How to import membership data into WordPress

Take a complete backup of the database and files, then work on a staging site. List the data you need to move: users, membership levels, access rules, one-time payments, recurring subscriptions, expiry dates and custom profile fields.

Do not assume that an export from one membership plugin can be uploaded directly to another. The destination plugin normally expects its own column names, date formats and record relationships.

Install and configure the destination membership or LMS plugin before importing records. Create the membership levels, products and payment gateways that the imported records will refer to.

For MemberPress, memberships must exist before subscriptions are associated with them, and imported users must already exist in the WordPress Users area. Importing a recurring subscription does not create a live subscription or charge a customer; it records an existing subscription from the payment gateway.

Prepare separate files for users, subscriptions and transactions instead of placing everything in one spreadsheet. Keep a header row, use UTF-8 encoding, and match the destination plugin’s sample template exactly. For MemberPress, user records need a username and properly formatted email address; custom fields must use the field slugs expected by the plugin.

Match every membership record to an existing username or email. Check dates, membership IDs, gateway IDs and status values before uploading. A common Friday-afternoon failure is importing users successfully and assuming that their memberships or payment history came with them.

For a small migration, WordPress can import basic user accounts through WP-CLI. Prepare a CSV with columns such as user_login, user_email, display_name and role, then run wp user import-csv /path/to/users.csv. Existing users are matched by email address or login and updated unless you use the option to skip updates.

This manual route is fine when you only need WordPress accounts. It does not import membership levels, access rules, transactions or recurring subscriptions, so you still need the membership plugin’s own importer for those records.

Use the destination plugin’s import screen and upload each matching CSV. In MemberPress, go to MemberPress > Import, select the file type, choose the CSV and upload it. Import users first. For recurring memberships, import the subscriptions file before the transactions file.

Read the result screen after every upload. Keep the failed-row CSV, correct the listed problems and reimport only those rows. Typical causes of failure include missing required headers, invalid email addresses, the wrong membership ID, non-UTF-8 encoding and a username or email that does not match an existing account.

Test several imported accounts as members and as non-members. Check that the right content is accessible, expiry dates are correct, custom fields appear, welcome or password-reset emails behave as expected, and transaction history is attached to the right user.

For recurring subscriptions, confirm that the gateway identifier is correct and that the subscription already exists at the payment processor. Do not create duplicate live subscriptions. Only after the checks pass should you switch webhooks or IPN settings from the old system and disable the old membership plugin.

For a large MemberPress migration, use MemberPress Importer. It provides CSV imports for users and membership data, field mapping and error reporting, so you can process the migration in batches instead of building separate WordPress and membership-data workflows.

Use the same order as the manual process: configure memberships, import users, then import subscriptions and transactions, followed by testing. This is the practical choice when you are moving a large dataset into MemberPress rather than importing a handful of accounts.