ProfilePress is a premium WordPress plugin that refers to itself as the “Ultimate WordPress Account Manager”. It can be used to create professional looking registration forms, login forms, password reset forms, and profile pages.
The default registration form and login page for WordPress is functional but basic. One big problem with the default setup is that it takes the user away from your main website design. Solutions such as ProfilePress allow you to display registration and login forms within your website design.
The developers of ProfilePress kindly sent over a test copy of their plugin so that I could show you all what it can do. I hope you enjoy the review.
Configuring ProfilePress
After activating ProfilePress, you will be asked to install Shortcake (Shortcode UI) from the WordPress plugin repository.
When I first installed ProfilePress, it asked for my license to be entered before I could do anything. I spoke to the developers about this and within ten minutes they had updated the plugin so that this was not necessary. Therefore, it is now a 100% GPL friendly plugin. Yay!
They advised that they had implemented the license key step because so many of their customers were not entering their license key. This meant that they were not getting automatic updates. I can understand their reasoning behind this, but I am also pleased they were so quick to remove this step.
A menu item for ProfilePress will then be displayed near the bottom of your WordPress admin menu.
The ten pages that are listed in the ProfilePress admin menu are also displayed at the top of the settings area.
ProfilePress creates new pages on your website for a password reset page, login page, registration page, and profile modification page. You can change the default page in the general settings area. You can also add any form to any page on your website by simply adding the appropriate shortcode to that page.
The plugin gives you a lot of control over how visitors interact with your website. You can define what page they are redirected to after logging in and out, bbPress and BuddyPress settings, the default message displayed to users, and much more.
ProfilePress adds additional fields to user profiles for social media services such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+. Gender and country fields are available too.
A wide number of themes are available for each type of form. There are seven login form designs, five registration form designs, five password reset form designs, and three profile designs.
Every aspect of these form designs can be modified. You can rename themes too.
Twenty-six post elements are available. All you have to do is select a post element, customise its settings, and then insert it into your form design.
A number of other options are available in the settings area, such as the feature to login via email, add reCaptcha fields to help prevent spam, and one time passwordless logins.
Two extensions are available for ProfilePress. The email confirmation forces users to confirm their email address before they can log in to your website, while the MailChimp extension allows users to be added to your MailChimp email list.
Both of these extensions are available at a cost of $29 for one website, $59 for up to five websites, and $89 for an unlimited number of websites (just to be clear, each extension has to be bought separately).
I found everything self-explanatory, but if you are unsure about how to get the most out of ProfilePress, there is a large documentation area that explains everything.
Improving the User Experience with ProfilePress
The forms look great. They will greatly enhance the user experience of those who use your website. The variety of themes on offer means that there should be one design you like.
I like the idea of integrating social media services into the registration and login process as it allows people to login to your website without having to enter their details. As long as they remain logged in to their social media service, all they have to do is click a button to log in.
I recommend checking the ProfilePress demo page to see more examples of the forms ProfilePress offers.
Pricing
ProfilePress can be purchased for as little as $49. All licenses offer one year of support and updates and a 30 day money back guarantee.
Each plan offers a full version of ProfilePress. The only difference between each plan is the number of websites that are supported. The personal plan retails at $49 and offers support and updates for one website. The business plan costs $99 and increases this limit to three websites. A developer license is available for $199 that offers support and updates for an unlimited number of websites.
Final Thoughts
ProfilePress boasts many useful options, but the plugin is set up to work right out of the box. For example, it will automatically create new pages for your forms and redirect users from the old URLs to the new ones e.g. www.yourwebsite.com/wp-login.php to www.yourwebsite.com/log-in/.
All you really have to do is activate the plugin and choose your form designs. You can then tweak settings when you have time.
A free version of ProfilePress is available at WordPress.org. It can also be used to create custom login forms, registration forms, and password reset forms. As you would expect, it lacks many of the features that are available in the premium version. It does, however, show you what the plugin can do, so I recommend testing it out before upgrading to the premium version.
To find out more about ProfilePress, please visit the official website for the plugin. Be sure to enter 20PERCENTOFF at checkout to get 20% off your purchase. This will reduce the cost of the plugin to only $39.20.
Good luck.
Kevin
