Membership Sites With WPQuickStart Review PROS & CONS (2023) – Everything You Need To Create Membership Site

A membership website allows you to make money online by allowing users to pay for premium content, features, and access to the community. For all this, you will need a platform that has features for managing users, memberships, payments, etc.

Running your own unique membership site that provides added value to your subscribers is easy with WPQuickstart by Nexcess. This WPQuickStart review will talk about some of the more frequent problems when hosting and dealing with membership sites and explain how WPQuickstart can help you solve those problems quickly.

 

WPQuickStart Review

There are more than fifty different WordPress membership plugins available. You don’t have to sort through them all to find the best one for your needs, and then choose a compatible theme and additional plugins. WPQuickStart takes care of the tough choices, so you don’t have to.

WPQuickStart uses completely managed WordPress hosting to help users run quick, effective membership sites. Nexcess is the first managed WordPress hosting provider to offer a fully-fledged membership site solution with subscriptions.

 

 

WordPress, plugins, and an intuitive wizard help make WPQuickStart a great membership site builder. It can help you craft your own unique membership website quickly.

Nexcess has helped many people create impressive subscription membership sites because of its partnerships with Kadence Pro, Restrict Content Pro, and other resources. Thanks to these tools, you get all features you need for creating a membership site as part of WPQuickStart.

All this is built on top of Nexcess’ powerful, fully managed WordPress hosting platform. Customers can use advanced built-in caching, a powerful content delivery network (CDN) with twenty-two locations, and automatic scaling.

WordPress experts provide support 24/7, and security monitoring keeps your site safe and secure. This review will focus on WPQuickStart, so I won’t elaborate further on the Nexcess hosting service. If you’d like more information on this topic, you can visit their official website for further details.

Some of the best features you get as part of WPQuickStart by Nexcess are:

• Automatic scaling – As user traffic levels increase, sites can withstand those changes without issue, thanks to scaling services that are instantaneous and entirely automatic. When your site is accessed by many people, added resources are deployed and scaled as needed right away automatically.
• Security level – Members’ confidential information is kept safe and secure. Any membership website will undoubtedly place the security and safety of members’ data very high on their priority list. WordPress security experts are hired to look for potential malware and security threats. The support team will quickly reinstate the system and recover all information if anything goes wrong.
• CDN – Content delivery speeds can improve overall site user experiences. The content delivery network delivers content in very little time and makes for faster page loading. Information is sent from one of Nexcess’s 22 PoPs CDN that caches static content closest to the specific user.
• Optimization – WPQuickstart optimizes everything to provide visitors with more reasons to return to your site and stay there for longer periods.
• Content restriction – Content can be restricted at different levels as you see fit. You can offer users a paid upgrade to see content that was previously added, or you could supply new content after a purchase has been made.
• Payment gateways – You can accept payments using PayPal, Authorize.net, 2Checkout, Braintree, and Stripe.
• Email communication – You can use the admin dashboard to send templated messages and schedule email communication. You don’t need any other additional resources to accomplish those tasks.
• Admin dashboard – The included software has many features that can be used to optimize the membership site. You can learn more about your company’s performance, member subscriptions, and other important aspects.

 

Kadence Theme

Kadence theme is an easy-to-use WordPress theme. It can be used to create beautiful niche sites that load fast and are very appealing to the eye. With its drop and drag header and footer builder, you can create beautiful headers and footers in just a few minutes.

 

 

Many different templates are included to help you get off to a good start. The global and font color settings can be customized to make your site stand out. Kadence also works well with many well-known third-party plugins, so you can quickly form company sites, custom sites, e-Commerce websites, and much more.

 

 

Kadence theme was recently acquired by iThemes which is part of the Liquid Web family of brands just like Nexcess. That is why the Kadence pro theme is offered for free as part of membership sites with WPQuickStart by Nexcess.

Kadence pro costs $129/year if you would buy it from the official site. But here, it is already included in the package.

The WPQuickStart Membership set-up wizard helps you customize your site by using the Kadence theme to fit the specific requirements of your site. Be noted that with WPQuickStart,  you get all Kadence pro features like Kadence Blocks Pro, Kadence Pro addon, pro starter templates, Kadence shop kit, etc.

NOTE: If you decide to go with Astra theme, WPQuickStart provides Astra Pro addon for free.

 

Restrict Content Plugin

Restrict Content Pro is a WordPress plugin that allows you to create a fully working membership website. It provides users complete control in establishing and controlling subscription-based websites.

Restrict Content Pro comes with reporting tools, membership management features, integrations with popular payment processing services, subscription packages, etc. You can create great user experiences and continue to expand your customer base a the same time.

WPQuickStart membership site functions are powered by Restrict Content plugin. It is core for any membership site. The Restrict Content Pro is available with all WPQuickStart plans. The cheapest plan for Restrict Content Pro is $129/year if you buy from the official site.

With WPQuickstart, you get it for free without having to pay the additional separate cost for that service. Restrict Content was also acquired by iThemes, and that is why it is offered for free as part of membership sites with WPQuickStart by Nexcess.

So how does Restrict Content plugin work? Content restriction options will appear on site pages and posts. Content will be included in a restrict shortcode, and you can determine which WordPress level users will be able to see that information.

If a user tries to access a particular page of your site that they don’t have the requisite authorization from the settings page, you can customize the message shown to that person. Different messages can only be visible to certain user groups. Content can be restricted according to particular user levels.

Restrict Content provides several payment options. You can accept payments via Stripe, PayPal, Braintree and Authorize.net (addon).

 

 

If you want more information about your subscribers, you can create reports on revenue and your membership users. Payment and membership data in CSV format can be easily exported as needed.

You can also encourage people to pay for a membership by providing a small sample of the content that your subscribers can access. Users can see full information contained in custom posts, pages, and blogs once they upgrade their membership levels.

 

 

You can see all of your site subscribers on the memberships page. You can see their active status and sort people according to the kind of membership plan.

Payment information and member names will be shown on the customer’s page. You can adjust email and name information as needed.

 

 

The membership levels page allows you to create your membership plans. You can create as many membership plans as you want. Subscription packages can have more than one level. Clients can select the membership option that best meets their needs.

 

 

Different user roles, access levels, duration, and prices can be assigned to the various membership levels you offer. You may only want people at certain subscription levels to access specific content on your website. You can determine who can access what information by setting restriction settings. Membership levels and access levels will be interconnected.

 

 

Be noted that most Restrict Content Addons are not included with WPQuickStart. If you want all addons, you must purchase either a Professional or Ultimate Restrict Content Pro plan from the official site.

With WPQuickStart Membership, you get only these pro addons: Custom Redirects, Drip Content, Group Accounts, MailChimp Pro, Per-Level Emails, and Restrict Past Content.

 

How To Use?

Once you purchase WPQuickStart, you will have access to Nexcess portal. Once you login, you get access to your account details, billing, support, DNS, plans, SSL, etc. You can configure DNS, send support requests, see invoices, run your hosting environment, and perform other tasks with the Nexcess client portal.

Go to the Plans menu. From there, click your purchased plan to see your domain name. Click on domain name and you will see everything you need to manage your Nexcess hosting.

 

 

To see your site login details, go to “Environment.” This will give you your WP Admin login data.

Once you log in to your site, you will see that the admin area focuses on the important information providing you a simplified dashboard and pushing the rest into the background. You can pick the “Show Full Menu” selection that appears on the left-hand side of your screen if you want to return to the classic WordPress admin and see all options.

Site, Community, Content, and Nexcess tabs will be shown on the left. Nexcess tab consists of Dashboard, Page Cache and Install Plugins sub-menus.

From Dashboard, you can contact support and see Priority Pages. By specifying key pages, you can monitor their performance and perform visual comparisons during plugin updates, alerting you if these priority pages require your attention.

Page Cache menu allows you to set cache behaviour.

 

 

Under Install Plugins, ou can activate performance options, install suggested plugins, etc. Yoast SEO, Ultimate Dashboard, Redis Object Cache, Ninja Forms, Kadence addons, Restrict Content Pro, and its respective addons are some of the plugins you can install from here.

 

 

 

If you want to customize your theme settings and how your site looks, go to “Appearance” > Customize.”  The Community Tab is where you set Restrict Content Pro membership and other important settings.

 

How Much Does It Cost?

WPQuickStart comes in three types of membership site plans. They can either be paid annually or monthly. If you go with an annual plan, it will be a little cheaper. Each plan comes with the same features. The only difference is in storage and bandwidth.

Here are the plans:

• Membership Essential – $49 per month with 1 website, 30 GB storage, and 3TB bandwidth.
• Membership Pro – $99 per month with 1 website, 60 GB storage, and 5TB bandwidth.
• Membership Premium – $149 per month with 1 website, 100 GB storage, and 5TB bandwidth.

All three plans include 30-day backups, unlimited email accounts, a staging environment, and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

 

WPQuickStart Review Conclusion

It doesn’t take very long to create amazing subscription and membership websites with WPQuickStart. It does most of the difficult work that you don’t have to concern yourself with.

WPQuickStart is a straightforward and effective solution. You don’t have to spend hours checking different membership plugins or search for compatible add-ons and themes. The last thing you want to do is to find out that a particular element isn’t working properly after you’ve taken all that time to select the options that you thought were ideal.

Every WPQuickStart plan includes several pro versions of popular plugins and theme bringing great value and impressive features, such as:

• Payment integrations at no extra charge.
• Create subscription packages with multiple levels.
• Email messages that can be automated and scheduled.
• Company performance, payment, and member subscription reporting tools.

WPQuickstart membership websites are created on Nexcess hosting platform that is specifically made for WordPress. Customers can expect the following:

• Fast and automatic scaling during increased site traffic.
• An included Content Delivery Network (CDN) with 22 locations to help enhance page speeds.
• Quick loading thanks to the built-in advanced caching.
• WordPress experts support and monitoring around the clock, every day of the year.

Great cloud hosting and WordPress plugins are combined in WPQuickStart membership site bundles. These services were designed to provide fantastic e-commerce shopping experiences specifically for WordPress community members in mind.

If you want a hosted membership site, you really can’t go wrong with WPQuickStart by Nexcess. Nexcess by itself is one of the highly recommended managed WordPress hosting services. It may be a bit more expensive than other comparable options, but the simplicity and vast assortment of features definitely justify the money spent.

One thing that I noticed is that Nexcess support is not knowledgeable about WPQuickStart and what it offers. I have contacted them 3 times, asking simple questions about what I get with WPQuickStart (mainly which pro plugins), and they didn’t know.

The excuse was that this is their new service, so they are still not familiarized with all the features. Overall, not the best experience with support. Especially as they told me they would get back to me via email, which I never received.

There is no question Nexcess provides good hosting. But you can buy Nexcess hosting without going with WPQuickStart and purchase plugins that come with it separately. So is WPQuickStart worth considering you don’t get all Restrict Content Pro add-ons?

Isn’t it cheaper just to buy Kadence theme and Restrict Content Pro from official sites? They even have lifetime plans and unlimited sites, while with WPQuickStart, you get for only one site.

You can get WPQuickStart Essential plan for $490 if you go with an annual plan. This is the cheapest option. So, in the long run, you will be paying more for it compared to just buying Kadence theme and Restrict Content Pro lifetime plans separately from official sites. In that case, you even get unlimited sites license and all add-ons.

It is worth noticing that with WPQuickStart, you also get access to Ultimate Dashboard PRO, WPMerge, Qubely Pro (according to their site, but I didn’t see it as an option), and iThemes Security Pro.

Go with WPQuickStart only if you intend to use all pro plugins that you get as part of a bundle, if you need it for only one site, and if you don’t have enough money to buy Restrict Content pro from the official site.

In any other case, you might be better of just purchasing the RCP lifetime version from the official site, using some free or paid theme, and using one of the Nexcess hosting plans or any other hosting.

To conclude, WPQuickStart is a bundle of Liquid Web products. Nexcess for hosting, Kadence as theme, Restrict Content Pro as most important plugin for creating membership site, iThemes Security for security purposes + some addtional pro third-party plugins. It is up to you to decide if WPQuickStart suits your needs, rather than purchasing products you need separately.