An excellent way to make money with Divi is by creating a membership site and charge for access to your content. A membership area can be added to any Divi website regardless of the child theme or layout that’s used. The website can be built around the membership area, or you could easily add it to your existing website. Divi makes this easy. In this article, we’ll look at how to make money with Divi membership sites.

Why Create a Membership Site?

Creating a membership site is a great way to create recurring income. Memberships are subscription-based, which creates repeat customers. This creates a more stable income and it’s cheaper than trying to find new customers.

Even if you don’t want to make a membership site for yourself, there are lots of advantages to knowing how to build them. Being able to build a membership site using Divi is a valuable skill. This is something you can offer your clients and it can set you apart from your competition. It can even be a development area that you could specialize in.

Types of Membership Sites

Membership sites are about restricting access to premium content. This content can include articles, tutorials, downloads, courses, coaching, products, shippable products, services, audio, video, and more.

There are lots of options and methods. For example, with blog posts you could provide a preview of the article and then only paying members to read the rest. Product-of-the-month clubs can be digital downloads or physical products that you’d ship to subscribers. I recommend doing a search for membership sites just to see what types you like the best.

What a Membership Site Needs

Regardless of the type of membership site you want to create, they have several needs in common.

Membership pages

This includes a landing page that describes the membership and its benefits, a free sample area, a pricing page that describes the prices and benefits of each, and registration pages including login, welcome, etc. These pages can be thought of as a membership sales funnel. Many of these pages are available in Divi child themes and layouts designed for courses, coaches, or other types of businesses. You can find lots of them in the Divi Cake shop.

Membership levels

The types of levels you have will vary based on your products. The most common include a monthly and a yearly payment plan. The yearly plan should include a discount for purchasing more at once. Another popular structure would provide a certain amount of content per level. This could include free (partial content), medium (the main portion of the content), and high (all of the content) level of access. Having too many can be confusing, so fewer is usually better.

Pricing structure

Each of the membership levels needs a price that provides an acceptable level of value, with the highest level being the best value. The prices need to make sense to your audience and genre. If the prices are too low, the value will be perceived as low. If the price is too high, you’ll get fewer members and they will expect a higher value or they won’t stay. One way to determine your pricing structure is to look at popular membership sites and see what works for them.

Content

For courses, downloads, and articles, drip content is a popular option. This allows subscribers to see the content over time rather than all at once. This way, they have an incentive to continue their subscription from one month to the next. This also keeps them from seeing all of the content at once and then asking for a refund.

Marketing

You’ll need to spend some time and money marketing your membership site. Email is still an excellent marketing tool. Blogging can bring traffic to your website. Spending time in social media can also help. Make it easy for members to share that they’re a member and give them an incentive. For example, give them a discount for sharing on social media that they joined your program or create an affiliate program.

Membership management

You’ll need a way to handle the sale, restrict the content, and manage the members. The best way to handle membership management is with plugins designed for this purpose.

Membership Plugins

There are several great membership plugins to choose from, so you’ll want to plan the features you need before choosing. Here’s a look at the most popular membership plugins. Most include shortcodes that can be placed within Divi modules so the pages can be styled with the Divi Builder.

MemberPress

MemberPress is a complete system that can handle everything for the membership area of your Divi website. It’s easy to set up and it has lots of access rules to choose from. Other features include premium forum integration, coupons, pre-made pricing pages, control for drip content, subscription management, reporting, payment gateway integration, and it’s expandable through integrations. The pro version includes the Affiliate Royale plugin so you can create your own affiliate programs.

LifterLMS

Although LifterLMS was designed with courses in mind, it works great for adding a membership area to your website. Membership features include a subscription option to restrict content to members-only, site-wide membership, specific content membership, course bundles, automatic enrollment, members-only pricing, private group discussion, members-only forums, member management, payment gateways, bulk course enrollment, and lots more. It’s especially a good option if you want to include courses. Any Divi child theme or layout pack designed for LifterLMS can be a great choice for building the website.

WooCommerce Subscriptions

WooCommerce Subscriptions is an extension for WooCommerce that adds subscription features. Add sign-up fees, offer free trials, or set expiration periods. Create multiple subscriptions, variable subscriptions, and add coupons. It integrates with 25 payment gateways for recurring payments and you can allow for manual renewals. Subscribers can manage their subscriptions themselves with upgrades and downgrades. Detailed reports allow you to track current subscriptions, revenue, and more. Since it integrates with WooCommerce, you have flexible product tools, tax handling, shipping options, etc. that’s already built into your eCommerce platform. This is an especially good option if you already use WooCommerce or want to add it to your Divi website.

Restrict Content Pro

Restrict Content Pro restricts content to members-only. Create unlimited subscription packages, add discount codes, manage members, send member emails, view reports, export your data, and more. It integrates with the popular payment gateways. Subscription packages include free, trial, and premium options. You can expand it even further with add-ons to create the exact platform you want. Prorate upgrades and downgrades. It’s a stand-alone platform but it can integrate into WooCommerce, allowing you to control who has access to view or purchase your WooCommerce products.

Paid Memberships Pro

Paid Memberships Pro allows you to accept recurring payments for access to your content, podcasts, videos, courses, etc. You can manage thousands of members, create private social communities, create directories and lists based on topic or region, offer product subscriptions, and members-only product discounts. It includes payment gateways, unlimited levels, flexible pricing, lots of options, premium extensions, customizable reports, and member’s dashboards.

Ending Thoughts

That’s our look at how to make money with Divi membership sites. Like anything else on the web it can take a while to gain traction, but it can be a very lucrative business model. It can take a lot of effort into creating the content and marketing that content. If you price it right and provide valuable content, you can get and retain members for years. That can equal many years of recurring income.

We want to hear from you. Have you used any of these plugins to build a membership site with Divi? Let us know about your experience in the comments.