Hello, Constellation: a new way to sell WooCommerce memberships

Hello, world!

I know what you’re thinking: really, a plugin to create memberships? Aren’t there a few of those plugins already, even ones that work with WooCommerce? And indeed, there are.

But selling memberships is a use case near to our hearts, dear reader. For years, our cofounders (and many team members) lived and breathed memberships, building an insanely popular membership plugin (since acquired) that was used by almost a hundred thousand sites.

And during this time, we saw some things that worked very well, and some that didn’t. We had happy users, and users who wanted more, and to build bigger and better sites. But most of all, we saw just how big the need is for a really robust, open source membership platform, one that is actively maintained, evolving, and improving.

And even though there are other solutions, we know we can provide a unique take on what membership sites need, and most importantly, continue to rapidly grow and innovate on a membership platform that prioritizes flexibility, and deep integration with WordPress.

Today, we’re excited to get back into the membership space, and can’t wait to introduce you to Constellation.

Constellation

• Sell one-time purchase or recurring billing memberships
• Protect any content for members only
• Offer member perks like discounts or free shipping

$249

Learn more

Constellation: a WooCommerce membership plugin

Okay, so why are we calling this a “WooCommerce” membership plugin? Good question. Here’s the thing: to sell member access to perks and content, you need to sell. You need accounts, you need payment methods, you need a checkout system and orders. Then you need all the membership functionality, too: protecting content, providing discounts, managing members.

WooCommerce already handles the “sell stuff” part extremely well — there’s no reason for us to reinvent the wheel there. And in our experience, site owners want to grow over time. They want to offer bundles, or integrate with a new email marketing tool, or sell swag to their members (non-memberships!), or sell event tickets, or do any number of really cool things. And that’s where tapping into WooCommerce is a really great idea: the extension ecosystem is incredibly vibrant and expansive, and we can build a really powerful platform by tapping into that, and making sure our membership solution works alongside everything else you can do with WooCommerce.

So to use Constellation, yes, you need to use WordPress + WooCommerce. But you gain so much flexibility when you do.

Who is it for?

Constellation is, at its heart, a platform — it can be adapted to what you need! And since it’s open source, it’s infinitely customizable.

We have made sure that our onboarding and UX specifically makes a few common use cases easier, though. We think it’s great for:

• Purchasing clubs: Protect some or all products to be purchased only by your members. Or, offer discounts to members for joining your program. (Or both!)
• Events, tickets or classes: Offer tickets or bookings only to your members or desired audience.
• Trade associations or organizations: Sell access to your certifications or organization, or offer products only to members of your org. Optionally list a directory of all of your members.
• Publishers: Use content paywalls to provide teasers for members-only content, and sell access to your protected content.
• Online learning: Protect courses, lessons, quizzes, and other content for learners, requiring them to sign up. Sell or give away products only to your learners.
• Member communities: Let members pay to join and connect with other members in forums or groups. Offer meetups or other members-only events or tickets for purchase.

How it works

Constellation lets you create plans, which control access to your content. A plan has rules: a visitor must be a member to see this post, or that page; or they must be a member for at least 1 month before they can access it. Plans can also offer member discounts, such as giving members 5% of the entire store, or control email content a member receives.

Then you can sell access to a plan as a membership. When I buy an access-granting product, I become a member, and get the perks from that plan. You can choose exactly how you want to sell:

• Sell a lifetime membership for a one-time payment
• Sell yearly, monthly, or any length of access for a single payment, letting users manually renew at any point
• Sell automatic, recurring memberships monthly, yearly, or whatever interval you choose

You can then view all of your members, anyone with a recurring billing subscription, and easily make changes, transfer memberships, and more.

What’s next for Constellation?

We’re super excited to get back into memberships, and have big plans for Constellation! We intend to build more B2B features, like team or company purchases, improved recurring billing, as well as tools for in person membership groups, like membership cards.

We’re excited to let this plugin finally leave the nest and spread its wings, but we’re nowhere near done 🙂 Ready to give it a go? We offer a 30-day refund policy, we’d love for you to try Constellation and let us know what you think.