free on wordpress.org
Membership management for WordPress, built around how organisations actually work
After years of running membership for community organisations, I kept hitting the same wall: the good membership plugins are pricey, and the rest don’t fit the membership-cycle model that clubs, societies, and associations actually run on. So I built the one I wanted. Meta Membership handles both fixed-expiry and anniversary renewal models the way your organisation expects — with pro-rata fees for mid-year joiners, multiple membership types, and expiry grace periods. It’s designed with clubs, associations, and nonprofits in mind, but flexible enough for most membership scenarios.
Built for the people who run the organisation, not just the website
Whether you’re a volunteer committee, a club secretary, or managing a paid membership community — Meta Membership is designed around real membership management, not e-commerce.
Fixed expiry done properly
Run a 1 April membership year? Fixed expiry, grace periods, and pro rata fees for mid-year joiners — all handled natively, not bolted on.
Real-world membership workflows
Admin approval, invite-only registration, and manual (non-card) payment — the governance workflows membership organisations actually need, built in.
Access control, built in
Restrict pages, posts, and menu items by membership status. Non-members see what you want them to see — nothing more.
Plays well with roles
Automatically sync membership status to WordPress user roles — optional, but it’s what makes role-driven plugins like Ultimate Member or LearnDash respond to membership with no glue code.
Migrate without the pain
CSV import and export for members, membership types, expiry dates, and custom fields. Move in from another plugin without losing your data — or out again, if you ever need to.
Developer-friendly
PSR-4 autoloading, clean namespacing, action and filter hooks throughout. No bundled libraries, no bloat.
Works alongside: MailPoet · The Events Calendar · ICS Calendar · Ultimate Member · Stripe
Meta Membership core is free, complete, and available today.
Everything above is in the free plugin on WordPress.org — no trial, no locked features, no paid tier for the essentials. Install it, run your whole membership year on it, and never pay a cent. The optional extensions below add new capability for organisations that want it; they don’t unlock anything held back from the core.
extend meta membership
Core does everything most organisations need. As the project grows, optional extensions add specialised capability — some free, and some premium to help fund continued development and support.
— Free companions —
Meta Mailpoet
Sync membership status to MailPoet lists automatically. Free, no paid tier.
Meta POLi Payments
Direct New Zealand bank payments (PoLi) — built for the kinds of transfers community organisations rely on. Free.
— Premium extensions —
Premium extensions are how Meta Membership stays sustainable — a fair, optional way to support a free core, not a paywall around it.
Meta Dispatch
ICS Calendar feeds & event scheduling
Meta Workshop
Workshop & event management — registration, approval, capacity, and notifications.
Meta Declaration
Renewal declarations & waivers
also by this developer
Meta Membership deliberately doesn’t bundle a payment library — it talks to Stripe through a separate, focused wrapper. That’s the kind of clean separation the whole plugin is built on.
Logged In As
Show logged-in user name and avatar. A small utility plugin for any WordPress site.