Main Features

• Powerful Built-In Content Management System!  
• Automatic signups, renewals and cancellations!
• Powerful affiliate system – members promote for you!
• New members pay extra for previous months content!
• Offer FREE memberships and then Upsell to paid!
• Offer New Members “One-Time-Offers”!
• Accept Credit/Debit Cards with Paypal, 2Checkout, ClickBank, 1ShoppingCart

Other Features
• Powerful Built-In Content Management System (CMS) with WYSIWYG editor – No HTML / PHP skills required (ability to paste in HTML from other editors is also possible)
• Automatic signups, renewals and cancellations – hands free operation!
• Powerful affiliate system – members promote your site for you!
• New members pay extra for previous months content – stop members grabbing all your content and then unsubscribing!
• Offer FREE memberships and then Upsell to paid – make more money on the backend and grow your subscriber list!
• Optionally offer your new members a "one-time" offer – generate extra income!
• Accept credit/debit cards with Paypal & 2Checkout – the two most popular payment gateways which do not require a merchant account
• Secure password-protected member’s area so no-one gets in and steals your content

Sample Screenshot:

• Easily change the header/footer/background graphics and set nav bar colours of your website using point and click – make your site unique and stand out from the crowd
• Preview your content pages before they go live – avoid embarrassing mistakes
• Offer your members multiple subscription terms (1/3/6 or 12 month recurring payments or a "one time" lifetime membership option) – payment flexibility will make your members happy
• Email automatically sent to site admin when new member joins
• Email automatically sent to affiliate if the member was referred by an affiliate when new member joins
• All emails sent by the script to members/admin/affiliates are easily editable using the admin tool – pre-written emails are provided but fully customizable
• Members can retrieve their password using the built in "forgot password" link – less admin work required
• Send email bulletins to your members OR affiliates any time you want – send special promotions and explode backend sales or just keep in touch with your members!
• Easily add/edit/search members using the admin tool – you can manually add members for example JV partners/test accounts without them having to join
• Setup promotional tools for your members/affiliates including pre-written emails, email subject lines and graphics. Graphics automatically include the affiliate’s ID so they can copy and paste a HTML snippet on their website to display your graphics/banners
• Members/affiliates that have reffered other members can view their statistics at any time in their member’s area
• Pay your affiliates by Paypal Mass Pay or print our a spreadsheet for check payments.
• Offer your members/affiliates a percentage of each sale OR a fixed amount of each sale. You can even specify a custom percentage for JV partners for whom you want to receive higher commissions.
• Multiple currency support so you can run a membership site in most countries, including USA, UK, Australia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Germany, France etc
• Export members or affiliates into a CSV file for manipulation in other programs such as Microsoft Excel
• Link to any 3rd-party forum such as PhpBB or VBulletin from the member’s nav bar
• View useful statistics in your admin panel for how many members you have, how many have joined/cancelled in last day/week etc

Misc.

• Special license is required if you intend to resell your membership site (flipping).
• Version 1.3 and above supports Free Membership type.
• 98% of the source code is provided. There are a small number of files that are encrypted for intellectual property rights protection.
• The script can be deactivated by EasyMember in case of a refund.
• Easy video tutorials to show you how use EasyMemberPro
• 6 Months FREE upgrades and email support
• "Members Only" Forum – discuss anything related to setting up and running membership sites with other membership script owners!
• Several UNADVERTISED Bonuses – All geared to help you achieve maximum success with your new membership script!

Payment Processor

PayPal, 2Checkout, Clickbank and 2SC were supported at the time of this review was published. Please visit their site for latest info:

www.EasyMember.com

Requirements

Most Linux hosting accounts can support EasyMemberPro. The requirements are:

• PHP 4.x
• mySQL
• Zend Optimizer (most hosts support this)
• Ability to run "cron jobs" (most hosts support this)

This is a recommended low cost hosting provider:

www.HostGator.com

Pricing

License Type                  Cost

1 site license                  $197 (Promotion Price $137) *

Unlimited site license      $397 (Promotion Price $297) *

*All prices are correct at the time of this article was published.

aMember Pro sits nicely among the membership software kings, so to speak. Its’ core strength lies with the ability to integrate with lots of third party scripts such as:

• Content Management System(CMS) e.g. Drupal, Joomla, Mambo, WordPress.
• Bulletin boards e.g. phpBB and others.
• Email autoresponder such as aWeber and many others.
• Payment systems that includes PayPal, 2Checkout etc.

By this, it means that you don’t have to scrap your existing systems or start everything from scratch.

Customer Features

• Automated signups and expirations
• Can be used as stand-alone user management program without any payment system
• Checks your database to avoid duplicate usernames
• User is able to check unique user name availability during signup
• Can generate simple usernames and passwords for users (optionally)
• The signup form fields checked for completeness. Your custom checking may be simply added
• Can protect any files/directories. Your customers never see annoying popup login window again – The login form is completely customizable
• Unlimited number of products (subscription types), each with own price, expiration and ANY other parameters. You able to handle any number and combination of products/protected files and(or) directories
• Members may have multiple subscriptions simultaneously (for different products) with only one username/password for all them
• Automated account expiration handling. Memberships are automatically terminated after expiring. Members will still be able to visit special their member profile pages and renew their subscriptions
• Automatically monitor visitors with the same username/password. If the configured limit is reached, the account is disabled instantly.
• E-mails the username/password to the customer after signup is completed
• E-mails to the customer when (before or after – configurable) their subscription expires
• E-mails to customers when they didn’t complete payment
• E-mails to customers when they completed first stage of signup
• Special customizable pages for members with a list of completed payments, renewal control and links to protected areas
• Members are able to change their profile information, such as phone number, address, email and password
• Ability to send password by email for members who forgot their passwords
• more info…

Admin Features

• E-mail broadcast to your customers. E-mail to all of your customers, expired customers as well as customers of a specified product
• Search members by username, name, email, subscription type (product) and/or by any string in profile
• Manually add members and add subscriptions with desired start & expiration date
• The script has it’s own error and access log
• Customizable reports
• Admin panel is protected with encrypted login/password

Supported Payment Methods

• 60+ third party payment processors supported – full list here
• Free – to allow free signup
• Moderated Free – admin must approve accounts
• Offline payments: E.g. Western Union, Money Order, offline cheques
• Ability to easily create new plugins (powerful and easy plugin interface)

Available Protection/Integration Plugins

• 30+ third party scripts integrations available – full list here
• php_include
• htpasswd
• htpasswd_secure
• mod_auth_mysql
• Gift Vouchers (your customers can order gift certificates) *
• Members List (automatically publish list of paid members) *
• One-Time download (useful to protect file and track downloads count) *
• Ability to easily create new plugins (powerful and easy plugin interface)

Miscellaneous

• Web-based installation
• Completely MySQL driven
• Fabulous customizability
• Smarty templates. Unlimited flexibility
• Adding unlimited number of custom fields to products, subscriptions and members without changing database structure! Ability to assign validity checks for new fields.
• Database is completely compatible between versions – easy upgrade
• Ability to add your own protection and payment plugins. Easy integration with your existing site solutions
• Legal right to delete links to CGI-Central from installed aMember

Script Requirements

• PHP 4.1.0 or later
• MySQL 3.22 or later
• Unix/Linux hosting
• Ability to load ionCube Loader dynamically (usually possible without any additional settings)
  OR Zend Optimizer installed into php.ini
  OR ionCube Loader installed into php.ini.

Support System

• 6 months of free upgrades and support (Trouble-Tickets system, answer is guaranteed within 24 hours).

Installation

• Free Installation within 24 hours after request made.
• Below is a video guide on aMember installation procedure:

Free Trial

• 30 days.

Demo System

• Go here: http://amember.com/p/Main/Demo

Pricing & Refund Policy

• Full refund no-hassle 30-days moneyback

More Info or Purchase

• Check it out at this link: www.aMember.com

* Available for separate purchase.

This software is built using PHP and requires MySQL database to run. So obviously your site need to be hosted on PHP and MySQL enabled one which is the norm nowadays.

The prominent unique feature of this software is its’ ability to turn your existing blog such as WordPress based, forum or both into an instant membership site by just inserting 4 lines of codes. It cannot be simpler than that!

Main modules are typical of any major software title that include Admin, Member and Affiliate managements.

Admin Features

The webmaster are able to customize the functionality and look-and-feel in many ways. Here are some but not limited to only these:

• Create/edit/delete different membership class – free, paid, paid-premium, etc. The choice is entirely yours.
• Able to customize membership type description, sales page information and members area homepage.
• Assign payment types to each membership class above – trial membership (free or paid), one-time charge, or monthly charges. Can be linked to ClickBank recurring charges if relevant.
• Auto-subscribe option to your existing autoresponder system if you prefer.
• Membership Site Script (MSS) also has its own mailing list system. There is a choice of sending customized emails to just members or affiliates or both.
• Ability to send private messages using Private Messaging System.
• Option to allocate Resell Rights to members for all membership types or only selected ones.
• Timed Downloads option. If activated, member can only "sell" the specified membership for a fixed duration defined in seconds, minutes, hours, days or years.
• May choose up to 2 level of referrers and the amount of commission for each one.
• Create/edit/delete One-Time-Offers with customizable sales page and payment button such as PayPal.
• Password sharing protection
• Banner inventory
• Custom Pages where ads, index page, membership homepage, affiliate homepage and other are designed.
• Define categories for the contents such as Mp3, Ringtones and MIDI.
• Editable templates
• Payment processor is PayPal or any other choice of yours.
• Database backup
• more info…

Member Features

Members have these privileges among others:

• Download page(s)
• Profile updates
• PayPal email for referral commissions
• Referral link, live stats and referral listing
• Promotional banners
• F.A.Q page
• Inbox for personal messages
• Tell-A-Friend page

Affiliates

The script is ready to manage your own affiliate program. This is a very effective way to get multiples of traffic volume from what you can achieve just on your own. Yes, you’ll share a portion of your profit but it’s worth it.

Here the choices are rather simple…

• Profile updates
• PayPal email for referral commissions
• Referral link, live stats and referral listing
• Promotional banners
• F.A.Q page

Support System

• User support is done mainly via members-only forum. There’s an active community consists of the merchant, senior and new members. Discussions revolves around upgrades, squashing bugs, modification and customization of the script.

Requirements

• Domain name
• Hosting provider
• PHP script server
• MySQL database server
• Ioncube loader

Installation

• An instruction manual is provided for complete installation and for version upgrades.
• Occasionally promotion for free installation is offered to buyers.

Free Trial

No.

Price Structure

• MSS is sold in several configurations depending on your needs such as:
• Leased license (monthly charges)
• Full ownership for life (one-time payment)
• Reseller Rights license (one-time payment)

Please visit the site for current price structure. All options come with full unlimited domains use license.

Note:

Unless you purchased the PLR version, the scripts that you get are encrypted using Ioncube system. Therefore your hosting has to support this which is quite common anyway.

If you like to see MSS in action, go to the demo site here (needs registration):

www.membershipsitescript.net/

To understand more or to get your copy of the software, visit the site at:

www.MembershipSiteScript.com

.

Here are the basic building blocks for a typical membership site:

1. Controlled user access
2. Membership site control panel
3. Members area
4. Payment gateways and processors  

Controlled Access

This is one of the most significant characteristics of a membership site where only "authorized users" are allowed to consume the contents provided by the site’s operator. Therefore these assets shall be protected and hidden from its’ non-intended users.

This is usually done via unique userid and password requirements which are issued after certain actions had been taken by the user typically upon registration and payment as specified by the site’s authority.

The intended access control is normally achieved using suitable software for example aMemberPro, Membership Site Scripts and many other similar ones.

Applying appropriate control at operating system level such as .htacess file setup is another method employed some webmasters. This is more suitable in cases where a relatively simple control is needed. The downside is that not many features will be available for sites adopting this approach.

Membership or rights to access the protected material will be revoked if certain conditions are met. Common ones are non-payment of membership fees when it’s due. In an automated system, this is activated automatically if correct payment is not made upon expiration of the subscription.

Admin Panel

In membership software, this is where the webmaster configures and manages the operation of a membership site. The functions of the module may include areas as indicated below:

• Designing the look and feel of the membership site such as the layout, menus and banners
• Organization of the download area
• Creation of different types of memberships
• Assigning features for each membership type such as the name, either free or paid, the price for paid types, the renewal frequency, grace period for renewal payment, upgrade and downgrade of accounts
• Setting up of the one time offers (OTO)
• Support system and
• Email list management and newsletter broadcasting

Members Area

Of course this is the most important component of a membership site where users interact with all accessible services that are on offer.

Typical services include written article views, audio and videos access, ebook downloads, software downloads, forum-based consultation, customer support and so on.

The quality of this piece of the system will make or break a membership site to a very large extent.

Payment Gateways

If paid membership is your choice, then this component sits among the tops. If membership software are used, most will have this part already catered for. Perhaps just a little configuration will do. Most software usually support the popular online payment provider such as PayPal, WorldPay, eGold and many others.

However if this is done manually i.e. its’ not an integral part of the system, a lot more efforts are needed to manage the whole thing. For example when someone pays for the membership, the webmaster has to activate the account and provide the member with necessary details to be able to access the membership site.

Same goes when the membership dues or expires. Manual intervention will be required. So it’s obvious that automation is the way to go.

Be Automated

This is a topic which will be discussed about more in later posts. However keep this in mind – wherever possible, always choose to have automation instead of manual. This will save the webmaster from huge routine chores that are best handled by the machines themselves.

First, what is a Membership Web Site?

Essentially, a membership site is when someone pays to access information published in a password protected area on a website.  Typical contents include exclusive articles, information, software codes, online courses, software services, games, ebooks, or music.

It’s no secret that people are willing to pay for online content. Some people have been paying thousands of dollars every year just to be a part of some exclusive club membership.

Why? Memberships make people feel important!

In fact, the “Online Publishers Association”  revealed that pay-for content is emerging as a hot revenue model. You can get paid to turn your hobby, specialized knowledge, or profession into a membership web site.

View this video for some information:

Type of Membership Sites

This is generally grouped as Free or Paid Membership sites.

Forums (free version) are a typical example of free membership sites. Other than that there are free membership offered as introductory to the real one so that the member can gauge the usefulness and value of the service. This can be offered free for unlimited time or as a “trial” that expires after a specified period. All this is done in anticipation that the “free” member will upgrade to the paid membership along the way.

Social networks are the current “hot” membership sites of choice. Almost every single site offers free to join membership account and only to pay for extra services if required. You may have heard of or being a member already to popular social sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Flickr, Friendster and numerous others.

Paid membership sites also come in many forms. Perhaps sites offering digital contents are among the most popular. Here, services may include provision of eBooks, training materials, audios, videos, software applications, software codes, software scripts, musics, ringtones etc.

Why Choose Membership Site As Your Business Model

Yeah, there are literally hundreds if not thousands of potential business models to choose from and these are some of the points that make membership sites so attractive:

• Earn on-going recurring income with your very own paid membership subscription-based web site. In comparison, “one time sale” may be hard to be repeated time after time. Not really so with membership sites as members are actually “conditioned” to accept the recurring billing upon signing up into the program.
• Potential of getting paid 24 hours a day. Getting paid while you sleep, eat and play, many times, over and over again appeals to a lot of people.
• A private membership subscription web site can be centered around exactly what you love to do. Simply pick a subject area, be it your interest, skill, hobby or pastime that you already have, or are interested in. Then start a private membership subscription web site based around that subject.
• Done correctly, it can become your passive income churner and this shall not be taken lightly. Passive income is one of the best type of income you ever wanted to have under your belt.
• Can also be used to increase customer loyalty in anticipation of repeat business.
• Expansion potential by managing more than one private subscription site. The owner of these other private membership subscription web sites may have no knowledge of these private sites content subject matter. The owners simply set up joint venture partnerships with other knowledgeable people that do all the hard work of creating and providing the information content to put in the private site, while the the owner simply manages the private site and share in the profits!

Developing A Membership Site

This should be managed as any other type of projects. There are several key steps that need to be accomplished before a membership site is ready to operate and serve its intended target group and generating income you hope for.

• Pick type of products or services that will be offered to would be members.
• Do necessary research about the intended market and niche. Ensure sufficient demand is there plus little or reasonable competitions exist.
• Evaluate possible business model to adopt be it a free membership site, paid with free trial, paid with almost-free-trial or paid with multi-tier pricing. For paid sites, decide on payment frequency too such as monthly, yearly etc. Choose one that is most viable and profitable.
• Decide whether there will a cap in member counts. This may affect the membership fee as exclusivity is seen as having more value than a membership that opens to just anyone no matter how many people joining in.
• Having done the ground work, prepare a plan for execution. This includes timeline of the project, resource requirements etc.
• It’s critical to evaluate and pick the best hardware and software systems the membership is built on. This will determine whether you end up with an efficient, productive and extendable system or otherwise. You definitely want to work with a system that you can enjoy instead of despise. Be warned though as this is a very challenging task to accomplish. Difficulty in foreseeing future requirements adds to this complexity.
• Flexibility, integration option and supports are critical factors in choosing the right software to run your membership site. Support for self-hosted scripts is a must since you are bound to get hit with problems during installation and /or operation.

Some Drawbacks

While successful membership sites can be very lucrative to the owner, there are a few inevitable downsides of running one. First is the unsubscription, as the member shall be allowed to unsubscribe form the service as per the terms defined when they signed up. This shall be taken into account when you were analyzing the profit potential of the project and determining the membership fee to ensure acceptable returns. There will always be unsubscriptions but you want that to be as small as possible and new subscription should be more than make up those who leave.

Depending on how you termed your service, the majority of membership sites will require you to provide fresh contents from time to time. If your idea of having a site just to set it and forget, it may not be successful in the end. Keeping the content flowing regularly is the life line of a membership site.

In short, make sure the subscribers get products or services that worth their money or they’ll just leave.

Summary

If you play your card correctly, running membership site can be very rewarding. Just make sure you draw out a good plan and roll out the site in the best manner you can. Always put a lot of emphasis on marketing and getting people to subscribe and stay is the key to your success.