The Top 5 Membership Site Extensions for Joomla

A membership only website offers you many benefits, but among the most rewarding is the opportunity to make recurring revenue on all of that important and valuable content you offer. Choosing Joomla as the framework for a membership site is ideal because it is made to handle the large amount of content you place on a site of this nature. However, on its own, Joomla won’t allow you to bill for subscription membership services or make specific access and restriction configurations for users who sign up from the front end of the website. To do this you’ll need to install a membership site extension, one that offers you the administrative functionality you need to run this type of website. The following are five of the top membership extensions for Joomla websites.

1. Mighty Extensions. A Joomla extension that offers flexible subscription options with multi-payment solutions. It can restrict any page of any component to certain users. It offers a section or category plan and individual user plans. Membership access can also be limited by time periods or subscription plans. It offers front end user subscription history, coupon compatibility and multi language support.
2. Membership Pro. This works with Joomla 1.6, 1.7, 2.5 or 3.0. Membership Pro features allow you to create and sell subscription plans, and allows members to subscribe to plans giving them access to restricted resources that include documents, modules or menus on the Joomla site. This extension allows for easy management using lists and several editing features that give you control over information; allowing you to delete information, update or publish new content from the backend of your site just as in other Joomla websites. For each of the plans you can specify the price, the subscription length and allow members to sign up from the front end. Users can also see the different subscription plans available. From that point on they can choose the one they want to sign up for and pay for their membership. Membership Pro also offers flexible renewal options to existing members.
3. CBSubs. CBSubs offers flexible powerful subscription websites for Joomla!. This membership solution offers subscriber-only content, allowing you to charge members access. The extension offers automated recurring billing, and sends a report for any subscription issues that arise. Product selling or donation needs can be configured, and CBSubs can integrate with almost any other Joomla extension.
4. JEXTN. JEXTN offers Joomla user registration management expansion, but also gives you added payment methods and admin statistics that you can use in the backend. The administrator can add any number of subscription plans, where users can register from the front end of the website. Additionally this membership extension supports different payment options including ccAvenue, docdata, EBS, MoneyBooker, Google checkout, 2Checkout and PayPal.
5. RSMembership. This membership extension offers complete control over membership subscriptions. You can easily manage customer transactions and membership restrictions as well as shared files, folders and modules. You can allow members access to restricted articles, certain sections, categories or other parts of your site. It also includes features for sharing K2 items, content zoo and module positions. The extension offers a simple selection tool from with this in the administrator area allowing you to give permissions to areas and restrict other areas. All transactions can also be manually or automatically approved, after which the user can access the information under his membership plan. This membership extension comes with a few different payment options: 2CheckOut, PayPal and Authorize.NET. Both PayPal and Authorize.NET have an automatic renewal option upon expiration.