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Reign vs MemberPress · 14K/mo searches
MemberPress alternative - Reign on WordPress
MemberPress is the most-used WordPress membership plugin. People often compare it to Reign but they actually solve different problems - and pair together on most paid community sites. The real comparison is "Reign + MemberPress together" vs "MemberPress + a generic theme."
MemberPress and Reign are not competitors - they pair. The question is whether you also want a community layer (Reign adds activity feeds, groups, profiles, messages). MemberPress alone gives you paywall + drip content but no social engine.
Neither one wins everything.
R
Reign wins
Reign adds the community layer that MemberPress alone lacks - activity feeds, member profiles, groups, friends, messages, gamification - and that layer comes from our own free plugins, so it costs nothing on top of the theme. If your members never see each other on MemberPress, Reign fixes that.
M
MemberPress wins
MemberPress is the membership engine - access rules, content dripping, multi-tier subscriptions, course bundling, coupon engine, affiliate add-on. Reign does not replace any of this.
The line-by-line comparison.
| Feature | Reign | MemberPress |
|---|---|---|
| Product category | WordPress theme + design system | Membership / access control plugin |
| Activity feed | Yes (BuddyNext, free) | No |
| Member profiles | Yes (rich, customizable) | Minimal (account page) |
| Groups + friends | Yes (BuddyNext, free) | No |
| Direct messages | Yes (BuddyNext, free) | No |
| Paid membership tiers | Via MemberPress / PMP add-on | Native |
| Content dripping | Via MemberPress / LMS | Native |
| Coupon engine | Via WooCommerce | Native |
| Courses | Learnomy (free, Pro from $149/yr), or LearnDash / LifterLMS | Native (MP Courses add-on) |
| Starting price | $99/yr theme, plugins free | $179/year |
| Stripe + PayPal | Via paid plugin | Native |
| Best with | BuddyNext (free) + a paid membership plugin | Any WordPress theme (Reign included) |
Common questions.
Should I buy Reign OR MemberPress?
For a paid community site, both. MemberPress handles the paywall + content protection + subscription billing. Reign handles the design + member-facing community pages (feeds, profiles, groups, messages), and the plugins that produce those pages install free. They run side by side on the same WordPress install.
Does Reign include membership / paywall?
No. Reign is the theme - it does design + member-facing pages. For paid memberships you add MemberPress, Paid Memberships Pro, or WooCommerce Subscriptions. Reign's Membership Site recipe at /build/membership-site/ shows the full stack.
Can I just use MemberPress + a free theme?
Yes if your members do not need to interact with each other. The moment you want activity feeds, groups, or member profiles, you need a community theme like Reign on top.
What about MemberPress Courses?
MemberPress Courses is a basic LMS - good if your needs are simple. For richer course experiences (certificates, quizzes, group cohorts) pair MemberPress for the paywall with Learnomy, our own LMS, which installs free and adds payments, drip and grading on the $149/yr Pro plan. LearnDash, LifterLMS, Tutor LMS and Sensei are the third-party alternatives and Reign styles those too.
Do I have to choose between them?
No, and this is the main thing worth knowing. MemberPress handles memberships and payments; Reign and our plugins handle the community, courses and forum. They run on the same install and most sites that need both simply use both. This page exists because people search the comparison, not because the products compete.
Does Reign work with MemberPress?
Yes. MemberPress is a standard WordPress membership plugin and Reign styles it, so your tiers, checkout and gated content keep working. Verify on staging as you would with any theme change, paying particular attention to the checkout and account pages.
Do I still need MemberPress if I use Learnomy?
If you charge for access, usually yes. Learnomy's paid plan handles course payments, but a membership plugin handles tiers, recurring billing and gating across the whole site, which is a broader job. Many sites run both and let each do the part it is good at.
What does the community add to a membership site?
A reason to stay subscribed. Content alone is consumed and then cancelled; a community members are part of is harder to leave. That is the honest argument, and it only works if the community is actually active, which is why adding one before anybody asks for it tends to backfire.
What does hosting actually cost?
Nothing new. You are already running WordPress with MemberPress, so this adds a theme and some plugins to an install you already pay to host. Heavier community activity eventually wants better hosting, but there is no new platform bill and no second subscription in this pairing.
Will adding a community break my checkout?
It should not, but verify on staging rather than assuming. A theme change touches templates, and the checkout and account pages are the ones you cannot afford to get wrong. Test a real transaction end to end before pushing to production, the same as you would with any theme change on a site taking money.
3 of our own plugins, and every one installs free.
MemberPress handles memberships and payments, which none of these replace. What they add is the community, the courses and the forum that a membership plugin alone does not give you.
BuddyNext
Community engine
Member profiles, activity feed, groups, messages, notifications.
Free to install, Pro from $149/yr
Learnomy
Courses
Courses, lessons, quizzes, student progress, and certificates.
Free to install, Pro from $149/yr
Jetonomy
Forums and Q&A
Spaces, threaded discussions, Q&A with accepted answers, voting.
Free to install, Pro from $69/yr
You buy the Reign theme once. These are ours and they install free, so the theme stays the only purchase until one part of your community earns enough to need its Pro plan.
What you are actually choosing.
This one is not really a competition, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. MemberPress is a WordPress membership plugin: it handles tiers, payments and content gating, and it does that well. It is not a community platform, and it does not claim to be. What you are actually deciding is what sits alongside it. Reign plus BuddyNext, Learnomy and Jetonomy gives your paying members somewhere to be, something to learn and somewhere to ask, and MemberPress can keep doing exactly what it already does underneath.
What it costs over three years.
MemberPress starts around $179 a year and rises with the plan, and it is worth what it costs for what it does. Reign is $99 a year or $249 once, with the community, course and forum plugins free. These are not alternative purchases: most sites that need both end up buying both. If you only need gated content and payments, you do not need Reign. If you need a community around that content, you need more than MemberPress.
What moving actually involves.
For most people there is nothing to move. MemberPress stays where it is, handling tiers and payments, and Reign becomes the theme with the community plugins on top. Your members, subscriptions and gated content are untouched because they never leave the same WordPress install. The only real work is deciding what each tier unlocks now that there is a community, a course library and a forum to unlock, which is a content decision rather than a technical migration.
When to stay on MemberPress.
Stay with MemberPress alone if what you sell is content behind a paywall and your members do not need each other. Plenty of successful membership sites are exactly that: courses, downloads, a newsletter, no community. Adding a forum nobody posts in makes a site look abandoned rather than active. Add the community layer when your members are already asking each other questions somewhere else, not before.
How the pieces fit together.
Everything runs on one WordPress install, which is what changes the feel of the site. One login, one member table, one set of roles. Somebody who joins the community is already the same person when they enrol on a course, RSVP to an event or post in the forum, because there is no integration between separate products, only plugins reading the same database. MemberPress fits into that same install rather than beside it. It gates by tier, and because the community, courses and forum all read the same user table, a member's access, their course progress and their forum reputation are one record. That is why this pairing works: nothing has to be integrated, because nothing is separate.
The first week.
Do not touch MemberPress. Switch the theme to Reign on a staging copy and confirm your existing gated content, tiers and checkout still behave exactly as before, because that is the thing you cannot afford to break. Then add BuddyNext and decide which tiers see the community. Add Learnomy or Jetonomy only when you have a specific reason, and launch one at a time rather than opening three empty rooms at once.
Buy the theme. The plugins install free.
Reign is $99 a year or $249 once, and it is the only thing you have to buy. The community engine, courses, forums, jobs and directories are our own plugins and they cost nothing to install.