BuddyBoss Memberships: The Complete Setup Guide

BuddyBoss now has memberships built into the platform, free on the Launch and Scale plans.

You can sell one-off access or recurring subscriptions, build real tiered upgrade paths using Groups, and restrict any page based on what someone has paid for. No separate membership plugin required.

We have set this up on live communities, and there are a few things that will stop you cold if you do not know them first.

One in particular: you cannot create a course until memberships are enabled, and the setting is not where most people look for it.

This guide walks through the whole thing in order, from enabling the add-on to taking your first payment.

Get BuddyBoss with memberships built in

Quick Summary

• Memberships is an add-on you install, not a feature already switched on. Find it under BuddyBoss then Settings, or BuddyBoss then Add-ons.
• Free and included on Launch and Scale. Available on Start with a small transaction fee.
• Stripe is the only built-in gateway. Check Stripe supports your country before planning around this.
• Enable memberships before building courses. Access has to exist before the content it protects.
• Memberships go inside Groups to create tiered upgrade paths rather than one flat paywall.
• Page-level Access Protection restricts any page, plus profile pages and the member directory.

What BuddyBoss Memberships Actually Is

BuddyBoss Memberships is a lightweight version of MemberPress, built by a sister company under Awesome Motive and brought natively inside BuddyBoss.

That matters for two reasons. It is not a rushed feature built to fill a gap on a comparison chart, and MemberPress is the documented upgrade path if you outgrow it.

It handles two jobs. Selling access, either once or on a subscription. And controlling what each member can see once they have paid.

If you already run MemberPress, Paid Memberships Pro, or Restrict Content Pro alongside BuddyBoss, nothing has changed and nothing is deprecated. This is aimed at people who would rather not run a separate product at all. Our full BuddyBoss review covers where the platform sits overall.

Before You Start: Three Things to Check

Your plan

Memberships is free on Launch and Scale. On the Start plan it works but carries a small transaction fee on sales made through it with Stripe. Full plan details are in our BuddyBoss pricing guide.

Stripe availability in your country

Stripe is the only gateway built in. If Stripe does not operate where you are, you will need MemberPress for alternative gateways, or you will need to handle payments another way entirely. Check this before anything else.

Your BuddyBoss Platform version

Update your plugins from the WordPress dashboard first. The Memberships add-on will not appear until you are on a current version.

Step 1: Enable the Memberships Add-On

This is the step people get stuck on, because it is not enabled by default and the menu location moves between sites.

Go to BuddyBoss then Settings and look for Memberships in the add-ons area. If it is not there, try BuddyBoss then Add-ons instead. BuddyBoss’s own documentation acknowledges it appears in either place depending on your setup.

Toggle it to enabled. A new Memberships item appears in your WordPress admin menu.

If you cannot find it in either location, your Platform plugin is almost certainly out of date. Update and check again.

Step 2: Connect Stripe

Nothing can be sold until payment works, so do this before creating memberships.

Go to Memberships then Settings then Payments. Add a payment method and choose Stripe as the gateway.

You then pick between two checkout styles:

Stripe Elements keeps the payment form on your own site. Members never leave your pages. It accepts credit cards, Apple Pay and Google Wallet, supports recurring billing, and is SCA ready.

Stripe Checkout sends members to a Stripe-hosted secure page. Same payment methods and recurring billing support, also SCA ready, but the transaction completes off your site.

Elements is the better choice for most communities because it keeps the experience inside your brand. Checkout is worth considering if you want Stripe handling more of the compliance surface.

There is a Test Mode toggle on the same screen. Use it. Run a test transaction before you let real members near this.

Connect Stripe and run a test payment before you build a single membership. Discovering a payment problem after launch is a much more expensive way to find it.

Step 3: Create Your First Membership

Go to Memberships then Add New Membership.

Give it a title members will recognise on an invoice, then set your terms. You have two pricing models:

One-time payment. Someone pays once and keeps access. Right for selling a single course or a lifetime membership. Nothing to cancel and no failed renewals to chase.

Recurring subscription. Monthly or yearly billing for continued access. Predictable revenue, but you take on churn and payment failures as ongoing work.

You can run both at the same time for different products. A one-off course purchase and a monthly community subscription can coexist.

Set the price, choose the billing interval if recurring, and publish.

Step 4: Build Tiered Access Using Groups

This is the part that separates BuddyBoss Memberships from a basic paywall, and it is the feature most people miss.

Memberships can be assigned to Groups. That means a membership does not just unlock content, it places the member inside a specific community space.

A working three-tier structure looks like this:

Tier	Price	Group access	What they get
Free	$0	Public group	Main activity feed, introductions, general discussion
Member	$29/mo	Public plus Members group	Courses, member-only discussion, resource library
Inner Circle	$99/mo	All groups plus private group	Everything, plus direct access and small-group calls

Each tier sees a different community, not just different content behind a wall. That is what makes upgrades feel like moving up rather than unlocking a folder.

To set this up, create your Groups first, then assign each membership to the Groups it should grant. Our BuddyBoss Groups guide covers group types and privacy settings in detail.

You can also invite all existing members into a specific group, which is useful when you introduce a new tier to an established community.

Step 5: Set Up Your Pricing Page

BuddyBoss includes a built-in pricing page, so this is not a design job you have to take on.

It pulls your published memberships and presents them as purchasable options. For most communities this is enough to launch with. You can build something custom later once you know which tier actually sells.

Step 6: Restrict Content with Access Protection

Access Protection is how you control what each membership unlocks.

Page-level protection restricts any individual page based on the membership someone holds. Useful for sales pages, resource libraries, or anything that should sit behind a specific tier.

Profile page protection stops non-members viewing member profiles. Worth enabling if your community’s value is partly the network itself.

Member listing protection hides the member directory from people who have not paid. Same reasoning.

Set these per membership, so different tiers can unlock different combinations.

Start building your membership site

Step 7: Enable Courses If You Need Them

With memberships live, courses become available.

The order is not optional. A course is something members are granted access to, so the access system has to exist before the course does. If the Courses option looks unavailable, memberships is not enabled yet.

Courses are built from lessons, quizzes and assignments, all delivered inside the community. Full walkthrough in our BuddyBoss Courses setup guide.

The Five Business Models This Supports

The same two tools cover a wide range of setups. These are the ones BuddyBoss designed for.

Sell a course once

Someone pays, gets access, works through it at their own pace. No subscription management.

Run a renewing membership

Monthly or yearly payment for ongoing access to what you publish.

Free community, paid content inside

Anyone can join and participate, while courses and deeper material sit behind a paywall. BuddyBoss flags this as the model most communities land on eventually, and the hardest one to assemble from separate plugins.

Tiered upgrade paths

Free, paid and premium tiers each seeing a different slice of the community.

Deliver all of it in your app

Whatever exists on the web appears in your branded mobile app with no duplicate work. See our Next Gen app guide.

Most communities end up running two or three of these together. That combination used to require a developer.

When You Will Outgrow the Built-In Version

Being honest about the ceiling here matters more than selling you on the feature.

Move to MemberPress when you need any of these:

• A payment gateway other than Stripe. The most common reason people hit the wall.
• Order bumps and upsells at checkout.
• Gifting memberships to someone other than the purchaser.
• Tax handling beyond what Stripe manages for you.
• Coaching features or one-to-one programme structures.
• Deep email tool integrations with your existing marketing stack.
• The wider add-on library, free and premium.

MemberPress sits inside BuddyBoss under Memberships, so the upgrade is a genuine path rather than a migration. You do not need any of it to launch.

Common Setup Problems and Fixes

Memberships does not appear in the menu

Your Platform plugin is out of date. Update from the WordPress dashboard, then check both BuddyBoss then Settings and BuddyBoss then Add-ons.

Courses option is greyed out or missing

Memberships is not enabled. Enable it first.

Stripe will not connect

Confirm Stripe operates in your country and that you are using the correct API keys for the mode you are in. Test keys will not work in live mode.

Members are not getting access after paying

Check the membership is assigned to the correct Groups, and that Access Protection rules point at the right membership.

Recurring payments failing

This is usually card expiry rather than a BuddyBoss issue. Stripe handles retry logic, but you should have a dunning process.

For notification setup around all of this, see our BuddyBoss notifications guide.

The Market Picture

The shift toward bundled community, courses and payments has been the defining trend in this space over the past two years.

Circle, Kajabi, Mighty Networks and Skool all consolidated around single-subscription models because creators stopped wanting to assemble stacks themselves.

What separates the BuddyBoss version is fee structure and ownership. Hosted platforms typically take a percentage of every transaction, which compounds against you as revenue grows.

BuddyBoss takes zero on the Launch and Scale plans, and your member data stays on infrastructure you control.

For a community turning over meaningful monthly revenue, the difference between a percentage fee and a flat annual licence is not marginal.

Our BuddyBoss vs Circle comparison works through that maths.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to buy BuddyBoss Memberships separately?

No. It is free and included on the Launch and Scale plans. You install it as an add-on from BuddyBoss then Settings, or BuddyBoss then Add-ons if it is not under Settings.

Why can I not create a course?

Memberships needs to be enabled first. A course is something members are given access to, so the access system has to exist before the course does.

What payment gateways does it support?

Stripe only, using either Stripe Elements or Stripe Checkout. Both support recurring billing, Apple Pay and Google Wallet. Additional gateways require MemberPress.

Can I sell one-off payments and subscriptions at the same time?

Yes. You can run both simultaneously for different products, such as a one-time course purchase alongside a monthly community subscription.

How do I create different membership tiers?

Assign memberships to Groups. Each tier grants access to a different set of Groups, which builds a real upgrade path instead of a single flat paywall.

Does BuddyBoss take a cut of my sales?

Nothing on the Launch and Scale plans. The Start plan carries a small percentage on sales made through BuddyBoss Memberships with Stripe. No fee is ever taken on MemberPress, LearnDash or WooCommerce sales.

Can I restrict individual pages?

Yes. Page-level Access Protection restricts any page based on membership. You can also protect profile pages and the member listing page.

Our Take on BuddyBoss Memberships

BuddyBoss Memberships covers what most communities actually need, and the Groups integration is genuinely better than what you get bolting a generic membership plugin onto a community.

The Stripe-only limitation is the real constraint, and it is worth checking before you commit rather than discovering it at launch. If Stripe works where you are, this handles a serious membership business without a second licence.

If Stripe does not work for you, or you need order bumps, gifting or tax handling, plan for MemberPress from the start rather than building twice.

Explore BuddyBoss plans from $99

Verified against BuddyBoss official announcements and documentation, August 2026. Features and pricing change, so confirm current details on the BuddyBoss pricing page.