Paid Memberships Pro
BuddyNext + Paid Memberships Pro
Your PMPro levels decide who gets into the community.
What happens when someone uses it
One action, everywhere it lands
A member joins, upgrades or downgrades a PMPro level
- Their access The mapped community plan follows the level
- Their inbox An email confirming community access is live
- Your Orders screen The payment recorded as a BuddyNext invoice
- Every night A sweep re-checks levels against community plans
The bridge self-guards on Paid Memberships Pro and quietly does nothing when it is not installed, so none of this appears until you turn it on.
What it changes
Your community with Paid Memberships Pro in it
Each of these is something a member can do the day you turn it on, and what it changes for whoever runs the place.
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Keep selling membership exactly the way the site already does.
What changes
PMPro stays the single place levels, pricing and billing are managed, and the community follows it instead of becoming a second system to keep in step.
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Move between levels and have community access move with them.
What changes
An upgrade or downgrade does not need anyone to remember to change something on the community side.
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See what they paid in the same place they see their membership.
What changes
Billing history is in one place for support to look at, rather than split between two plugins.
How it works
The flow, step by step
- 1 You open a PMPro level and pick the BuddyNext plan it should unlock. Unmapped levels are skipped rather than given a default, so nothing is granted by accident.
- 2 A member checks out, upgrades or is cancelled. The bridge reads every level that member currently holds, rather than trusting the one the event mentions, and reconciles from that.
- 3 Access it should have is granted, access it should not is withdrawn, and only plans that came from PMPro are touched, so a separately billed plan is left alone.
- 4 The payment is written as a BuddyNext invoice. Refunds mark it refunded, and zero-total orders are skipped.
For developers
The bridge self-guards on the partner plugin and no-ops when it is absent. Key hooks: pmpro_after_change_membership_level, pmpro_after_checkout, pmpro_order_status_refunded.
If Paid Memberships Pro is not installed
The bridge checks for Paid Memberships Pro and does nothing without it. As with the WooCommerce bridge, two further things are off until you set them: monetization has to be enabled in BuddyNext, and every level has to be mapped to a plan by hand. An unmapped level grants nothing rather than falling back to a default plan.
What to check once it is on
Map one level, then move a test account onto it and confirm the plan, the invoice and the welcome email all followed. The case worth testing properly is a level switch rather than a first purchase: PMPro announces the level gained and not the one lost, so a switch is where a naive integration leaves the old access in place. Move the account from one mapped level to another and confirm the first plan was actually withdrawn.
Paid Memberships Pro questions
- Does BuddyNext bill anyone?
- No. Payments, renewals, cancellation and refunds all stay in Paid Memberships Pro. BuddyNext reads what PMPro says about a member and matches community access to it.
- What happens when someone switches level?
- Both sides are handled. PMPro fires a single event naming the new level and never mentions the one that was removed, so the bridge ignores the event detail and re-reads the member’s full set of levels, granting what is missing and withdrawing what is not.
- If I remap a level, what happens to people already on it?
- They are reconciled onto the new plan in batches. Without that, existing holders, and lifetime members in particular, would keep the plan the level used to grant, indefinitely.
- Will it interfere with plans sold another way?
- No. Reconciliation only touches access that came from PMPro, so a plan sold through another route is never revoked by this bridge.
- Does an expiry date carry across?
- No date is copied. Access reflects what PMPro reports now, and the change arrives either with the next PMPro event or from the nightly sweep.
Turn it on
Setup
Turn on monetization in BuddyNext, then open each PMPro level and pick the community plan it unlocks. The field sits in the level’s own Content Settings.