12+ Best WordPress Themes for Membership Sites

A membership website provides exclusive content and resources for its subscribed members. They are typically designed to create community websites where paid members can access certain content, like online courses, webinars, articles, sales coupons, etc.

Today, WordPress is a wonderful platform for anyone to create stunning membership websites. You’ll find many powerful themes by which you can create your dream membership sites, adding numerous helpful features.

There are many themes online that, by default, cover many membership-related features. As a result, you don’t have to rely on additional plugins for respective features. In this post, we’ll discuss the 12 best WordPress themes for membership sites.

Let’s get started!

What Is a WordPress Membership Theme?

A WordPress membership theme is a type of theme designed specifically to create and manage membership websites. These themes are designed in such a way that they can enhance membership-specific features and functionalities for your website.

Although it’s not mandatory to use a membership theme to create such websites, using one can simplify the process and make you less dependent on numerous plugins. Moreover, to design any site in WordPress, you must use any theme to set its layout. 

So, why not use a membership-specific theme? It can save you a lot of time and work together.

Features You Must Look into a WordPress Membership Theme

So far, we've covered the major benefits of using membership themes on such a website. Let’s now take a look at what features a membership theme can offer and why you should definitely use such a membership theme on your site.

a. Easy Customization Options

Not all WordPress themes today offer you robust customization options. There are many editor themes that only let you set up header, footer, and some basic options. You can't customize the theme layout. So, you must carefully look for a theme that allows full-site editing options.

b. Membership-Specific Templates

Creating a site from scratch is really time-consuming. So, many users tend to look for themes that offer stater templates. As you want to develop a membership site, check and verify whether your desired theme has a good number of membership-like templates.

c. Integration with Membership Plugins

A theme alone can't provide you with all the necessary features and functions a membership site requires. You have to depend on some tools, plugins, or add-ons someday when your site grows. Ensure your theme perfectly integrates with plugins like MemberPress, Paid Membership Pro, aMember Pro, etc.

Check the best WordPress membership plugins.

d. User Profile Creation

Most themes don't have a user profile creation option, and it's not even mandatory. Because with the membership plugin, you can easily create this option on your site. But if your site has this option by default, that's a plus point.

e. Relevant Custom Widgets

The more helpful and relevant widgets your theme has, the less you need to depend on additional plugins. Mandatory custom widgets for a membership site are member directories, social media feeds, user dashboards, private forums, community events, etc.

f. Documentation and Support

This is a must-have point once you think of purchasing a premium theme. If a premium theme doesn't offer the necessary documentation and live support, just stay away from it. They are definitely a scam.

12+ Best WordPress Themes for Membership Sites

WordPress repositories offer two types of themes: multifunctional themes and feature-specific themes. With multifunctional themes, you can create several different types of websites. But with feature-specific themes, only one type of website can be created.

The advantage of using a multifunctional theme is that you can switch your site to another web type or add new features without changing the theme. For example, you can convert it to an eCommerce site, add a booking system, and more.

In the following discussion, we will combine both types of themes so that you can select one that fits your preferences.

1. Aardvark

Aardvark has been designed specifically for creating community-focused websites, membership sites, and online courses. You can use this for versatile purposes as well. You can create social networks, eCommerce portals, and learning sites using it.

This theme is also good for creating magazine/news and general blogging sites. It is compatible with a wide range of WordPress tools and plugins. 

Top features of Aardvark:

• 200+ theme options for easy customization
• Bundled with WPBakery, Visual Composer, LayerSlider, and more
• Sticky header, AJAX pagination, sticky bar, and social sharing
• Lots of pre-built demos with a one-click demo importer
• Top-class support with extensive documentation
• Compatible with with BuddyPress, WooCommerce, and Membership Pro

2. Divi

Divi is a popular multifunctional WordPress theme developed by Elegant Themes. It includes a range of exciting features which are equally helpful for membership websites. Divi is equally suitable for professional and beginner-level users.

It comes with a drag-and-drop editor by which you can create an entire website without coding. Divi offers flexible design options and a range of modules to ensure each part of your web page looks stunning to visitors and users.

Top features of Aardvark:

• Customize everything on your site using a built-in page builder
• Provides 250+ pre-made templates 
• Its library lets you save, export, import and re-use your designs 
• Allows you to add animation effects in numerous web elements
• Compatible with all the major WordPress plugins
• 24/7 live chat support is available for users

3. Vayvo

Vayvo is great not only for membership sites but also for creating audio and video platforms. It includes a built-in video player that supports playing mp3, mp4, Vimeo, and YouTube videos. Users can save videos in their playlists and rate the video content.

Vayvo includes a drag-and-drop page builder by which you can easily design your website. The theme has responsive page layouts and a built-in slider element that you can display on all pages.

Top features of Vayvo:

• Includes demo content to get your web pages quickly ready
• Flexible in restricting content and able to sell per post
• Has the ARMember Membership plugin included
• Accepts multiple payment gateways PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.net, etc.)
• Supports translation into a good number of languages
• Provides fast and reliable support

4. OceanWP

OceanWP is a multifunctional theme. It is one of the many themes that are highly compatible with all the popular WordPress plugins. It provides vast customization options to control various aspects of the web design, including fonts, colors, and layouts.

Its customization options are so robust that you don’t have to depend on additional plugins to edit the appearance of posts and pages individually. OceanWP has a commendable reputation for its speed and fast loading.

Top features of OceanWP:

• Covers several dozens of readymade templates
• Seven types of header styles
• Allows full-site editing
• Compatible with all page builder plugins
• Translation-ready supports creating multilingual websites
• Well-written documentation about its all features

5. BuddyBoss

It's rare to find someone working on developing membership platforms in WordPress but hasn't heard of BuddyBoss. This one is popularly known both as a theme and a plugin. It is a complete solution for anyone who wants to create a membership platform.

It combines the functionalities of a forum and social networking into a single solution by which you can quickly create and launch online communities. This solution also works with other tools like event and documentation plugins to extend its services.

Note: You can’t buy the BuddyBoss theme alone. It’s packed with the BuddyBoss plugin.

Top features of BuddyBoss:

• Users can create and update their profiles by themselves
• Allows users to create forms and join groups
• It lets users join in group discussions
• Users can befriend each other 
• Enables users to create blogs

6. Astra

Who hasn’t heard about Astra? It’s another multifunctional WordPress theme used by multi-million users. This is a theme that WordPress itself often promotes due to its intuitiveness, feature-richness, and customer preferences.

You can get your membership site ready overnight by activating the theme and installing any of the membership plugins. If you are short of time, you can use its readymade templates to get started with your site right away. Besides, you’ll never feel a shortage of customization options in this theme.

Key features of Astra:

• Extremely lightweight and fast in speed
• Includes 150+ pre-built templates
• Template layouts are 100% responsive for mobile devices
• Integrates with all the popular WordPress plugins
• Customization options can be extended with the Astra Pro addon
• Support for premium users and documentation is open for all

7. Ultra

Although not yet very popular, Ultra is a perfect WordPress theme for membership website creation. We can say it’s a promising WordPress membership theme that you can use for various other purposes as well.

The theme comes with custom widgets, unlimited layout combinations, multiple header styles, social media integration, etc. You can use this theme with websites of different niches as well like fitness, restaurants, barber shops, and eCommerce.

Key features of Ultra:

• Includes a drag-and-drop editor
• Intuitive and beginner-friendly
• Provides flexible customization options
• Hosts many helpful widgets
• Allows to run video files on the background
• Offers extensive documentation and support

8. Gazek

Gazek is a modern, stylish, and clean WordPress theme that is highly suitable for membership websites. It has a built-in option that allows users to rate and review content published on the website, which is an important feature for membership websites.

The theme integrates with Paid Membership Pro. By installing and integrating the plugin, you can further power up your membership website. If you ever think of creating a forum wing on your industrial website, this theme is highly recommended.

Key features of Gazek:

• Templates are built with Elementor
• Ready for translation to any language or show currency
• Supports 850+ Google fonts
• Includes Slider Revolution, Contact Form 7, Visual CSS Style Editor, and more
• Has partnerships with Adobe Stock, Fotolia, Font Icon, and Font Awesome

9. Hestia Pro

Over the last few years, the demand for one-page websites has gone up significantly. If you are also looking for ways to create a single-page membership website, you should definitely use the Hestia Pro WordPress theme.

Although this one is a minimalist theme, you can give a stunning look to your site with its exciting features and functions. Hestia Pro is great for startup businesses, bloggers, freelancers, eCommerce, and membership websites.

Key features of Hestia Pro:

• Fully compatible with all the major page builder plugins
• Gives you full control over the customization
• Several dozens of pre-built templates are available 
• A smart slider is integrated to display visual content
• Translation-ready, SEO-friendly, and optimized for speed

10. Woffice

As the name suggests, the theme is for workspace-related communities. Woffice is highly recommended for community-focused, intranet, extranet, and project management-related websites. 

This means you can create an online platform like social media networks where authorized users can share files and collaborate with each other. This theme is highly suitable for project management and CRM-related activities.

Key features of Woffice:

• Compatible with Elementor
• Helps maintain member direct and map through a dashboard
• Provides demo files with a one-click demo file importer
• Allows to create a custom login page
• You can submit feature requests 
• Documentation captioned videos are available

11. Neve

Neve is one of Themeisle's many great products. So far, Themeisle has developed many multi-purpose WordPress themes, including Neve. With this, you can create not only membership but many other types of websites easily and in a short time.

The theme is super fast and easily customizable, which has made it great for various types of websites, including blogs, small businesses, startups, agencies, personal portfolio sites, and eCommerce. Neve is extremely popular among users for its fast and lightweightedness.

Key features of Neve:

• Easy to set up and sleek designs
• 100+ ready to import templates
• Provides complete theme customization options
• Compatible with all page builders
• Includes global color platters

12. Authority Pro

The Authority Pro theme is designed and developed by the prominent StudioPress. This theme can be used by entrepreneurs and individuals on membership websites. Because you can highlight your knowledge, spread acquired wisdom, and sell premium content on your site using it.

The theme is great for the ones who want to make them different and stand out their websites from the crowd. Authority Pro is often used in combination with the Genesis Framework. This offers top SEO benefits and airtight security facilities.

Key features of Authority Pro:

• Allows to tweak theme settings with its customizer
• The theme layouts are responsive for mobile devices
• Utilizes the Genesis Framework
• Has integrations with numerous plugins and addons
• Compatible both with page builders and Gutenberg blocks

13. GeneratePress

GeneratePress is the latest WordPress theme in our discussion today. This one is also a robust and multi-purpose theme, yet it's fast and lightweight. This theme can set a solid foundation for the membership website as you can seamlessly integrate any membership plugin with it.

To power up your site further, you can use the GenerateBlocks plugin alongside the theme. This is a powerful Gutenberg block plugin created by the same developer who created the GeneratePress theme. Together with the two, you can ensure all the necessary features for your membership site.

Key features of GeneratePress:

• Allows full website design with its customization options
• Designed for high speed and top SEO-performances
• Includes infinite scrolling and sticky navigation
• Supports both Gutenberg block and page builder plugins
• Easy to change the advanced layout based on advanced display rules

Final Notes!

The theme is one of the things that sets the basic foundation of a website. Once your site starts running, it's difficult to change and switch to another theme. Because it can hamper your site layout and take a humongous amount of time to fix them.

This is why choosing a suitable theme is so crucial at the beginning of any WordPress website, be it a membership website or eCommerce. So, you must carefully assess the features, documentation, and support system of the respective themes before finally deciding on one.

If you are looking for a membership theme, hopefully, anyone from the above-mentioned list can cater to your needs. Lastly, we want to know your feedback on whether you have benefited from this article.

Besides, if you want to know about any specific theme for any purpose, you can mention its name and what information you want in the comment box. Our team will quickly assess it and provide you with valuable information.