Move members from a WordPress membership plugin to Shopify

With RedeemID, a membership lives in Shopify as a tag on the customer, and WordPress reads it. Moving from a WordPress membership plugin means moving who holds which plan into Shopify, then letting RedeemID open the same content. Your posts and their URLs don’t change.

RedeemID has no import command. The members move through Shopify’s customer import, and the rules are set again in RedeemID.

1. List who holds what

Export your members from the old plugin: email, name, plan, status and end date. Leave out expired and cancelled members unless you want them in Shopify as customers.

Pick one Shopify tag per plan, such as gold, and one for complimentary members, such as gold-comp, so no purchase workflow ever removes it.

2. Import them into Shopify

1. Build a Shopify customer CSV from the export, with each member’s tags in the Tags column, separated by commas.
2. Import it in the Shopify admin under Customers. Importing over an existing customer replaces their data, tags included, so check customers who already shop with you first.
3. For a plan with a fixed end date, store the date on the customer, for example in the membership.renews_on metafield, and set up Flow to remove the tag when it passes. See Tagging customers with Shopify Flow.

3. Rebuild buying and renewing in Shopify

• New purchases. Create each plan as a Shopify product, and a Flow workflow that adds the tag on Order paid. Show the plans on WordPress with plan cards.
• Recurring plans. Use a subscription app that tags customers itself or through Flow, and point the level at that tag.

4. Recreate the rules in RedeemID

1. Create one level per plan on RedeemID → Access → Levels, matching the tags. Let Gold include Silver if the old plugin did the same.
2. Set the rules on posts, categories, post types or blocks again. See Paywall rules.
3. Check each one for a sample member on RedeemID → Access → Test before you switch.

5. Switch over

1. Turn off the old plugin’s content restrictions, then deactivate it. Don’t run two plugins that both lock the same posts. See Works with.
2. Members sign in with Shopify. Their WordPress accounts link when Shopify’s verified email matches; see Member accounts.
3. Tell members how to sign in and where to manage their plan, which is now their Shopify account.

Limits

• Billing doesn’t move. Saved cards and active subscriptions belong to the old plugin’s payment gateway. Members on recurring plans start again in Shopify, usually at their next renewal, and payment history stays in the old system.
• WordPress can’t grant access on its own. Every member needs a Shopify customer with the right tag. A member left out of the import loses access when the old plugin is turned off.
• Emails must match to link. A member whose Shopify email differs from their WordPress email gets a separate WordPress user until the two match.
• Some features the old plugin had may be elsewhere. Drip is built in (Members can read it after a number of days, in the Editor’s guide), but member directories and forums are not part of RedeemID. A plugin that does one of them can ask RedeemID who holds which level; see Hooks, REST and WP-CLI.