AI Plugin Leaderboard · Membership · September 2026
Which WordPress membership plugins do ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Mode recommend?
Paid Memberships Pro is the only membership plugin in all 9 answers. MemberPress is named less often, 7 of 9, but comes first twice as often: 6 times against 3. Google AI Mode put MemberPress first in every answer.
The leaderboard
Sorted by how many of the nine answers named the plugin, then by its average position when it was named. Position is the order of first mention in the answer; the C · P · G column shows how many of the three ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Mode answers named it.
| # | Plugin | Named in | C · P · G | Avg. pos. | First |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Paid Memberships Pro | 9 of 9 | 3 · 3 · 3 | 1.7 | 3 |
| 2 | MemberPress | 7 of 9 | 2 · 2 · 3 | 1.3 | 6 |
| 3 | Ultimate Member | 5 of 9 | 2 · 2 · 1 | 3.2 | 0 |
| 4 | WooCommerce Memberships | 4 of 9 | 2 · 2 · 0 | 3.8 | 0 |
| 5 | Simple Membership | 4 of 9 | 1 · 1 · 2 | 4.2 | 0 |
| 6 | SureMembers | 2 of 9 | 0 · 0 · 2 | 3.0 | 0 |
| 7 | ARMember | 2 of 9 | 0 · 2 · 0 | 4.5 | 0 |
| 8 | RestrictMate | 1 of 9 | 0 · 1 · 0 | 2.0 | 0 |
| 9 | Restrict Content Pro | 1 of 9 | 0 · 1 · 0 | 3.0 | 0 |
| 10 | MemberSpace | 1 of 9 | 0 · 1 · 0 | 3.0 | 0 |
| 11 | User Registration & Membership | 1 of 9 | 0 · 1 · 0 | 4.0 | 0 |
| 12 | BuddyBoss | 1 of 9 | 0 · 1 · 0 | 7.0 | 0 |
What stands out
- Presence and position disagree. Paid Memberships Pro wins on being named; MemberPress wins on being named first. Neither is currently listed on wordpress.org: MemberPress has no directory listing, and Paid Memberships Pro’s listing is closed after the company announced it was leaving.
- Google AI Mode names SureMembers. Two of three Google answers, none elsewhere.
- WooCommerce Memberships is absent from Google. Named in 2 of 3 answers on both ChatGPT and Perplexity, 0 of 3 on Google.
- ProfilePress has 100,000+ installs and was named in none. WP-Members, at 50,000+, also none.
Which sites the engines read for this category
Domains that appeared as a source, counted once per answer. For Perplexity and Google AI Mode this is the full source list the answer shows; for ChatGPT it is the retrieval set stored with the conversation, which is larger than the handful of citations it displays (Run 05 explains the gap).
| Domain | Answers | Engines |
|---|---|---|
| paidmembershipspro.com | 6 of 9 | ChatGPT, Google AI Mode |
| memberpress.com | 5 of 9 | ChatGPT, Google AI Mode |
| hostney.com | 4 of 9 | ChatGPT, Perplexity |
| itechguides.com | 3 of 9 | ChatGPT, Perplexity |
| wordpress.org | 3 of 9 | ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Perplexity |
| fs-code.com | 3 of 9 | ChatGPT, Perplexity |
| youtube.com | 3 of 9 | ChatGPT, Google AI Mode |
| ultimatemember.com | 3 of 9 | ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Perplexity |
| blogvault.net | 3 of 9 | Google AI Mode, Perplexity |
| userproplugin.com | 2 of 9 | ChatGPT, Perplexity |
Big on wordpress.org, quiet in AI answers
Active installs are the ranges wordpress.org publishes, pulled from its public API on 17 September 2026. Installs are not quality, but a plugin this widely used being absent tells you the engines are not reading the directory to decide.
| Plugin | Active installs | Named in |
|---|---|---|
| Ultimate Member | 200,000+ | 5 of 9 |
| ProfilePress | 100,000+ | 0 of 9 |
| User Registration & Membership | 50,000+ | 1 of 9 |
| WP-Members | 50,000+ | 0 of 9 |
| Simple Membership | 40,000+ | 4 of 9 |
How this was measured
Three prompts, each put to ChatGPT (temporary chat, unpersonalized, web search on), Perplexity and Google AI Mode on 17 September 2026. The wording is taken from Google autocomplete, so these are phrasings people actually type:
best membership plugin for wordpresswordpress membership plugin with payment gatewaybest free membership plugin for wordpress
Plugin names were matched against a fixed candidate list, so the counting is mechanical rather than a judgement call. Treat a difference of one answer, or of one position, as noise: when the same prompt goes to the same engine twice, only about three quarters of the named products repeat (Run 01). The next update uses different real phrasings from the same autocomplete set, because repeating an identical prompt returns a cached source list (Run 04).
Is your membership plugin in these answers?
Send me your wordpress.org slug, or your product URL if you are not in the directory. I will run your category on all three engines and tell you which ones name you, which sites they read instead, and what that points to. Free, no call.