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How to Password Protect a WordPress Page for Membership Content

By Dave | March 22, 2010

One of my new subscribers sent me some feedback about my videos – thankfully they liked them. But they sent through a question about how to set up a Membership style page with a password to protect their content.

Now as most of you probably know there are all sorts of membership packages out there which can do this – but I thought I’d just recommend the easiest quickest way possible which doesn’t cost a penny to implement.

Now this may seem too easy but it does actually work!

Why spend a fortune on fancy software or scripts when you are just starting out when this will do the trick. Then once you have had some success you can always upgrade to a more professional solution – but there is nothing wrong with this method – it’s quick, easy and free.

Here’s a very quick video which shows you How to Password Protect a WordPress Page:

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Topics: Wordpress Tutorial | 37 Comments »

37 Responses to “How to Password Protect a WordPress Page for Membership Content”

  1. steveNo Gravatar Says:
    March 24th, 2010 at 5:05 pm

    Thanks for that. I did not know it was that easy.
    - steve

  2. DaveNo Gravatar Says:
    March 24th, 2010 at 7:06 pm

    Hi Steve – Thanks for your comment – glad the password protection video helped.

    Best wishes – Dave

  3. HabtegiorgisNo Gravatar Says:
    March 25th, 2010 at 11:25 am

    Thank you very much, Dave, for two reasons:
    I have got a solution and easy; and for your prompt response.

    Best wishes!!!

  4. DaveNo Gravatar Says:
    March 26th, 2010 at 3:51 pm

    Hi Habtegiorgis

    Thanks for all the feedback you sent me and the idea for this video on password protecting wordpress content.

    This video has been well received and over 50% of my subscribers have clicked through to watch it – which is great. I’ve also received some good direct feedback – so many thanks for the idea!

    Best wishes – Dave

  5. Dave LucasNo Gravatar Says:
    April 9th, 2010 at 1:49 pm

    This would certainly be a boon for “Clique Bloggers” who only share their content with BFF’s!

  6. #nowplaying 09 April 2010 Says:
    April 10th, 2010 at 2:35 am

    [...] Great advice for BFF and Clique Bloggers (H/T Cornyman) [...]

  7. Terry UptonNo Gravatar Says:
    September 16th, 2010 at 12:12 pm

    Thanks for this Dave, it is really useful. Do you know if you can easily customise the message that is displayed above the password box when the page first loads?

  8. ChrisNo Gravatar Says:
    October 7th, 2010 at 10:54 pm

    If you protect multiple pages on your site all using the same password, will a visitor have to re-enter the password as they move from protected page to protected page or will just be allowed access to all of the pages?
    Thanks

  9. DaveNo Gravatar Says:
    November 15th, 2010 at 1:17 pm

    Hello Chris -

    Once they have typed in the password at least once for each page then normally they won’t have to type it in again as WordPress will remember them from the last visit. But they will have to type it in initially for each page as WordPress doesn’t acknowledge the fact you are trying to give them general access by giving them one password.

    Dave

  10. DaveNo Gravatar Says:
    November 15th, 2010 at 1:31 pm

    Hi Terry

    If you go into the comments.php file – you should find the default password text – so you could adjust that if you like. Make sure you make a copy of the original file first just in case you accidentally mess something up!

    Thanks – Dave

  11. Bonamassa LiveNo Gravatar Says:
    November 30th, 2010 at 6:10 am

    Thanks for the tutorial. I knew the feature was there some place, but forgot where they hid it.

  12. shawnNo Gravatar Says:
    March 31st, 2011 at 2:43 pm

    thanks a lot for the information, been wondering how hard it would be to password protect a page.

  13. DaveNo Gravatar Says:
    April 3rd, 2011 at 1:22 pm

    Hi Shawn – glad you found this post useful. As you can see it’s really easy to password protect a page.

    Best wishes – Dave

  14. LauraNo Gravatar Says:
    April 22nd, 2011 at 10:12 am

    Great video, thanks very much! For something I thought could have been a mission… you just made so simple :)

  15. MaxNo Gravatar Says:
    May 6th, 2011 at 9:41 am

    Hi there – I am using the simple ‘password protected’ method for a single page I want to be protected. Do you have any idea how I can add multiple passwords? I want to give 10 people access to a page but if one doesn’t pay his/her subscription I want to be able to disable THEIR password and nobody else’s.

  16. DaveNo Gravatar Says:
    May 11th, 2011 at 4:26 pm

    Max – thanks for a great question! Having said that there is no simple answer, but there are all sorts of solutions. The most obvious solution is to get some sort of membership plugin which will solve your problem (there are lots of them).

    I always try to keep things simple, so what I would do is supply my ongoing membership type info via email. So it would be offered via an autoresponder sequence of emails. So if someone drops out then you just remove them from your email list and they won’t receive any more emails – therefore they won’t be able to access any more content.

    I know this is a totally different way of looking at it compared to what you’re thinking but it’s simple and it works.

    Hope that helps?

    Best wishes – Dave

  17. DaveNo Gravatar Says:
    May 11th, 2011 at 4:27 pm

    Hi Laura – Glad you found it helpful!

    Best wishes – Dave

  18. LauraNo Gravatar Says:
    May 11th, 2011 at 10:47 pm

    You could try this – not sure if it will give you individual logins but maybe you could create WordPress ‘users’ for it? http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/pagerestrict/

  19. DaveNo Gravatar Says:
    May 12th, 2011 at 12:05 pm

    Hi Laura

    Thanks for the suggestion – best wishes – Dave

  20. LeslieNo Gravatar Says:
    May 29th, 2011 at 5:19 am

    Hello Dave,

    Thanks for the video. i had previously used the built in p/w protect feature for pages. It works great the first time. The problem we are finding is that, as you mention in one of your replies, w-p remembers you’ve been there before and doesn’t ask for the p/w again. is there an easy way to “force a logout” so to speak so that you are required to enter the p/w when you visit the page on a different day? session? Otherwise, anyone with access to my computer has access to the “passworded” pages once i’ve been there one time.

    Appreciate any suggestions/solutions you might know of.

    thank you,
    Leslie

  21. Mark LNo Gravatar Says:
    June 21st, 2011 at 6:59 am

    Hi dave. Thanks for the tutorial. I have a question. Once you password protect a page it says: “Protected:” and then the header of the page. Is there a way to remove the “Protected:” text at the top? It really makes my page look bad.

    Thanks!

  22. JohnNo Gravatar Says:
    October 3rd, 2011 at 9:02 pm

    Hi dave.

    Thanks for the useful info there. I’d found that bit already, but was wondering if there was a way of either logging off from the page or stopping the site from remembering the password. I thought (wrongly) that it was the browser that remembered the password.

    Thanks

  23. Elizabeth Saunders-Time CoachNo Gravatar Says:
    January 19th, 2012 at 8:50 pm

    Fantastic, simple info.

    Many thanks!
    Elizabeth

  24. MarkNo Gravatar Says:
    February 7th, 2012 at 9:04 pm

    Thanks so much for the info on how to set up a password protected page.

    You Rock! Cheers,

    Mark

  25. michelleNo Gravatar Says:
    February 20th, 2012 at 3:31 pm

    Hello Chris,
    Is it possible to have the “password protected post” feature of WordPress apply to more than one page? I have dozens of posts which I wish to protect with the same password.Is there a less time consuming way then having to edit each page individually?

  26. MaryNo Gravatar Says:
    February 20th, 2012 at 7:54 pm

    Hi Dave, Thanks for the info. I am developing a wordpress website with 2 password protected pages. One page is a membership list and the password is requested. The other page has some text and a link to a pdf. That page does not ask for the password. I do have it set up correctly… Any ideas?
    Thanks

  27. ConnieNo Gravatar Says:
    February 28th, 2012 at 12:36 pm

    Hi Dave,

    Thanks for the video. I would like to know why or how to fix this problem:
    I’ve created the page, it’s on my menu ( leden ), but when I click on it it only says it’s password protected, it doesn’t come up asking for the password.

    Also, would it work do you think instead to have the leden page with a link to the password protected page on it, then just post pages under that if I want multiple hidden member pages, would that mean they wouldn’t need passwords if the parent page does?

    Thanks :)

  28. DaveNo Gravatar Says:
    February 29th, 2012 at 9:47 am

    Hi Connie

    Thanks for getting in touch.

    I’ve had a quick look at your site and after clicking the “Enter” link it takes me to a new page which is then password protected.

    To be honest Connie I’m not really clued up with WordPress.com, I work with the self-hosted WordPress which is downloaded from WordPress.org. Having said that they are very similar but sometimes there are differences in the way they work.

    I’m not sure about listing pages underneath other pages, I didn’t realise that was possible.

    Let me know how you get on with it and good luck with your site.

    Best wishes – Dave

  29. DaveNo Gravatar Says:
    February 29th, 2012 at 9:56 am

    Hi Mary

    Thanks for getting in touch, this sounds odd! I’m not sure why it isn’t working.

    The only thing I can suggest is double check it (again!) and also try taking off the pdf document and see what happens, but I can’t see this making a difference.

    Let me know if you’re still struggling and I’ll see if I can help further. If you want me to take a look please contact me by email or via contact box on contact page.

    Thanks and best wishes – Dave

  30. DaveNo Gravatar Says:
    February 29th, 2012 at 10:01 am

    Hello Michelle,

    As far as I know you can only do it by protecting each individual page manually. If you’re looking at protecting lots of content you will probably be better using a membership plugin like say s2Member – http://www.s2member.com/ I’m trying this out now on my Sister’s Jewellery site and it’s looking pretty good so far. There’s a free version which should easily handle what you need.

    Hope that helps!

    Thanks – Dave

  31. DaveNo Gravatar Says:
    February 29th, 2012 at 10:01 am

    Hi Mark

    Thanks for kind comments!

    Best wishes – Dave

  32. DaveNo Gravatar Says:
    February 29th, 2012 at 10:02 am

    Thanks Elizabeth!

    Good luck with your site – Dave

  33. DaveNo Gravatar Says:
    February 29th, 2012 at 10:06 am

    Hi John

    I’m not sure exactly how that works. What’s your idea behind needing that facility?

    Thanks – Dave

  34. DaveNo Gravatar Says:
    February 29th, 2012 at 10:09 am

    Hi Mark

    There is a way of doing it but I think it will need to be accessed by changing some of the code within the WordPress coding.

    You will need to understand a little bit about php and html code etc., if you do then it’s acase of finding the right file then taking out the word “Protected” and that in theory should do it.

    Thanks – Dave

  35. DaveNo Gravatar Says:
    February 29th, 2012 at 10:10 am

    Hi Leslie

    I don’t know of a way to do this I’m afraid. If anyone else can help, please let us know.

    Many thanks – Dave

  36. SamNo Gravatar Says:
    March 24th, 2012 at 8:22 pm

    Thank you for the information. There are two problems I ran in to with this type of password protection;
    1. There is no way to log out. If a user use the password on a public computer, the next person who use the computer will also have access to the page since there is no way to log out.

    2. This cannot support multiple passwords for multiple users.

    I wish wordrpess team can come up with an update rather than forcing the users to go with a plugin.

    Thank you for the article.

  37. DaveNo Gravatar Says:
    March 25th, 2012 at 2:10 pm

    Thanks for your comment Sam – you’re quite right. This is a very basic solution which won’t be good enough for certain applications. But it is a very quick and easy way to get some basic protection. Maybe WordPress will develop a better solution in the near future.

    In the meantime I’ve been testing S2Member on my Sister’s Jewellery Making site which is looking pretty good.

    Best wishes – Dave

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