Anchor

You create strong journalism. Your audience shows up for it. But most of the relationship lives on borrowed ground: social feeds, search rankings, email platforms. Anchor gives you control back.

Anchor is a membership plugin built for newsrooms and content publishers. You decide what’s open, what requires registration, and what sits behind a paid subscription. Add limits like "Read 5 free articles, then create an account" to turn casual readers into known users.

Instead of relying on third-party platforms, you build direct relationships and own your audience data.

Start with a simple registration wall. Grow into full subscription management when you’re ready. Anchor scales with your publishing business, not against it.

Key Features

• Flexible Content Access - Set different access levels for your content: public, registered members only, or paid subscribers only

• Smart Metering - Offer free article limits (daily, weekly, or monthly) that encourage visitors to register or subscribe

• First-Party Data - Build your own audience database with complete ownership - no dependency on external platforms

• Member Management - Simple dashboard to view, manage, and understand your registered members and subscribers

• Built for Growth - Start with a basic registration wall and expand to paid subscriptions when you're ready—all without switching platforms

• Developer-Friendly - Extensible architecture with hooks, filters, and a clean API—customize every aspect or integrate with your existing tools and workflows

Overview

Anchor creates a standalone membership system with its own database tables, authentication flow, roles, and frontend pages. Members exist entirely separate from WordPress users and have no access to wp-admin.

Key Features:

• Custom database tables (ap_members, ap_member_meta, etc.)
• Token-based session authentication
• Email verification and password reset flows
• Role and capability system
• Client-side content metering (CDN-compatible)
• Theme-overridable templates

Background

Built for news publishers and content sites that need:

• Member accounts separate from WordPress admin users
• Scalable architecture (optimized for 50,000+ members)
• Flexible content access controls with metering
• CDN-friendly client-side access evaluation

Installation

1. Upload the anchor folder to /wp-content/plugins/
2. Activate the plugin through the WordPress admin
3. Visit Anchor > Settings to configure

The plugin automatically creates all required database tables on activation.

Configuration

Settings (Anchor > Settings)

• Registration: Enable/disable, default role, email verification
• Security: Password requirements, login lockout settings
• Redirects: Post-login and post-logout URLs

Content Access (Anchor > Content Access)

• Access Levels: Enable Public, Registered, and/or Subscriber tiers
• Metering: Limit free articles per period for anonymous/registered users
• Counting Rules: Which post types count, exemptions, time decay

Usage

Frontend URLs

Template Overrides

Copy templates from anchor/templates/ to your theme's anchor/ directory to customize.

Helper Functions

// Check if member is logged in
if ( anchor_is_member_logged_in() ) {
    $member = anchor_get_current_member();
}

// Get/set post access level
$level = anchor_get_post_access_level( $post_id ); // 'public', 'registered', 'subscriber'
anchor_set_post_access_level( $post_id, 'subscriber' );

// Check capabilities
if ( anchor_member_can( $member_id, 'subscriber_access' ) ) {
    // Premium content
}

Action & Filter Hooks

Anchor provides hooks for extending functionality.

Example Actions

// After successful registration
add_action( 'anchor_after_register', function( $member_id, $data ) {
    // Send to CRM, trigger welcome sequence, etc.
}, 10, 2 );

// After successful login
add_action( 'anchor_login_success', function( $member_id, $remember ) {
    // Log activity, update stats, etc.
}, 10, 2 );

Example Filters

// Customize login redirect
add_filter( 'anchor_login_redirect', function( $redirect, $member_id ) {
    return '/welcome/';
}, 10, 2 );

// Add custom password validation
add_filter( 'anchor_registration_errors', function( $errors, $data ) {
    if ( strlen( $data['password'] ) < 12 ) {
        $errors->add( 'weak_password', 'Password must be 12+ characters.' );
    }
    return $errors;
}, 10, 2 );

For the complete list of available hooks, see includes/hooks.php.

License

GPL v2 or later