Content Restriction

The Client Portal plugin creates a page for each of your WordPress users. You can edit this page from the users' list:

You can use the “Edit Page” button to add content to the user’s private page.

The main downside of this approach is that you can only have one page per client. So, if you want to add more content, you need to manually create subdivisions on that page.

However, you can use other plugins to overcome this limitation. For example, you can use a plugin such as WP tabs to create tabs on your page to replace a single long page with shorter tabs about each topic.

Customer Interaction

You can allow users to comment on private pages. But if you need more customer interaction, you’ll need to rely on other plugins to allow file uploads or add custom fields such as DOC comment attachments.

Pricing

It’s a free plugin with no paid add-ons.

The Verdict

Pros:

• Extremely lightweight
• You can create a client portal with a few clicks

Cons:

• Limited to one page per customer
• Limited customer interactions
• No custom login forms
• No payment collection

If you just want to share some private content with your users, this plugin is a great option because you can set up a private page for each of them in a few minutes. However, this plugin doesn't offer advanced features such as reusable content, multiple pages, or invoicing.

Content Restriction

You can use their client portal tool to create private content for your clients.

You can load profiles and custom fields to create a client dashboard, and you can generate invoices.

The SuiteDash plugin allows you to define granular control of what each user can see, including multiple access levels for each client.

Customer Interaction

You can use SuiteDash’s dynamic forms to allow customer interaction. You can also use them for contact updates, sales funnels, and general forms. Then, you can use triggers and automation to use form data to perform actions, update tasks, add comments, upload files, and perform any other type of client interaction you want.

Pricing

SuiteDash has a 14-day free trial and three subscription plans: start, thrive, and pinnacle. They start at $19/month, $180/year, or $970 lifetime, and they can cost as much as $99/mo, $960/year, or $4840 lifetime.

All their plans are suitable for client portals. The starter plan is great for prototyping and handling just a few clients/projects.

The thrive starter plan ($49/mo, $480/year, $$4840 lifetime) is a good option for prototyping and works fine for client portals.

The Thrive plan adds content drips and marketing features as well as advanced integrations such as signing contracts.

The pinnacle plan includes all the basic features along with some advanced ones such as task dependency logic or trigger automation.

The Verdict

Pros

• All functions you would expect from a client portal
• Customizable forms that allow creative uses for customer interaction
• Additional features that might be helpful such as CRM, autoresponders, live chat, and more

Cons

• It’s more complex to get started than just installing a WordPress plugin
• You don’t control the data sources or databases, as the data is hosted by SuiteDash
• There are no free plans

SuiteDash is a complete solution for client portals. It comes with all the issues of using a self-hosted platform: a higher price, slow development, and doesn't fully integrate with your other systems.

Therefore, if you can pay the price, it is a good option to get started quickly.

Content Restriction

You can use Clinked’s workspace to control what your customers see. Furthermore, you can assign different groups to each of your customers, allowing them to see data only about their projects.

You can create activity streams that display real-time updates of activities. In addition, you can use mobile notifications to let customers know the latest updates about tasks, file uploads, documents, and invoices.

Customer Interaction

Customers can interact with the pages you assign them to. They can use comments, votes, forms, and even live chat to communicate with your team.

Pricing

Clinked plans start at $99 per month with discounts for yearly and 2-year prepayments. The prices you see here are for yearly payments.

The lite plan costs $64/mo and is limited to 100 members and 100GB. Therefore, if you don’t have a lot of clients, this is the best option for you.

The standard plan is $162/mo. It allows up to 1Tb of data storage.

The premium plan allows you to add up to 250 customers to your portal and have storage of up to 3GB.

The enterprise plan can cost up to $648/mo, allowing up to 1,000 members and 5TB storage.

The Verdict

Pros

• Packed with unique features that you won’t easily find in other options. You can see a lot of them on the plugin forums.
• Works like a project management tool, in addition to a client portal

Cons

• It’s the most expensive option on this list with no free plan
• Features like tasks and calendar aren’t included in the Lite plan and cost up to $249 per month
• No invoicing options
• Your data is hosted on their servers, so nothing is stored in your WordPress website

Clinked is a great option for customer communication and project management. It is more expensive than most alternatives, and it might lack some tools such as invoicing that you would expect in a client portal. Either way, it could work well if you have some use for the other elements of SuiteDash such as sales funnel management.

Content Restriction

It is very quick to create new private pages, and you can control which user sees them. In addition, it automatically links the private pages of a given customer in the client area. Therefore, you don’t need to manually send links to customers, as they can see it automatically when they log in.

Customer Interaction

Clients can use conversations to communicate with your team. In addition, they can use the tasks feature to add new tasks. Customers can view and pay invoices as well.

Pricing

The plugin is free, and some features (such as the conversations add-on) are sold from $30 to $50 for a one-year license for a single website.

The Verdict

Pros

• The free version contains a lot of features
• The add-ons aren’t expensive
• It is very easy to set up

Cons

• There’s no communication module on the free version, so you are limited to using page and post comments
• Even with the communication module, customer interaction is limited

The WP Customer Area is a simple solution that requires minimal setup and creates a customer portal automatically. It lacks a bit in terms of customer interaction though.

Content Restriction

As you would expect from a ticket system, content is private out of the box.

You can use SupportCandy to hold multipurpose docs as well including pages that are available to all customers, yet hidden from other visitors.

Customer Interaction

Customers can interact with your website using the ticket system. You can change how features are named, so customers will see projects or tasks instead of tickets; otherwise, clients might get confused.

Your clients can upload files and text, and there are add-ons to allow customer interaction via email directly.

Pricing

There is a free plan, and there are add-ons ranging from $59 year to $149 per year.

The starter plan costs $59. It works fine, but it might feel limited due to the missing integrations as well as the lack of reporting options.

The Verdict

Pros:

• Contains all the features you need in a client portal
• Includes email integration, time trackers, FAQ builders, and knowledge base creator
• Works well with other WordPress plugins such as WooCommerce, Gravity Forms, and EDD

Cons:

• The entire branding and plugin strings refer to support tickets, so you need to change that or explain to your clients why it’s designed like that

If you can get past the support ticket naming, it is a great tool to build customer portals. In addition to its features, it has an active community and happy users.

Content Restriction

It allows you to control exactly which customers can see which pages. Therefore, you can control not just which pages each client sees, but create sub-divisions in case you have more than one WordPress user for a single client.

Customer Interaction

This plugin doesn’t include additional customer interaction features.

You can use comments on WordPress pages or use other plugins to improve what kind of content clients can add to their comments. For example, you can use plugins to allow better-nested replies for threads and file uploads in comments.

Pricing

The plugin itself is free to use, but it has paid add-ons that cost between $29 and $49 for one website usage.

For example, you might want to use the “Membership Form Builder Addon.” This add-on costs $69 and includes resources required for rewrites or new articles.

The Verdict

Pros

• Extensive content restriction controls
• Easy to use
• Quick setup
• The free version is enough for most client portals

Cons

• Limited customer interaction features
• Manual work when it comes to creating client pages and linking them internally

The Simple Membership plugin is useful if you want to deal with big teams, and you want to control what each user can see even within a single membership tier (one client). This plugin isn’t a good option if you need to rely on customer interactions, as it uses WordPress comments.

Content Restriction

Customers can see quotes, invoices, transactions, files, profiles, tasks, and support tickets.

You can extend it with some code and create new custom sections for your client portal.

Customer Interaction

There is very little customer interaction out of the box. Users can see data, but they can only interact with tasks and their own profile by default.

You can use some custom code and integrate it with a ticket system or even custom posts to allow users to interact via comments.

Pricing

Jetpack CRM is free, but there are paid add-ons. To implement a client portal you need the “Client Portal Pro” add-on. It costs $79, and there’s a bundle in case you want to get all add-ons for $199 a year.

The Verdict

Pros:

• Very well-built with great features for a CRM
• It’s easy to extend the plugin in case you have a developer on your team
• There is robust support for invoicing and payment providers

Cons:

• Customers can’t interact with projects directly
• The entire setup is quite complex since you are creating a full CRM, not just a client portal

The Jetpack CRM is a great option if you are looking for something beyond a client portal. In addition to managing projects, you can manage your contacts as well.