Today’s WordPress Wednesday post features 4 free and 4 premium plugins that you may want to use when you are in a scenarios where you want to restrict access to a piece of content on your WordPress website. It might be that you are wanting to provide some private content for certain users or offering an digital file for download and you wish the user to complete an simple action before they get access to it such as paying or subscribing or sharing on a social network.

Free Plugins

1.  Restrict Content

This is a simple plugin will allow you to easily restrict complete posts / pages to logged in users only. Levels of restriction may also be set. For example, you can restrict content to only Administrators, Editors, Authors, and Subscribers.

2. Restrict Categories

Restrict Categories is a plugin that allows you to select which categories users can view, add, and edit in the Posts edit screen.  This plugin allows you to restrict access based on the user role and username.

3. Premium Contents

Premium Contents is a WordPress plugin made to lock specified blog posts asking the reader to do something to access them. With this plugin you can ask the reader to make one of three actions (that correspond to three access level):

• accept terms and conditions pressing a button before to see the reserved content (example, you declare to be 18 or more year old)
• sign up the blog (reserved contents will be unlocked only to logged in users)
• pay via PayPal (reserved contents will be available to registered and paid users with a unexpired subscription)

The “pay” option can be set with a price and a duration in days: after that time the subscription expires and the user will return to act like a normal reader and the reserved content notices are fully skinnable from the administration panel (no CSS or HTML required) and messages are editable with the WordPress editor.

4. Restrict Lite

An easy way to limit what data is shown to users with a simple a shortcode. Any content placed inside the shortcode will be restricted to logged in users only with the correct capabilities.

Premium Plugins

1. Subscribe to Unlock Content – $12

Subscribe To Unlock Content is a plugin that allows to lock important content on your WordPress website and display it for subscribed users only. All you need to do is to wrap protected content with shortcodes [subscribelocker]…[/subscribelocker]. If people want to view this content they must submit their contact details. After submission all locked content became visible. Very simple workflow. All submitted data is saved in database or can be re-submitted to MailChimp, iContact, GetResponse and Campaign Monitor newsletter systems.

2. PrivateContent – $16

PrivateContent it’s a simple and fast solution to power up your wordpress website by adding a multilevel login, private areas, user private pages and users management features. It’s easy to use and doesn’t require any scripting knowledge!

3. Social liker – $14

With this plugin you simply allow your visitors to exchange a Like, +1 or Tweet for post content, videos, a free download, a coupon code or pretty much anything you want. by clicking Like for example, they’ll promote your site to their friends, followers and colleagues… who may also want to social-liker and the more likes, +1s and tweets you get – the higher your post and sites will appear in Google, making this amazing for SEO too!

4. Restrict Content Pro – from $42

Restrict Content Pro is a complete membership and premium content manager plugin for WordPress. Create an unlimited number of memberships levels, including free, trial and premium. Manage members and their subscriptions, track payments, offer discounts with a complete discount code system, and provide premium, members-only content to your subscribers.