Most successful membership sites do not start by asking people to pay. They give something away first, whether that is a newsletter, a starter course, or a small community, and earn the trust that makes a paid tier possible later.

If you are building your first membership site, a free tier is the fastest way to launch, grow your list, and learn what your members actually want. The best part is that you can do all of this with WordPress and Paid Memberships Pro (PMPro). You do not need a paid plan, a developer, or a complicated setup.

This guide walks through how to create a free membership site from a clean WordPress install. You will set up your first free level, configure the member-facing pages, restrict your content, and pick up a few optional customizations that make the experience feel polished.

Why Start with a Free Membership Site

A free membership is more than a giveaway. It is the front door to your business. When someone joins for free, they are telling you they trust your work enough to share their email and create an account. That is a meaningful signal, and you can act on it.

A free tier helps you to:

• Grow your audience without friction: Most people will not enter a credit card to try something new. A free level removes that barrier and turns curious visitors into known members.
• Learn what your audience wants: Once people are signed up, you can see what they read, what they click, and what they ask for. That feedback shapes your future paid offers.
• Build long-term trust: Members who get real value from your free content are far more likely to upgrade when you launch a paid level later.
• Validate your idea before charging: A free site gives you a low-risk way to test your topic, your voice, and your delivery before you commit to a recurring billing model.

You can also keep your site free forever. Many communities, nonprofits, hobby groups, and personal projects never need to charge. A free membership site still gives you a real list, a real account system, and a real home for your content.

What You Need Before You Begin

You do not need much to get a free membership site online. The setup we recommend is simple on purpose.

You will need:

• A WordPress site: Self-hosted WordPress (sometimes called WordPress.org), running on any reputable host. We do not recommend using PMPro on WordPress.com.
• An administrator account on that site: You will install a plugin and create pages, so you need full admin access.
• A clear idea of what is free: This does not need to be a finished product. A welcome page, a starter article, a video, or a small community space is plenty to begin with.

You do not need a payment gateway, a paid plugin license, or any custom code to launch a free site. You can add those things later as your needs grow.

How to Create a Free Membership Site

The flow below assumes a fresh install of Paid Memberships Pro. If you already have PMPro installed, you can skip ahead to the setup wizard or directly to creating a level.

Step 1: Install and Activate Paid Memberships Pro

PMPro is complete and free. Create a free account, download the core plugin zip, and upload it to your site under Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin. Activate the plugin once it is uploaded.

Note that the free core plugin includes everything you need for a free membership site, including unlimited members, unlimited levels, and over 30 free Add Ons.

Step 2: Run the Setup Wizard

When you activate PMPro for the first time, you will be prompted to run the Setup Wizard. The wizard walks you through the most important early decisions, including what kind of site you are building, your initial membership level, and the pages PMPro will generate for you.

For a free membership site, the following selections are important:

• General Info: When asked about payment gateway settings, you can safely skip this step. You can always add a gateway later if you decide to charge.
• Membership Levels: Check the box for a Free level and give it a name. Leave the Paid level unchecked.

The wizard finishes by handing you off to the main PMPro settings, where you will polish your first level.

Step 3: Polish Your Free Membership Level

Membership levels are the heart of PMPro. Each level represents a way someone can join your site. For a free-only site, that means one level with no billing.

To polish your free level:

1. Go to Memberships > Settings > Levels in the WordPress admin.
2. Click the “Edit Level” on the level that was created via the Setup Wizard.
3. Fill in the basic settings for your level.

The fields you care about most for a free level are:

• Name: The public name of the level. Something simple like “Free Member” or “Insider” works well.
• Description: A short explanation of what members get. This appears on your Membership Levels page.
• Confirmation Message: What members see after they sign up. This is a great place to thank them and point to their first piece of content.
• Initial Payment: Set this to 0.
• Recurring Subscription: Leave this unchecked. A free level has no billing.
• Other Settings: You can ignore expiration, trials, and category restrictions for now.

Save the level. You now have a working free membership.

For a full walkthrough of every field, see Step 3. Add a New or Additional Membership Level(s) in the PMPro documentation.

Step 4: Review Your Frontend Pages

PMPro uses a small set of pages to handle signup, login, account management, and checkout. If you let the setup wizard generate these for you, they are already created and assigned. It is still worth a quick review.

Go to Memberships > Settings > Pages and confirm that each of these pages is assigned:

• Membership Levels Page: Where visitors browse the levels they can sign up for.
• Checkout Page: Where they actually sign up.
• Membership Account Page: The logged-in home for existing members.
• Login Page: A frontend login page, so members never have to use the WordPress admin login.
• Other Pages: Billing, Cancel, Confirmation, and Orders pages.

If any page is missing, click “Generate Page” next to it and PMPro will create one for you. Save your settings.

Visit each page on the frontend to confirm everything looks right with your theme. Most themes work out of the box, and you can refine the styling later.

Step 5: Restrict Your Content

The point of a membership site is that members get something visitors do not. PMPro lets you restrict any post, page, or custom post type to your free level.

To restrict a single piece of content:

1. Open the post or page you want to protect.
2. In the editor sidebar, find the Require Membership box.
3. Check the box next to your free level.
4. Update or publish the post.

Now only logged-in members of that level can see the full content. Non-members are sent to your Membership Levels page, where they can sign up.

For broader restrictions, PMPro can also lock down entire categories, custom post types, and member directories. How to Restrict Access in WordPress with PMPro covers the full picture.

Recommended Customizations for Free Membership Sites

Once your free level is live, a few small adjustments make the experience feel more intentional. None of these are required, but they are worth knowing about.

Hide the “$0.00 Now” Pricing Text

By default, PMPro shows “The price for membership is $0.00 now” on free levels. That is technically correct but reads a little awkwardly. You can change or remove this text with the Custom Level Cost Text Add On.

Skip the Membership Levels Page

If your site only offers a single free level, sending visitors to a Membership Levels page is an extra step they do not need. You can send them straight to checkout instead. The full guide is at How to Directly Link Users to Checkout and Skip the Membership Levels Page.

Offer a One-Field Signup with the Signup Shortcode

For free signups, you usually do not need a full checkout form. Most sites only need an email address and password. The Signup Shortcode Add On lets you drop a minimal signup form anywhere on your site, including in a popup or a sidebar widget.

It supports:

• Email-only signup with auto-generated usernames.
• A custom redirect after signup, so new members land on a welcome page or their first piece of content.
• A specific level ID, so the form is dedicated to one offer.

This is especially handy when you want to embed signup directly on a landing page.

Confirm Email Addresses Before Granting Access

If your free membership grants access to anything valuable, a private course, a community space, or a download library, you may want to verify email addresses before letting people in. The free Email Confirmation Add On sends a confirmation link after signup and only marks the membership active once the link is clicked.

This keeps junk signups out of your member list and helps your email deliverability.

Connect Your Email Marketing Tool

A free membership is most powerful when paired with email. PMPro integrates directly with the major email platforms so new free members are added to your list automatically:

• Mailchimp Integration
• Kit (formerly ConvertKit) Integration

Pick the one that matches the tool you already use, install the Add On, and connect it from Memberships > Settings.

Growing from Free to Paid

You do not have to charge to use PMPro, and many sites stay free forever. But if you do plan to introduce paid tiers later, a free membership site puts you in a strong position to launch.

A few things to keep in mind as you grow:

• Watch how members behave: PMPro reports show you signups, logins, and active members. Pay attention to which content drives signups and which members are most engaged.
• Talk to your free members: A simple email asking what they would pay for is more useful than any guess. Free members who reply are your warmest leads.
• Layer in a paid level when you are ready: When the time comes, you can add a paid level alongside your free one without losing any existing members. Their accounts stay intact, and you can promote the upgrade through email and on the site.
• Consider a trial period: If you want to give paid features a test drive without a full free tier, a trial period is another path worth exploring.

Frequently Asked Questions

Get Started with a Free Membership Site

A free membership site is the simplest way to launch a real, working membership business on WordPress. With Paid Memberships Pro, the entire setup is free and unlimited, and you can grow into paid offerings whenever the time is right.

To get started, download Paid Memberships Pro and follow the steps above. If you would like to see what a paid plan adds, the pricing page breaks down the differences between Free, Standard, and Max.

Most sites that eventually add a paid tier launched free first, learned who their members were, and built from there. You do not need a perfect offer before you launch. Start with free, see who shows up, and let that tell you what people will pay for.