MemberPress vs. MemberMouse: a comparison

We’ve tested so many course and membership solutions for our business over the years.

When we couldn’t find a solution that would do what we needed, we dusted off our Software Engineering chops and developed AccessAlly.

And to this day, we continue to test and review the options on the market so we can share that knowledge.

In this comparison between MemberPress vs. MemberMouse, we’ll share what we’ve learned about these two membership site plugins. We’ll compare everything from pricing structure, software differences, LMS features, to affiliate marketing.

By the end of this comparison, you’ll have a clear idea of how each plugin will fit your business needs and align with your long-term vision.

MemberPress and MemberMouse have similar philosophies and quite a bit in common. They’re both WordPress plugins. MemberMouse is designed to be more of an all-in-one plugin while MemberPress will rely on integrations and add-ons to create the full experience.

Both plugins offer integrations for features such as community forums, podcasts, and e-commerce options. With both MemberPress and MemberMouse, you can use their e-commerce integrations to accept payments and allow your customers or clients to update their accounts easily from their dashboard.

Although MemberPress and MemberMouse have similar features and functionality, here’s where you’ll find the biggest differences: MemberPress is more bare-bones when it comes to building your membership site or course content. Using MemberPress you can easily protect your content. They make it quite easy to get up and running quickly.

MemberMouse has more features than MemberPress and allows you to create a robust membership site experience rather than just protecting content.

Although both options offer reporting out of the box, MemberMouse has more detailed reporting available on their upper tiers and allows for split testing on pricing pages. Having these in-depth insights will help you make data-driven decisions that can enhance your growth.

Another distinction is that with MemberMouse, you cannot edit the source code but with MemberPress, you can. Editing the source code can be a valuable feature for migrations and customizations. Being able to edit the source code is typically expected of software. In fact, access to edit the source code is an advantage of choosing a software vs. a platform.

So, right out of the gate, if you want to create an advanced membership site and have in-depth reporting MemberMouse is a better fit.

If you’re looking to get up and running quickly, protect content right away while giving your customers and clients access to an account dashboard and looking for the ability to edit the source code, then MemberPress is a better fit for you.

We all enjoy simple and straightforward pricing. No one likes to be surprised when they’re forced to upgrade because of tier limitations or add integrations and monthly costs they didn’t know they’d need.

So understanding which plan you’ll need right now, and what you might need to upgrade to in the future can help in your decision-making process.

With MemberMouse, all their core features are included in every plan. This can be advantageous if you’re in the planning stage and you’re not yet certain which features you’ll use as you implement your membership site and protected content.

Here’s what to expect with their core features: Check out and upsells, membership, courses, programs, and/or products, 1-click purchasing, member management, content protection, shortcodes, integrations (payment, email, and third-party), basic reporting, developer tools, and custom notifications.

MemberMouse has tier limitations when it comes to payment types, reporting, and other advanced features.

The Basic plan is $399 per year, but only includes integration with Stripe for payments, offers limited reporting features, and integrations with the most popular CRMs. 

The Plus plan is $599 per year and adds social logins, PayPal and Braintree payments, and quizzes and certificates. 

One unique feature you’ll get access to on this plan is the social login feature. This can be configured so that your clients and customers can use Google or Facebook to log in to your membership site.

The social login feature is nice to have because your customers and clients have likely seen this type of login before, it saves them from having to remember yet another password, and makes access to your materials even easier.

The Pro plan at $799 a year is their most popular and adds more payment options, priority support, and full analytics and reporting.  

They also have an Elite plan at $2,399 per year that adds Sticky.io integration (which is an order management and recurring billing platform), and phone support.

MemberPress offers four plans as well, but they do have feature limitations you’ll need to be aware of. Because of this pricing structure, you’ll want to know exactly which features you plan on implementing in your set up because it will impact which plan is best for you.

Their Basic plan is $359 per year. On this plan you’ll have 1 site, unlimited members and content, integration with PayPal and Stripe, 1 year of support and updates, and 10+ add-ons and integrations, which we’ll cover a bit later in this article.

On the Plus plan, you’ll pay $599 per year. It’s their most popular plan. With it, you’ll get everything included with the Basic plan plus 1 more site, the ability to sell corporate accounts, and 20+ add-ons and integrations.

It’s important to note that although the ability to integrate is a plus, having 20+ integrations isn’t an ideal setup. If you find yourself needing that many additional add-ons or integrations, you’ll want to look at a different software entirely that meets your needs out of the box more without linking all different systems together.

Their Pro plan comes in at $799 per year. In addition to all the features available on the Plus plan, you’ll have 3 more sites available, available integration with Authorize.net, and exclusive Pro add-ons.

Finally, their Elite plan is $999 per year and includes up to 5 sites, CoachKit, and unlimited students. 

With either MemberMouse or MemberPress, map out your ideal setup and see what plan meets your needs. Be sure to map out member projections since both of these software options have active member limits.

In terms of startup costs, MemberMouse offers a 14-day trial. MemberPress doesn’t offer a trial period, but they do have a 14-day money-back guarantee. New customers can save $200 when they join MemberPress on a special timed offer they have on their website.

In terms of a direct comparison, for most businesses, you’re looking at the Plus plan on MemberPress at $399 / year, and the Advanced plan at $99 / month on MemberMouse.

As we touched on in the previous section, the ability to integrate is an essential part of most platforms or software. You already have a tech stack, so connecting what you’ve already set up with what you want to create is a great feature.

That being said, an integration can get sticky. If the integration doesn’t work properly you may lose leads, have disconnected sales information, and not give your clients and customers the experience you’re really hoping for.

You may find yourself spending too much time troubleshooting and repairing the integration rather than focusing on your vision and growing your business. Getting stuck in the weeds with these integrations can be irritating, and frankly unnecessary.

Part of choosing the best software or platform to support your business is knowing what kinds of integrations you’ll use, and what those look like to set up, maintain, and troubleshoot if necessary.

Again, if you find yourself with a long list of integrations with either MemberMouse or MemberPress, consider choosing a different software or platform.

Both MemberMouse and MemberPress support integrations with payment systems (which we’ll talk about a bit later), email marketing systems, and other applications through a third-party connector tool like Zapier.

Remember that integrations are included at part of MemberMouses’s core features. They offer some direct, one-way integrations as well as one-way integrations through Zapier.

It’s important to note that a one-way integration means that one system will push information to another, but the two systems won’t communicate seamlessly back and forth.

MemberMouse integrates with MailChimp, Drip, ActiveCampaign, AWeber, GetResponse, iContact, affiliate marketing tools, and bbPress for community features. You can also create custom integrations with MemberMouse though API, push notifications, PHP interface, and WordPress hooks and filters.

MemberPress limits integrations based on your tier. Be sure to check tier restrictions when thinking about your integrations.

MemberPress also offers direct, one-way integrations with ConstantContact, MailChimp, Drip, ActiveCampaign, Aweber, Get Response, affiliate marketing integrations, and bbPress for a community forum.

It will work with Zapier as well if you have other applications you’re interested in connecting.

MemberPress and MemberMouse are pretty even when it comes to their integration features.

A nice perk of MemberPress is that on their upper tier, they do offer bulk course enrollment. This can be a fantastic selling tool if you’re looking to sell your products to companies, schools, families, or other community groups.

A fully automated bulk course enrollment feature allows the team leader to make the initial purchase, add team members, see their progress, and purchase more licenses all from their dashboard.

On the lower level tiers of MemberPress, you can purchase the add-on for corporate accounts.

MemberMouse doesn’t have bulk course enrollment out of the box. You are able to import your members, so you could import your companies or groups in that fashion. A third-party developer recently released a Groups feature for teams or bulk course enrollment as an add-on for MemberPress. It’s not a native feature so you’re also dealing with a third-party plugin, but it will allow you to build this functionality into your site.

MemberPress is very reasonably priced when it comes to comparisons on the marketplace. The true cost of MemberPress comes into play as you start to need integration after integration to meet the needs of your set up and vision.

That monthly cost will quickly go up after you add in a third-party integration tool, and all the monthly fees associated with the integrations you want for features like learning reinforcements, affiliate functionality, and the advanced reporting you’ll use.

MemberMouses costs more than MemberPress, but you likely won’t need as many integrations to get your business up and running.

Similarly, though, the true cost for MemberMouse will come when you’re using 20+ integrations and add-ons to make everything work. It’s a lot to implement, maintain, and troubleshoot.

With both MemberPress and MemberMouse, if they meet your needs now, but you quickly outgrow them, the true cost comes when it’s time to migrate your content and members to more robust software that can really help you scale your business.

Migrations are time-consuming, tedious, and will slow down everything else going on in your business.