Membership Plugin Review: MemberWing-X

Reviewing MemberWing-X

I've had a few people send me emails asking me about my larger spreadsheet of features that I use as a checklist when evaluating membership plugins. Even if I write “don't ask for it,” it seems like it's an invitation to ask.

So even though I won't give away the whole sheet, I decided to share a part of it in this review of MemberWing-X.

It means that in this post, instead of walking you thru the whole plugin, I'm going to show you the table and then talk a bit about how impressive this plugin is. So let's get into it.

The MemberWing-X Features

Here is a portion of the features I look at.

[table id=12]Feature,Supported?
Unlimited Membership Levels,Yes
Protect Individual Posts (via shortcodes),Yes
Protect Individual Post or Page via MetaBox (check box),No
Protect Groups of Posts by Category,Yes
Sell Individual Page/Post access?,Yes
Sell Digital Downloads,Yes
Coupon Support,No
Drip Content,Yes
Expire Protection (make it available for free),Yes
Expire Membership,Yes
Email Integration (MailChimp)?,Yes
Reminder Emails before Membership Expiration,No
Support PayPal,Yes
Support PayPal Express,No
Support Stripe,No
BuddyPress Integration,No
bbPress Integration,No
Redirections (when not logged in),No
Upgrades / Downgrades,No
Suspension of Subscriptions,No
Pro-rating Charges,No
Supports Google First Click Free,Yes
[/table]

As you can see, there are a lot of features that MemberWing-X supports. The best version of this plugin costs $199 but like I said, it comes with a lot of features.

But that's not what I like about it the most. What I like about it the most is how flexible it is.

Flexibility allows MemberWing-X to grow as your membership experience and understanding does.

Let me see if I can explain it.

[Tweet “MemberWing-X's flexibility allows your site to adjust over time as you get more experience.”]

Imagine you have a post that you want to sell. You can do it with MemberWing-X. You just put a shortcode (though they use a different syntax) into the text and suddenly you can sell access to the post.

But now imagine that you get so much traffic to that post that you create a membership level that has access to this post, but also some others. Trust me when I tell you that this happens a lot to people. They start with one monetization structure and then want to shift to another.

Most plugins make you pick – sell it stand-alone or sell it in a membership. But not MemberWing-X. It let's you adjust the protection in the shortcode to support both. And it looks something like:

{{{private | $9.99}}}

Now let's say you want that same post (or page) to expire after a certain time – and become free to the world. Just extend the notation. Want it to drip too? You can do that too.

Just about anything you can think of, in terms of timing and protection is available with MemberWing-X.

[Tweet “Anything you can think of, regarding timing & protection, is available with MemberWing-X.”]

The Main MemberWing-X Issue

The only real issue with this plugin is how tightly coupled it is with PayPal. Mind you, there are other payment gateways supported but most of them work the same way. The plugin has you building buttons from the payment provider (like PayPal subscription buttons) rather than having the plugin do it.

This results in a lot of going back and forth between PayPal screens and WordPress.

Evaluating MemberWing-X

I don't need to give you screenshots for this plugin because of the way they support your own evaluation.

You can download the full load of features by downloading their free evaluation plugin. And you can set up a sample site, much like I did, by digging into their detailed documentation.

Part of a Series of Membership Plugin Reviews

I just want to remind you, before we get into the scoring, that this is just one in a larger series of my reviews of Membership plugins for WordPress.

  1. Membership 2 Pro
  2. WP eMember
  3. WP-Members
  4. Restrict Content Pro
  5. FastMember
  6. Memberful
  7. InstaMember
  8. Members
  9. WP Membership
  10. Cart66 Cloud
  11. Private Content
  12. Zippy Courses
  13. Ultimate Member
  14. Easy Quick Member
  15. WooCommerce Membership (Envato)
  16. MemberWing-X

Scoring MemberWing-X

So now we get into the scoring, but I should tell you this – there is a lot to like about this plugin, so if it meets your needs I'm pretty sure you'll like it's flexibility.

  • Ease of Use – 4
  • Payment Gateway Support – 3
  • eCommerce Support – 3
  • Drip Support – 5
  • Concurrent Accounts – 3
  • Pro-rating Charges – 1
  • Upgrades / Downgrades – 1
  • Speed of setting it up – 4

The MemberWing-X Score: 3.0