, and is published as a dated snapshot rather than a permanent claim. The crossover table is our arithmetic on MemberPress’s published figures, marked as such.
We do not sell a membership plugin, which separates this page from most of what ranks for this search — those lists are largely published by companies recommending their own product. We have not run every plugin here against a live membership site, so this page compares what they cost and include, not how they feel to operate.
Prices change. Spotted one that has? Tell us and we will re-read the page and log it in our pricing tracker. Read our full methodology →
Is MemberPress worth it on its own terms?
Our review covers what the plugin does well, where it gets awkward, and who should not buy it.