DEV3 AI Membership & Paywall for WordPress

WordPress membership plugin: levels, drip, Stripe, PayPal and WooCommerce checkout, and a paywall enforced in one access engine. AI tools for tiers, teasers, churn and a member Q&A assistant that only reads what the asker may read. Free download: sign in and click Download ZIP. Add your own Google AI Studio (Gemini) API key to switch on the AI features; the documentation says which features work without one.

How it works

We built DEV3 AI Membership & Paywall as a WordPress plugin in PHP with a React admin, Gutenberg blocks and shortcodes for every member screen. The AI runs on the Google Gemini API with the site owner's own key.

Key design decisions

• One access decision. Engine::check() answers "can this user read this post right now?" from the post's own setting plus every matching rule (post type, picked items, terms with their children), with drip by days or date, bypass for admins and editors, and a reason code for every answer. It is memoised per request and filterable.
• Enforced at every exit. the_content, feeds, REST responses for every public post type, archives and search, blocks, menu items, the [dev3mb_restrict] shortcode, WooCommerce purchasability and protected file downloads all call the same engine.
• Access filtering before the prompt. The member Q&A assistant retrieves passages by embeddings, then drops every passage from an article the asker cannot open before the prompt is built. The visitor is told how many members-only articles matched and offered the plans.
• Explainable churn. A 0–100 score per membership from logins, reading drop-off, failed payments, cancellation and tenure, with each point named. The AI only drafts the win-back email.
• Drafts, never auto-actions. The tier designer, smart teasers, win-back emails and onboarding sequences all return drafts the owner accepts, edits or rejects.
• Three ways to pay. Stripe Checkout with signed webhooks (300-second tolerance, constant-time compare), PayPal Checkout and Subscriptions with verified webhooks, and the WooCommerce checkout with Subscriptions renewals synced. Keys are encrypted at rest.

Architecture

Levels, rules, memberships, payments, coupons and activity live in custom tables. An hourly job expires memberships, marks missed renewals past due, sends reminders and runs welcome sequences. Protected files move to a private folder and download through a checked link. The API client, encryption, background jobs, embeddings store and settings screens come from a shared core used across DEV3's plugins.

What's in the download

• The installable plugin zip: upload it through Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin.
• Full HTML documentation (installation, settings, hooks, FAQ).

Requirements

• WordPress 6.0 or newer and PHP 7.4 or newer
• Optional: WooCommerce 8.0 or newer, if you want members to pay through the WooCommerce checkout (HPOS and block checkout are supported)
• Optional: a Stripe account and/or a PayPal developer app for direct payments
• Optional: a Google Gemini API key for the DEV3 AI features. Without one, memberships, the paywall, churn scores, template emails and keyword Q&A all still work

Learn more

• How we built it: the AI Membership & Paywall case study
• Engineering write-up on the DEV3 blog
• Also free in the DEV3 AI Membership, Learning & Support Plugins Bundle with every other Membership, Learning & Support plugin.