Should I Switch to the MemberPress Cart?

The MemberPress cart is optional, and it is currently a beta feature. Your existing setup keeps working whether you enable it or not.

This document helps you decide if the cart fits your site. It explains what stays the same and what the cart adds. It also covers cases where your current setup remains the better choice.

For a feature description, check the Présentation du chariot MemberPress. For the transition steps, check the document on switching an existing site to the cart.

What Stays the Same

Standalone registration pages are a permanent MemberPress feature. They are fully supported with the cart on or off, now and going forward.

Enabling the cart changes nothing about your existing products by itself:

• each existing product keeps its standalone registration page and its current URL;
• existing member links, subscriptions, and recurring payments continue unchanged;
• content protection, member accounts, groups, and coupons work the same way.

The choice is also not all-or-nothing. Each membership product can sell through the cart or keep its own registration page. Digital products sell through the cart only.

One Decision That Is Permanent

You can enable the cart, test it, and turn it off again while no cart orders exist. Your checkout settings are saved while the cart is off. They are restored when you enable it again.

Once a customer completes the first cart purchase, the cart can no longer be disabled. Test the cart on a staging site first if you are unsure.

Keep one more limitation in mind. Digital products sell through the cart only, so customers cannot purchase them while it is off.

When the Cart Helps

The cart is designed for sites that sell more than one thing at a time. Enabling it helps in the following cases:

• Selling multiple products in one purchase. Customers add several products to the cart and pay once. Without the cart, each product requires a separate registration.
• Selling digital products. The cart introduces the Digital product type for one-time, non-recurring items alongside your memberships. Digital products sell through the cart only.
• Running a browsable storefront. The shop page lists your products in one place, with a cart icon in the ReadyLaunch™ header.
• One order per purchase. Each multi-item purchase creates a single order, with its own receipt, refund, and cancellation emails.
• Selling in multiple currencies. The cart adds multi-currency support with a currency switcher for your customers.

When Your Current Setup Is the Better Choice

It makes sense to keep the cart disabled in the following cases:

• Your primary gateway is PayPal, Authorize.net, or Square. The cart checkout supports Stripe and Offline Payment only. The other gateways process payments on standalone registration pages. Check the Paramètres de paiement MemberPress documentation for details.
• You sell one membership, or memberships bought one at a time. A single-product purchase gains little from a multi-item cart.
• Your registration pages are heavily customized. Custom signup flows keep working as they are. Moving a product into the cart replaces its purchase path with the cart checkout.
• You rely on order bumps on registration pages. Order bumps serve the standalone registration flow. Cart purchases use funnels for upsell offers instead.

Adopting the Cart Without Affecting Your Setup

You can adopt the cart step by step, with no effect on your current sales:

1. Test the cart on a staging copy of your site first.
2. Enable the cart in production only after testing. Your existing products continue selling through their registration pages.
3. Move individual products into the cart one at a time, as described in the switching document.
4. Keep any product on its standalone registration page permanently if that suits it better.

With this approach, the first cart order happens only when you deliberately move a product into the cart. Until then, every step remains reversible.