With WP Ultimo, you can sell membership plans, packages, and services on your multisite network.

Since we’re creating a platform where customers need to have a membership to be able to create and manage a website on our multisite network, we will create a new membership plan.

We’ll guide you through every step to create a membership plan, and if you want, you can create other plans by following the same steps.

1- Enable the “Custom Domains” feature in WP Ultimo settings

Before creating a new membership plan, you can enable the Custom Domains feature. This step is important if you’re thinking about allowing your customers to use a custom domain on their sites created on your platform.

Go to Network Admin > WP Ultimo > Settings > Domain Mapping and select the following values there:

• Enable domain mapping: Yes
• Enable single sign-on: This is optional
• Force admin redirect: Allow access to the admin by both mapped domain and network domain
• Enable custom domains: Yes

2- Add a new WP Ultimo plan to your multisite network

You can manage WP Ultimo products at Network Admin > WP Ultimo > Products.

Depending on your choice when setting up the plugin, WP Ultimo can create default products. However, we’ll create a new plan from scratch. This plan allows us to think about which options we will offer on our platform.

You need to start by clicking Add Product.

3- Add your plan’s general information

You need to add your plan’s general information by editing the values in these fields:

• Add new product: Enter the plan’s name here.
• Product description: Add a general description for the new plan.
• Slug: You can enter the URL slug of the plan here. It’s important to mention the slug serves as the ID of the product.
• Product type: Select the Plan type here.
• Customer Role: When a customer buys this plan, he will get the role you select here. In this case, since customers will create and manage a site, select the Administrator role.

4- Select the upgrade and downgrade options for your plan

If you’re creating more than one plan, you can create upgrade and downgrade paths that will allow your users to change between plans. WP Ultimo allows you to create plan groups so that you add related plans to the same group.

For example, if you’re creating a Basic and a Pro plan, you can relate these plans in a Group so that your users change between these two plans.

Just move the Up & Downgrades and select the following values.

• Plan Group: Add the plan group name here.
• Product Order: This allows you to add membership levels. For example, the Basic plan’s order would be 1 so that users can upgrade to the Pro plan, whose order will be 2. You can sort as many related / grouped plans as you have.
• Offer add-ons: This is optional, and you can use it with the other types of products WP Ultimo allows you to create: services and packages.

5- Add price variations to your new WP Ultimo plan

In previous versions, WP Ultimo allowed monthly, quarterly, and yearly prices. That has changed, and now you can add any price variations.

Price variations make offering discounter prices for longer subscriptions easy.

For this, move to Price Variations and toggle the Enable price variations field.

Then you can add the duration, the period, and the price for each price variation you want to add to your WP Ultimo membership plan.

6- Select if your plan is taxable

If you want to collect taxes from this plan, you can move to the Taxes tab and enable the Is taxable field.

Then, you can select the Tax Category for this product.

7- Optional – Select the site templates for this plan

If you move to the Site Templates option, you can allow site templates for this WP Ultimo plan. This means you can create and configure a site template that will be automatically cloned to a new site when the customer adds it. This is a great way to allow your users a one click set up for their sites.

In Site Template Selection Mode, you can select how the site templates will be assigned or selected by the users. You have these three options:

• Assign site template: This method automatically assigns a template to the sites using this plan.
• Choose available site templates: This method allows users to select a template for their sites among different templates. You can enable which of your templates will be available for this plan. You can even choose a pre-selected template.

Important. Site templates need to be created before being able to select them here.

8- Select the sites limit for this WP Ultimo plan

In the Sites tab, you can limit how many sites can be created with this site.

In this case, we’ll enable the Limit Sites field, and enter 1 in Site Allowance.

9- Select the visits limit for this plan

When you move to the Visits tab, you’ll be able to enable the Limit Unique Visits field. This means the visits to this site will have a certain limit and if sites using this plan reach the visits limit, they will require a higher plan to continue showing their site publicly.

You can add how many visits this site can get in Unique Visits Quota.

10- Select the users and user role limits for this plan

If you move to the Users tab and select the user limits. WP Ultimo allows you to select how many administrators will be created with this WP Ultimo plan in a site, how many authors, etc.

For this, you can enable the Limit user field.

Then, you can enable and establish a number for each user role.

11- Select the Post Type limits for this plan

In the Post Types tab, you can limit how many posts, how many pages, how many products the users can create.

You can enable the post type limits by enabling the Limit Post Types field.

Then, you can limit different post types and add how many of each post types can be created with this membership plan.

12- Assign a disk space for this WP Ultimo plan

In the Disk Space tab, you can limit the disk space per site for this plan.

Enable the Limit Disk Spacer Per Site field, and add how many MBs will be allowed for this plan in Disk Space Allowance.

13- Set up the custom domains settings for this plan

If you want to allow your users to use a custom domain instead of using a subdomain on their sites, you can enable the Allow Custom Domains field in the Custom Domains tab.

14- Select which themes will be allowed for this plan

Users who buy these WP Ultimo plans can select from the available themes to customize their site’s appearance.

You can move to the Themes tab, and select the visibility and availability of the themes installed on your multisite network.

• Visibility: You can select if the theme will be Visible or Hidden.
• Behavior: This plan can be Available, Not Available, or Force Activate.

15- Select the plugins available for this plan

If you’re planning to allow users of this plan to use plugins to enrich their site’s features, you can select the plugins’ visibility and behavior in the Plugins tab.

• Visibility: Visible or Hidden
• Behavior: Force Activate, Force Inactivate, Force Activate and Lock, Force Inactivate and Lock

16- Set up the pricing options for this WP Ultimo plan

Now that you have selected all the settings for this plan, you need to move to the pricing settings and select these values:

• Pricing type: WP Ultimo allows you to create Paid, Free, and Contact Us plans. A Contact Us plan allows your customers to contact you in order to inquire the plans price. In this example, we’re creating a Paid plan.
• Is recurring: You need to toggle this field if the product will collect recurring payments.
• Price: Enter the price and how many days, weeks, months, or years this membership will last.
• Billing Cycles: Here you can select how many times you will bill customers with this plan.
• Offer trial: You can offer a free trial period on your platform by enabling this field.
• Trial: Select how many days, weeks, months, or years will be offered as a trial period.
• Add set up fee: Enable this if you want to charge a specific amount on initial setup.
• Set up fee: Add the set up fee here.

Once you’ve selected all the necessary values, hit Save Product.

Once you save the product, you will be to see the new WP Ultimo plan added to the plans list at WP Ultimo > Products > Plans.

This is how you can easily create a new WP Ultimo plan for your WordPress Multisite platform.

After installing the required plugins, the next step is to create the membership plans with the WP Ultimo plugin.

As we’ve mentioned in previous entries, WP Ultimo allows us to sell memberships on a WordPress Multisite network. We can create membership plans, coupons, enable features for different plans, etc.

Here we show you how to create a membership plan from scratch with WP Ultimo and how to allow your users to use Custom Domains for their sites.

1- HOW TO ENABLE CUSTOM DOMAINS FOR YOUR PLANS

A custom domain is a unique name that identifies a website, for example, site.com.

We will enable this feature for your customers to pay you extra money to use a custom domain for their sites.

Follow these steps to enable the Custom Domain feature in WP Ultimo.

First, open the Network Admin dashboard.

Now go to Network Admin > WP Ultimo > Domain Mapping & SSL and select these settings:

1. Enable Domain Mapping: Yes
2. Enable Custom Domains: Yes
3. Force Admin Redirect: Allow access to the admin by both mapped domain and network domain
4. Force HTTPs for the Admin Panel: Yes
5. Force HTTPs for Subdomains: Yes
6. Force HTTPs for Custom Domains: No
7. Allow Page Unmapping: Yes
8. Force HTTPs on Unmapped Pages: No
9. Enable Single Sign-On: No
10. Network IP Address: Enter the current website’s IP address or leave it black to automatically use the IP detected by the plugin as default.
11. Click Save Changes.

Note: Click the image to enlarge it, or Right click + Open image in new tab.

2- HOW TO CREATE MEMBERSHIP PLANS WITH WP ULTIMO

Once you have enabled the Custom Domain feature, you can start creating your membership plans.

Go to wp-admin > Plans.

Click Add new Plan or edit one of the default plans.

A) SELECT THE TITLE AND DESCRIPTION OF THE MEMBERSHIP PLAN

• Enter the plan title in Add New Plan.
• Enter the plan description in Plan Description.

B) SET THE GENERAL SETTINGS OF THE MEMBERSHIP PLAN

In Plan Settings > General, select the following settings:

• Plan Slug: Enter the slug for your plan. If you prefer, leave it empty and the plugin will assign it automatically based on the name at the moment of saving the plan.
• Custom Domain: Enable or disable the use of the custom domain feature for this plan.
• Trial Period: Enter the number of days the trial period will last. This is OPTIONAL.
• Role: Select the role WP Ultimo will assign the users when they buy this membership plan. It should be the “administrator” role, so the customer can manage site settings, etc.

C) SELECT THE QUOTAS AND LIMITS OF THE MEMBERSHIP PLAN

In Plan Settings > Quotas & Limits, you can select the following parameters:

• Posts Quota: Enter how many posts to allow for this plan or Disable for this plan.
• Pages Quota: Enter how many pages to allow for this plan or Disable for this plan.
• Media Quota: Enter how many files to allow for this plan or Disable for this plan.
• Products Quota: You should keep this to 0 for unlimited products. But you decide how to configure the plans.

You can also select these other parameters for your plan in this section:

• Disk Space: Select how much disk space you want to assign to this plan.
• Extra Users: Select how many extra users the site administrator can add with this plan.
• Sites: How many sites the user can create with this plan.
• Visits: How many visits the sites in this plan can get.

D) SELECT THE CONTENT THAT WILL APPEAR IN THE PRICING TABLE

In Plan Settings > Pricing Table, you can select what quotas and limits you want to display on the pricing page.

Just tick the elements to show on the pricing table and leave the ones you want to hide:

• Display the Setup Fee
• Display Posts
• Display Pages
• Display Media
• Display My Templates
• Display Products
• Display My Library
• Display the Upload Limit
• Display the Sites Limit
• Display the Visit Limit

E) SELECT THE ALLOWED PLUGINS AND THEMES FOR THE MEMBERSHIP PLAN

• If you go to Allowed plugins, you can select which plugins will be allowed for the plan you’re creating. However, it’s important to mention that WP Ultimo can only limit plugins that are not network-active.
• If you go to Allowed Themes, you’ll see the themes activated for the entire network. Select the ones you want to allow for this membership plan.

In this case, all our plans will have the same features (they will be able to create full stores). So we will allow all plugins in the plans.

But if you want to offer different features per plan, for example, you can install a plugin for marketing automations, and only enable this plugin for customers with a specific plan.

F) SELECT THE PRICE AND VISIBILITY OF THE MEMBERSHIP PLAN

Finally, set the prices and visibility of the plan:

• Is this a free plan: Tick this if it’s a free plan.
• Is this a Contact Us plan: Tick this if it’s a Contact Us plan
• Monthly price: Enter the monthly price.
• 3 Mo Price: Enter the quarterly price.
• Yearly Price: Enter the yearly price.
• Featured Plan: Tick this if it’s a featured plan.
• Hidden plan: Tick this to hide the plan from the pricing page.

Finally, click Create Plan, and the plan will be added to the membership plans list.

Now you can follow the same steps to create the other membership plans with WP Ultimo.

3- SET UP WP ULTIMO’S PAYMENT GATEWAYS

Once you create your WP Ultimo membership plan, you can proceed to set up WP Ultimo payment gateways.

Here are some tutorials on how to configure different payment gateways:

• Manual payment gateway
• Paypal payment gateway
• Stripe payment gateway

After creating membership plans and setting up the payment gateways, you can continue building your online stores platform.