My honest review about this membership plugin from over 7 years of use (and still counting). It does some things well and lacks in others. I’ve written about DAP before here and here. Here are the quick facts, pros and cons about DAP:
PROS of DAP membership plugin:
- MINIMAL CHECKOUT – this will always and forever be the #1 reason why I chose DAP. It allows your customer to purchase items from you without having to go through a “checkout” process. There are no forms to fill, names or addresses, etc. Just one button, your buyer goes straight to PayPal. This is ideal if you don’t want unnecessary screens showing cart info, quantity, etc. You simply want them to pay before they change their mind! With DAP, you can have a minimal checkout AND sales tracked on the backend. (Easy Digital Downloads aka “EDD” can do this as well!)
- SPEED – Dap is very fast and will never slow down your WordPress site. It’s isn’t one of those heavy plugins that load a dozen JS/CSS scripts on every page of your site. The database is separate from your WordPress installation and never mucks up your WordPress database tables. (This can actually be a pro and a con in itself.)
- FULL-FEATURED – this is a debatable quality depending on who you talk to. For the most part, DAP can do what you need. It can secure your site content and protect files, do “content-dripping”, bundle and upgrade products, coupon codes, integrates well with email services, different payment processors. The issue lies on how difficult it is to set up everything you need (more on this later).
- GREAT SUPPORT – the support I’ve received from DAP and it’s owners Ravi & Veena have been pretty solid. They care about their plugin and put tons of work into there. There’s also a helpful Facebook group you can join. While I can’t say the support was absolutely perfect, they really do try and make you happy.
CONS of DAP Membership Plugin:
- NOT A WORDPRESS PLUGIN – doesn’t integrate with WordPress and is not built/coded in a WordPress-manner. It feels like you’re connecting an entirely different CMS into WordPress and applying htaccess hacks to make it work.
- ENCRYPTED CODE – what if you want a feature but DAP doesn’t offer it? Well, unlike other plugins, you can’t hack into DAP because the code is encrypted so you can’t see where and how different files are connected to each other. This is an even bigger problem when you’re getting hacked and have no idea how to secure DAP. Of course, DAP support told me they were 100% sure it wasn’t their plugin. But research “DAP PayPal IPN hack” on Google and you’ll see it’s a common problem. Also look through their blog and you’ll see they’ve implemented all sorts of security-hacks in case hackers DO get into your site.
- UGLY DESIGN – ugly design everywhere. Everything from the backend admin area to the frontend forms are ugly and/or require lots of customization to look polished. I can appreciate developers being more focused on functionality rather than design but I expected more from a premium plugin to be honest. Take a look at their website design and if that doesn’t bother you, their plugin is about as the same.
- CONFUSING INTERFACE – I hate when you have to “learn” how to use a plugin. Their settings options are full of hidden panels and what not. Some areas are confusingly separated away from others. Some areas are confusingly combined with others. You’ll spend lots of time clicking around and trying to remember where a certain setting was. It’s not SO hard to get used to but can be a pain in the ass every time you create a new product. I spent the time to learn it but boy did I enjoy using other plugins so much more.
- CONFUSING DOCUMENTATION – try doing something as simple as “upgrade DAP” and you’ll have to click back and forth between numerous pages. First, you have to read a page to figure out what version you’re using, then you’ll have to update to the next major version, then update to the latest minor version. I wouldn’t mind clicking around if the documentation was laid out nicely, but instead it’s more like a giant page with endless links and buttons and looks like it was designed in the 1990’s. (This is the improved version, mind you.)
- PROBLEM WITH FOREIGN CHARACTERS – this is one of the most frustrating issues and quite ridiculous, to be honest. Every time I get a new customer who’s name has accent marks, DAP doesn’t process the order. Then I get email complaints and even PayPal complaints. I’ve told DAP support about this and they never helped beside asking me basic questions to isolate the issue. Anyway…I wouldn’t recommend DAP if you have customers with Spanish, French, or Portuguese names, that’s for sure.
- INSECURE (I GOT HACKED) – in all my 10+ years of using WordPress, I have never had a site hacked until last year via DAP. DAP says their plugin is absolutely secure. Two high-level programmers told me it isn’t. Just about every other programmer I’ve worked with has told me they hated DAP. One even offered to migrate me to any another membership plugin free of charge. Their coding is full of security flaws and just not done to proper practices. Read the DAP blog carefully and you can tell they have major problems with security.
- CONFLICTS WITH PLUGINS – DAP will absolutely not work with all plugins. I don’t know the science behind it but I’m guessing it has to do with not actually being a WordPress plugin and also having conflicting htaccess rules. At this moment DAP’s required Livelink plugin is breaking WPML functionality.
- CONFLICTS WITH CDN/CACHING – DAP’s default htaccess rules will work for 99% of you out of the box. But try to enable caching and you’ll realize it conflicts with DAP. Either things won’t work or certain users will see each other’s information, etc. Another issue is that DAP’s htaccess lines may inadvertently prevent your CDN/server from caching certain files. You’ll have to do some extra tuning to get things working right but it is possible.
- REQUIRES HTACCESS – DAP will not work on every hosting environment. It requires htaccess, which means a few drawbacks. One is that you have to be manage your htaccess file and make sure it secures things the way you want without conflicting with other plugins. The other thing is that you can’t use faster web servers like NGINX (that don’t use htaccess). DAP will also not work with some webhosts (as expected).
- POOR EMAIL COMPATIBILITY – I tried installing a 3rd-party email plugin…NOPE! DAP had taken over the WordPress email function. Support tells me I need to use SMTP through their plugin settings instead…(this is frustrating mind you, because I can’t use my email plugin for the usual WordPress emails)…so I try it and it simply doesn’t work. I entered the SMTP info over and over again with no luck. As a last resort, I followed DAP’s documentation for getting Amazon SES and that worked although it felt like another hack in itself.
- LACKS FEATURES – doesn’t have features that other plugins have. This isn’t a fair con since it isn’t DAP’s fault. But I do find other plugins do a better job of offering many different settings/options regarding payment, content protection, membership upgrades, integration with 3rd-party tools, and overall ease-of-use.
- OUTDATED CODE – DAP is really slow to use the latest PHP version. Their development and userbase seems to be a year or two behind other plugin companies. It’s a huge turnoff if you want the best performance and security.
DAP feels like a giant hack
All in all, I think DAP was very well-intended. And I still use it on 2 of my sites today because it isn’t easy to migrate thousands of users away (EDIT: I’m migrating away right now as of 2018). I have, however built all my newer sites on other plugins (each with their own shortcomings) and have been much happier.
DAP was ahead of everyone else when I first installed it 7 years ago but now feels like an old car with a new paint job and lots of “repairs”. IMO, it needs to be rebuilt from scratch but they’ve got too many users to support and too much money being made, so I understand.
If you want my professional opinion, do not use it. You and your developers will hate it. If you don’t believe me…just see for yourself. Install DAP alongside any other modern membership plugin and the decision is a no-brainer.
- 2018 update – they are STILL having security problems. https://www.digitalaccesspass.com/blog/2018/06/important-dap-security-password-update/
Want a real membership plugin?
Try MemberPress.
Digital Access Pass has been nothing but an absolute pain since purchasing it a few months back.
The product itself just doesn’t work, but what really annoys me is the support. I’ve paid for a whole year of email support but it’s all a lie because they’re constantly upselling you to buy even more support all the time.
For example, when I first purchased DAP a few months ago, it broke my site and my customers couldn’t get access to their purchase.
So I reached out to DAP and asked for assistance but they said they would only help me unless I paid the $30 installation fee. I explained to them I’ve purchased a full year of email support and they can just tell me what I need to do instead – but after exchanging a few emails – I realised they wouldn’t help until I paid the installation fee, so I coughed up the doe.
By accident, I made a duplicate payment for the installation. I contacted DAP and they said they would refund me the duplicate payment the next day… But they never did.
Then, after they logged into my site to install DAP, I tested it to see if it was working but DAP still wasn’t working. I contacted DAP about this but they became increasingly distant with me and started answering my emails less and less.
At one point, they even started to blame my hosting by saying I needed to deactivate a major security setting to make DAP work and I had to speak to my hosting provider about it.
So I spoke to my hosting provider and they told me they can’t deactivate it because it’s an important security feature and it’s not fair to others on the same server I’m on
Anyway, long story short, I ended up moving the entire site to a new server with this major security feature deactivated. This wasn’t cheap nor easy but I figured if it made DAP work, it would be worth it.
Did it fix DAP? Nope, not at all. In fact, it did absolutely nothing and I was still having the same issue as before.
I reported back to DAP and it took them a whole 26 days to reply to my email. And you know what they said to me? They told me I needed to purchase a 1 hour Skype chat so they can troubleshoot the issue.
I told them I wasn’t going to pay anymore and I’ll stick with the email support I paid for. I also asked for the refund on the duplicate payment, and guess what, and I haven’t heard back from since.
I have been nothing but polite and patient with them throughout the entire process too. It just shocks me they can treat their customers like this, it really does.
Anyhow, I ended up writing a review of my experience using DAP which you can checkout by clicking on my name from this comment if you want the full sordid details I’ve had to endure with dealing with DAP.
Awesome post anyway – wish I saw this before purchasing DAP. Oh well, everyday’s a School day, I guess…
Holy cow, James. I’m very sorry to hear they’ve stooped to this. They were much better when I was still using it. Honestly…if the product needs that much support on its own, that’s kind of a scammy business scheme in its own right. Every other membership plugin is so much more polished and mature now. DAP feels like a weird hacked membership CMS trying to leech onto WordPress. No wonder it’s not secure or easy to use.
Jesus, just re-read my comment and I’m embarrassed by the amount of typos I’ve made.
That’s what you get when you rage-type first thing in the morning without your morning hit of caffeine.
Anyhow, I’m going to take your advice and probably give MemberPress a whirl. Hopefully that’ll pan out better than the clusterf@#k that was Digital Access Pass.
DAP always worked well for me. It was hell to learn, but once I taught myself how to use it, things went very well. Do you still dislike it? Would you recommend I try MemberPress instead even though already know how to use DAP? Thanks in advance.
Unless I change my words…all opinions are the same if not more stronger now.
Sorry to hear. Well it was good while it lasted. Took my biz to next level back in the day. I sold tip sheets for horse races and automating the process was a game changer.