New Membership Block Coming to Jetpack, Site Health and Debug Info Added to Version 7.3

Jetpack 7.3 was released yesterday with changes that improve the “out of the box” experience. The plugin now enables fewer features on setup so users can have more control over what they activate on their sites.

The new version also integrates with WordPress 5.2’s new Site Health checks. It includes a status check and moves Jetpack’s legacy debug data to a section in the new “Site Health Info” tab. The initial status check isn’t very descriptive regarding critical errors, but these error messages can be improved in future iterations so users know how to get to a page with more information.

New Membership Block Now Available for Jetpack Beta Testers

Jetpack is getting ready to introduce a new Membership block that will essentially function like a recurring donation button using Stripe as the payment gateway.

Users will be able to set the currency, price, product name, and renewal interval directly within the block.

This release adds the new block behind the JETPACK_BETA_BLOCKS constant for users who are beta testing new blocks. Feedback from testers will be addressed in future pull requests. The PR merged into Jetpack 7.3 includes the following technical additions for the new Membership block:

Introduce endpoints that communicate with WP.COM

Whitelist certain options, CPTs and meta to store / sync data

Introduce Gutenberg block that uses these endpoints and provides UI to connect to Stripe, create and choose a product

Introduce a frontend of a block with the sole purpose of displaying a checkout window from WP.com in an iframe

In its current form, the use of the term “Membership” for the block might be a bit misleading for some users, depending on their expectations. Site owners usually expect more granular management of members, multiple membership tiers, customizable emails, various renewal options, content access, and more for managing memberships.

Unless Jetpack intends to make this the gateway to more robust membership capabilities, then “Recurring donation/payment button” might be a more accurate name for the block. However, it wouldn’t be surprising to see a more full-featured Membership module turn up as a SaaS product from WordPress.com, as opposed to everything getting packed into the plugin.

No release date has been announced for the membership block as it is still under active development and in the very early stages of beta testing.

Check out the full changelog to see all the enhancements and bug fixes in Jetpack 7.3.