WooCommerce user approval: how to accept or reject new registrations

Do you want the option to approve or reject new user registrations? This article on WooCommerce user approval will show you how.

User approval in WooCommerce

In most WooCommerce stores, user registrations would be automatically approved. However, in certain circumstances such as membership sites or wholesale stores, you might want the ability to approve or reject users.

Luckily, the WooCommerce Members Only membership plugin gives you a number of options around user approval.

In this article we’ll look at how to:

• Enable user approval in WooCommerce
• Accept or reject new user registrations
• Prevent pending or rejected users from logging in
• Enable multiple user roles
• Set different default user roles
• Prevent users from being automatically logged in when they register

And for more information about user roles in WooCommerce, read this article.

How to enable user approval in WooCommerce

By default, there’s no user approval in WooCommerce. If a user registers, they are automatically approved and assigned the role of “Customer”.

But you might want to review users before they are accepted onto the site. To enable WooCommerce user approval:

• Install and activate the WooCommerce Members Only plugin
• Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Members Only > Registration
• Check the ‘Enable User Approval’ option

Now user approval is enabled.

The user approval process

With user approval enabled, every time a new user registers on your WooCommerce site, you’ll get an email informing you of the new registration – with a link to approve or reject the user.

The new user’s role will be set to ‘Pending’ until you have accepted or rejected their registration.

How to approve or reject new user registrations in WooCommerce

When you click the link in the email, you’ll be taken to the user’s profile page on your site. There you’ll see the options to approve or reject the new user.

If you click ‘Approve this user’, the new user’s role will be set to the default user role (normally ‘Customer’ but see below for changing the default WooCommerce user role).

If you click ‘Reject this user’ the user’s role will be set to ‘Rejected’.

WooCommerce account settings for user approvals

Users are normally registered through WooCommerce in two places: either by manually registering from the Account page; or automatically when they check out.

If you want to ensure that users must register for your site before they can make a purchase:

• Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Accounts & Privacy
• Ensure the ‘Allow customers to place orders without an account’ is deselected

You should also ensure that the following settings are also deselected:

• ‘Allow customers to create an account during checkout’
• ‘Allow customers to create an account on the “My account” page’

How to prevent pending users from logging in

If you are running a membership site, you might want to prevent users from accessing products or other content before you have approved their registration.

To do this, you can prevent pending users from logging in:

• Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Members Only > Registration
• Select the ‘Prevent Pending Users’ option.

Now, user whose accounts have not been approved yet will be prevented from logging in.

Take a look here for how to assign different prices in WooCommerce according to user roles.

How to prevent rejected users from logging in

Once you’ve rejected a user’s registration, you might want to prevent them from logging into the site.

To prevent rejected users from logging in:

• Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Members Only > Registration
• Select the ‘Prevent Rejected Users’ option.

How to change the default WooCommerce user roles

The default WooCommerce user role is ‘Customer’. Whenever a new user registers, they’re assigned the role of ‘Customer’.

If you’d like to set a different default WooCommerce user role:

• Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Members Only > Registration
• Enter one or more roles in the ‘Default User Roles’

Note that you can enter more than one user role.

You should also see this article for how to automatically assign user roles after purchasing a product in WooCommerce.

How to enable multiple user roles in WooCommerce

By default, users are only assigned one user role in WordPress. However, if you’re running a membership site or similar, you might want to give your users more than one role at a time.

To enable multiple user roles in WooCommerce:

• Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Members Only > Registration
• Select the ‘Enable Multiple Roles’ option.

How to disable automatic log-in on registration in WooCommerce

Finally, if you are using the WooCommerce user approval feature, you might want to prevent users from being logged in automatically when they register.

The default behaviour for WooCommerce is to automatically log users in as soon as they register. If you’d like to disable automatic log-in after registration in WooCommerce:

• Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Members Only > Registration
• Select the ‘Prevent Auto Log-in’ option

Enabling WooCommerce user approval – a recap

So, with the options we’ve outlined above, you can easily enable user approval in WooCommerce.

We looked at:

• Enabling user approval in WooCommerce
• Accepting or rejecting new user registrations
• Preventing pending or rejected users from logging in
• Enabling multiple user roles
• Setting different default user roles
• Preventing users from being automatically logged in when they register

All you need is the WooCommerce Members Only plugin.