A membership operations engine for service businesses running on WordPress.
Plans, members, linked family accounts, digital waivers, check-ins, payments, and staff workflows — in one admin, backed by its own database tables rather than bent out of posts and post meta.
- Version: 2.0.0
- Requires: WordPress 6.8+, PHP 8.2+
- Licence: GPL-2.0-or-later
- Author: WordPressistic
- What Memberistic is
- Who it is for
- Features
- Requirements
- Installation
- Getting started
- Shortcodes
- Developer hooks
- REST API
- Template overrides
- Integrations
- Third-party services
- Privacy and data
- Licensing and support
- Changelog
Memberistic runs the operational side of a membership business: who is a member, what they pay for, who else is on their account, whether their waiver is current, and whether they are allowed through the door today.
It is built around a few decisions worth knowing up front:
- Its own tables. Members, plans, people, payments, check-ins, and waivers live in dedicated tables. A membership is not a post, and a member is not a post-meta bag — so member queries stay fast on a site with tens of thousands of records, and nothing collides with the rest of the site's content.
- A membership can cover several people. Plans declare how many people they include. Linked family members get their own profile, their own waiver, and their own check-in history, under one billing relationship.
- Waivers are first-class. Signing, expiry, re-consent on a new waiver version, an immutable signature archive, kiosk and guest signing surfaces.
- Staff-facing, not just member-facing. A front-desk dashboard for check-ins and lookups, alongside the member's own account area.
Any business where people pay for ongoing access and staff need to verify that access at a counter: gyms and fitness studios, yoga and dance studios, social and sports clubs, professional associations, climbing walls, makerspaces, shooting ranges, and similar.
It is a poor fit for content-only paywalls — if all you need is "subscribers can read this post", a content-restriction plugin will be simpler.
Members and plans
- Unlimited plans with monthly and annual pricing and per-plan included-people limits
- Linked family and additional members under one membership
- Statuses covering active, trial, comped, past due, paused, suspended, expired, cancelled, and needs-review
- Notes, activity timeline, and per-member history
- Bulk actions and saved views in the admin
Waivers and documents
- Digital waiver signing with tokenised member links, guest forms, and a kiosk mode
- Waiver versioning with re-consent when terms change
- Expiry tracking and automated follow-up reminders
- Immutable signature archive with a separate document store
- Import for historical waivers from a previous system
Check-in
- Front-desk staff dashboard with member lookup
- Self-service kiosk page
- QR code verification on the member's digital card
- Check-in history per person
Payments
- Stripe Checkout for subscriptions, with a hosted billing portal for members
- Signature-verified webhooks with replay protection and idempotent handling
- WooCommerce order sync as an alternative path
- Manual and counter payment recording
- Per-plan WooCommerce member discounts
- Transactional templates for the whole membership lifecycle
- Merge tags, per-template overrides, and a delivery log
- HTML layout that picks up the site's own logo and colours
Admin
- React-free vanilla JS admin apps built on
wp.element - Dashboard with revenue history, expiring memberships, and recent activity
- CSV import for members and payments from a previous system
- Corporate/group memberships with invoicing and payment links
| WordPress | 6.8 or newer |
| PHP | 8.2 or newer |
| MySQL | 5.7+ / MariaDB 10.3+ |
| WooCommerce | Optional. Any currently supported version. HPOS and cart/checkout blocks are declared compatible. |
PHP 8.0 and 8.1 are both past end of security support and are not supported. The plugin checks both floors at load and deactivates itself with an admin notice rather than fataling if they are not met.
- Upload the plugin folder to
wp-content/plugins/, or install the zip via Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin. - Activate it.
- Go to Memberistic → Settings and set your business name, currency, and email sender details.
On activation the plugin creates its tables, adds its roles, and creates a
single /check-in/ page. It does not create any membership plans, does not
enable any integration, and makes no outbound network request.
- Create a plan. Memberistic → Plans starts empty. Add your first
plan, or start from one of the bundled templates in
templates/plans/(gym, studio, club, association, range, or generic tiered). Templates import as inactive so you can review the pricing before anything goes on sale. - Set up payments. Settings → Payments, add your Stripe test keys
first. Stripe starts disabled and in test mode. Add the webhook endpoint
(
/wp-json/memberistic/v1/webhooks/stripe) and paste the signing secret — without it, webhooks are rejected. - Write your waiver. Memberistic → Waivers, set the text and the validity period.
- Publish the member pages. Add
[memberistic_plans],[memberistic_account], and[memberistic_checkout]to pages. - Give staff access. Assign the Memberistic Staff or Manager role to the
people who work the counter, and point them at
[memberistic_staff_dashboard]. - Go live. Switch Stripe to live mode and swap in your live keys.
Member-facing
| Shortcode | Renders |
|---|---|
[memberistic_plans] |
Plan grid with a monthly/annual toggle |
[memberistic_plan] |
A single plan card |
[memberistic_checkout] |
Checkout form |
[memberistic_account] |
Member dashboard — membership, billing, people, waivers, digital card |
[memberistic_login] |
Login, lost password, and password reset |
[memberistic_renewal] |
Renewal prompt |
[memberistic_thank_you] |
Post-purchase confirmation |
[memberistic_payment_failed] |
Failed-payment recovery |
[memberistic_payment_history] |
The member's payments |
[memberistic_booking_history] |
The member's bookings, when a booking engine is mapped |
[memberistic_people] |
Linked/additional members management |
[memberistic_profile_summary] |
Compact profile block |
[memberistic_status] |
Current membership status |
[memberistic_expiring_notice] |
Notice shown when a membership is near expiry |
Staff and public terminals
| Shortcode | Renders |
|---|---|
[memberistic_staff_dashboard] |
Front-desk dashboard |
[memberistic_frontdesk] |
Compact check-in lookup |
[memberistic_kiosk] |
Self-service check-in kiosk |
[memberistic_guest_waiver] |
Guest waiver form |
[memberistic_guest_pass] |
Guest pass issuance |
[memberistic_group_portal] |
Corporate/group member portal |
Full reference: docs/HOOKS.md.
The ones most people need first:
// Seed plans on first install (the plugin ships none).
add_filter( 'memberistic_default_plans', function ( $plans ) { /* ... */ } );
// Change the customer-facing business name used in emails, waivers, and PDFs.
add_filter( 'memberistic_brand_label', function ( $label ) { /* ... */ } );
// Connect a booking plugin.
add_filter( 'memberistic_booking_adapter', function () { /* ... */ } );
// Connect a point-of-sale plugin.
add_filter( 'memberistic_pos_adapter', function () { /* ... */ } );
// React to lifecycle events.
add_action( 'memberistic_membership_activated', function ( $membership_id ) { /* ... */ } );Namespace: memberistic/v1. Every route has a real capability check —
there is no permission_callback => __return_true anywhere in the plugin.
Authenticated requests from the admin need the X-WP-Nonce header.
Main route groups:
| Group | Routes |
|---|---|
| Plans | /plans, /plans/{id}, /plans/stats |
| Memberships | /memberships, /memberships/{id}, /memberships/stats, /memberships/bulk-waiver |
| Membership detail | /memberships/{id}/people, /payments, /checkins, /notes, /activity, /emails, /bookings |
| People | /people/{id} |
| Payments | /payments, /payments/stats |
| Check-ins | /checkins |
| Activity | /activity, /activity/types |
| Dashboard | /dashboard/stats, /dashboard/revenue-history, /dashboard/expiring-soon, /dashboard/recent-activity |
/email-templates, /emails/stats, /emails/directory |
|
| Settings | /settings, /settings/pages, /settings/pages-options |
| Saved views | /saved-views, /saved-views/{id} |
| Webhooks | /webhooks/stripe, /webhooks/woocommerce |
Webhook routes are necessarily public but are not unauthenticated: Stripe requests are verified against the endpoint signing secret with a timing-safe comparison and a 300-second replay window, and WooCommerce requests against an HMAC shared secret. Unsigned or stale requests are rejected before the payload is parsed.
Copy any file from the plugin's templates/ directory into a memberistic/
directory in your theme, keeping the filename:
your-theme/memberistic/account.php
your-theme/memberistic/plans-grid.php
your-theme/memberistic/checkout.php
your-theme/memberistic/staff-dashboard.php
A child theme wins over a parent theme, which wins over the plugin. To resolve templates from somewhere else entirely, filter the resolved path:
add_filter( 'memberistic_locate_template', function ( $path, $template ) {
return $path;
}, 10, 2 );Styling is driven by the --memberistic-* custom properties defined in
assets/token-bridge.css. Each one falls back to a neutral default but
prefers a matching design token from the active theme, so a theme that
publishes its own --color-* scale gets Memberistic blended into it without
a plugin edit. Define any --memberistic-* property on :root in your theme
to override outright.
Every integration that touches a third-party plugin or an off-site service is disabled by default and must be turned on at Memberistic → Integrations. A fresh install talks to nothing.
Full matrix, including exactly what each one transmits:
docs/INTEGRATIONS.md.
| Integration | Type | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Stripe Checkout | Off-site payments | Off, test mode |
| WooCommerce | Local plugin | Off |
| Booking Engine | Local plugin, via adapter | Off |
| POS Bridge | Local plugin, via adapter | Off |
| coreSTORE (Coreware) | Off-site API | Off |
| Verifyistic | Local plugin | Off |
| Messageistic SMS | Local plugin | Off |
| Advanced FFL Checkout | Local plugin, firearms retail only | Off |
| Email Automation | Built-in, uses wp_mail |
On |
| Waiver Manager | Built-in | On |
The last two are on by default because neither sends anything off-site and turning them off would stop members receiving their own account notices.
Enabling certain integrations sends data to services outside your site. Each is opt-in and off until you enable and configure it.
Stripe — payment processing. When enabled, checkout sends the member's name, email, and the plan and amount to Stripe, and Stripe sends webhooks back. Card details go directly from the customer's browser to Stripe; this plugin never sees or stores them. Terms · Privacy
coreSTORE (Coreware) — point-of-sale sync. When enabled and configured with an API key, membership state (name, email, plan, status, expiry, and a price tier) is pushed to your coreSTORE account so the till can apply member pricing. Contact Coreware for their current terms and privacy policy.
Verifyistic — age/ID verification. Runs on your own site; it transmits nothing off-site by itself. Whatever verification provider you configure inside Verifyistic is governed by that provider's terms.
Messageistic — SMS. When enabled, membership notification text and the member's phone number are passed to Messageistic, which sends them via the gateway you configure there.
No other integration transmits data off your site. The plugin itself has no telemetry, no analytics, and no licence phone-home: it makes no outbound request that you have not switched on and configured.
- GDPR export and erasure are registered with WordPress core, so Tools → Export/Erase Personal Data covers Memberistic records.
- Erasure anonymizes rather than deletes where a row must survive for
totals to stay consistent. Signed waivers and payment records are retained
by default and reported as retained, with the reason — a waiver is the
evidence of what someone agreed to, and payment records carry statutory
retention. Override waiver retention with
memberistic_privacy_erase_waivers. - Suggested privacy-policy text is registered with core's policy editor.
- Data retention windows for check-in and activity history are configurable and default to keep indefinitely, so no update ever starts silently deleting your history.
- Deactivation keeps everything. Uninstalling keeps everything too, unless you tick "Delete all data on uninstall" in Settings first.
Released under the GPL-2.0-or-later. See LICENSE.
Bundled third-party code and its licences:
THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.md.
2.0.0 ships no licence key system and no auto-update client. The extension
points a licensing add-on would use are defined in
includes/class-licensing.php, with the policy such an add-on must follow —
notably that an expired licence must never break an existing member's access
or block a check-in.
Support: https://memberistic.com/support
See CHANGELOG.md. Upgrading from 1.x?
docs/UPGRADE-2.0.md covers what changed and what to
check.