8 Best Content Restriction Plugins for WordPress

Although millions of people use WordPress to power their website, you might be surprised to find that WordPress doesn’t offer content restriction options out of the box. However, you can easily implement this on your website using one of the available content restriction plugins.

There are many WordPress content restriction plugins available on the internet, both simple and advanced ones (i.e. membership plugins), that you can use to restrict access to content. These are especially important for anyone who sells digital products creates and sells online courses, or wants a simple way to protect their work or portfolio.

In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the best WordPress content restriction plugins and highlight the standout features on offer with each tool to help you find the right solution for your website.

#1: Passster

Passster is a popular WordPress plugin that helps you protect content on your website. This way, you’re able to prevent unauthorized users from viewing exclusive content and only allow access to logged in users and admins.

With Passster, you can customize headlines, instruction text, and the button label using individual shortcodes. This tool supports integration with all major page builders and comes with loads of content protection options such as unlock via link, password protection, and by user role.

Be sure to check out our article on 6 ways to restrict content in WordPress for step by step instructions on how to implement each type of content restriction method.

Key features:

• You can restrict content access using CAPTCHAs/ReCaptchas and passwords by adding a simple shortcode.
• Passster lets you assign multiple passwords or entire password lists for securing premium content.
• It integrates with popular page builders such as Elementor and WP Bakery Pagebuilder.
• Passster is flexible and highly extensible, allowing you to modify the content protection experience using hooks and filters.
• Passster can also protect entire pages, posts and products
• You can use the build-in cookie setting to build a membership site

#2: Restrict Content Pro

Restrict Content Pro is a popular WordPress plugin that helps you limit user access to exclusive content. It comes with a number of simple and advanced features such as locking certain parts of your content using shortcodes, paid subscriptions, accepting payments, and content dripping. As a powerful membership plugin, Restrict Content Pro can help you quickly set up your membership site and manage members.

Key features:

• It lets you easily create and manage an unlimited number of subscription plans such as free, trial, and paid subscriptions.
• You’ll be able to generate an unlimited number of discount codes and offer flat rate and percentage-based discounts.
• It offers built-in integrations with several payment gateways like PayPal Website Payments Pro, Stripe, 2Checkout, Braintree, and Authorize.Net.
• Quickly access detailed performance reports of your membership site for specific time periods.
• You can automatically send welcome emails to new members, account renewal reminder emails, and payment receipts to existing members.

Price: Personal version costs $99 per year

#3: Content Control

Content Control is a WordPress content protection tool that gives you full control over your site’s content by restricting access to posts and pages. You can also change the visibility of the sidebar and footer widgets and choose whether to allow everyone, logged-in users, logged-out users, or specific user roles to view them.

Key features:

• You can show a custom message to unauthorized users or redirect them to another page (like the website homepage, login page, or a custom URL).
• It lets you display specific content on posts and pages based on logged-in status or user roles.
• Content Control restricts unauthorized users from accessing pages, posts, media, categories, and tags.
• You can further fine-tune content restrictions by applying custom CSS to on-page shortcodes.

Price: Free

#4: Restrict User Access

Restrict User Access gives you access to powerful membership site features such as content dripping and managing user and role capabilities without requiring any coding skills. In addition to this, you’ll be able to create an unlimited number of access levels and add content to each access level.

Key features:

• It lets you conditionally restrict access to pages, posts, categories, and any content you want.
• You can set membership durations, modify permit and deny capabilities, and assign multiple levels per user.
• You can use shortcodes to refine content restrictions on your pages and posts.
• Restrict User Access offers built-in support for a number of WordPress plugins such as WooCommerce, BuddyPress, bbPress, and Easy Digital Downloads.
• You’ll be able to redirect unauthorized users to a custom link or a different page.

Price: Free

#5: Ultimate Member

This is one of the WordPress content restriction plugins for setting up and managing a membership site. It offers a complete set of tools that can help you easily register new users, manage user profiles, and create an online community.

Key features:

• You can easily restrict access to specific sections of content using shortcodes and protect entire pages and posts.
• It lets you control which users can view restricted content such as specific logged-in users or selected user roles.
• You can display a message to unverified users trying to access restricted content. You can also direct them to another page such as your registration page.
• Ultimate Member gives you access to a number of usability options such as a drag and drop form builder, displaying author posts and comments on user profiles, along with dozens of actions and filters.

Price: Free

#6: Paid Member Subscriptions

If you’re looking for a complete content restriction solution, Paid Member Subscriptions are just what you need. You can implement content restrictions based on a paid subscription or logged-in status. Paid Member Subscriptions is a useful tool if you’re looking to protect posts and pages, and sell WooCommerce products on your website.

Key features:

• You’ll have the option to direct unverified visitors to a specific page, show them a message, or display a customized template.
• Paid Member Subscriptions enable you to create different payment plans such as Gold, Silver, and Free and allow existing subscribers to easily upgrade their purchased plan.
• You can accept payments from subscribers using PayPal and stay informed about their payment history and payment statuses.
• You’ll be able to quickly add and remove site members and modify their subscription details.

Price: Hobbyist version costs $69

#7: WP-Members

WP-Members is a WordPress plugin that adds membership site features to your WordPress site such as restricting exclusive content and creating custom registration fields. It’s a simple and easy-to-use tool that lets you restrict access to files and documents and sell online courses on your membership site.

Key features:

• You’ll be able to limit access or hide pages, posts, and custom post types, and restrict content access to registered users.
• You can easily customize and modify features on your site using more than 120 action and filter hooks.
• WP-Members lets you quickly manage the login, registration, and content restriction using shortcodes.
• WP-Members is a flexible and highly extensible plugin thanks to its extensive library of API functions. 

Price: Free

#8: s2Member

The S2Member plugin for WordPress is one of the oldest content restriction plugins. It helps you secure your pages, posts, categories, and specific portions of content within pages, posts, plugins, and themes. It is a simple and customizable plugin that enables you to secure your downloadable products or any other content using a variety of shortcodes.

Key features:

• It’s a flexible and easy-to-configure plugin that lets you store files locally, protect file downloads, and offers integration for Amazon S3 CloudFront.
• You’ll be able to customize login and registration pages, registration and profile fields, login welcome page, and membership options page.
• This tool gives you access to popular mailing list integrations as well as customizable email templates.
• S2Member plugin supports a number of payment integrations including Stripe, PayPal Standard, PayPal Pro, and Authorize.Net.
• It has extensive documentation, video tutorials, articles, APIs, and a helpful open-community of users.

Price: Single-Site Pro license costs $89 (free trial available)

Conclusion

Content restriction plugins let you control and manage who can access the restricted content such as pages, posts, tags, and categories.

We looked at various WordPress content restriction plugins and covered their standout features. By using the right content restriction tool for your website, you can easily restrict access to content on your site and only allow authorized users to view it.