Every now and then we were asked about adding membership options to designs, especially to handle credit cards and Paypal. Therefore, since we tried several membership scripts for WordPress, here’s some insight and honest opinions on some scripts and plugins to handle memberships.
This plugin is simply amazing. And free. It does most of what other paid plugins do, only that better and for free. Now, be aware I said MOST, not EVERYTHING. The only con we could find is that it’s not very good for membership sites, but it’s aimed to goods and/or services. It will require a paid module (only $25) but really not as good as the rest of the plugin. All in all, I love my WP E-commerce!
Rating: 9/10
I think it was the first decent WP membership plugin, so hats off to that. Other than that, there are way better options, and add to that documentation is close to none… just forget it.
Rating:3/10
It promises too much, but once you check what they deliver, you’ll realize you got the same any Credit Card processor would give you… for free. Documentation is OK, they install it for you (tricky, tricky), but too expensive to get nothing. Yes, I said NOTHING. If you want to use it with WordPress, you’ll have to pay even more, and the WordPress module is probably the poorest of all plugins commented in this post.
Rating: 3/10
Pretty cheap, reliable and extremely easy to use plugin. However, not useful for adult sites since it only uses Paypal. But if you’re going to use it for a mainstream site or you need to charge via Paypal, look no further, it really does the work, and it does it very well. One con: the programmers of this script don’t care at all about look and they get to the extreme of using 4 (four) style sheets for the registration/login page, so you may need to do some work (such as editing php and/or using a lot of !important calls in your style sheet to make sure you override WP defaults)
Rating: 7/10
Although it needs some work and polish, it’s my favorite. Not as easy and intuitive as WP-Members but still easy, more complete AND you can use many payment options, including Paypal and different credit cards processors. Plus, if your credit card processing company isn’t listed, you can request them to add it.
NOTE: As of August 28th, Magic Members has announced the addition of 4 new payment gateways
We wanted to send you a quick note about the new features of the Magic Member plugin.
We integrated Magic Members with new payment gateways:CCBill
2CheckOut
PayPal Pro
Manuel Pay (Wire Transfer/eCheck)
Rating: 8.5/10
In recap, when it comes to WordPress Membership plugins, there are no many options, and if it’s to sell access to sites, I’d basically use the last 2 I mentioned until something better comes out, and if it is to sell goods, services or to install on E-shop CMS, Wp E-commerce is the answer.
The above being said, all plugins still need some work, whether on its visual aspects or back end. Besides, there’s not a single plugin useful for everything and covering adult and mainstream. It simply doesn’t exist, so it’s time to do it… any developer on to the task? 
