Subscriber (Role)

What is a WordPress Subscriber?

The Subscriber role is the most restrictive user role that exists in WordPress. Subscribers cannot manage any part of the site, and are usually not even part of your organization.

Unlike all other WordPress user roles, Subscribers cannot edit any of your website’s content. All they can really do is manage their Profile page, which consists of:

Name
Username
Email Address
Website (if they have one)
Biography
Profile Picture
Password

Who should be a WordPress Subscriber?

A few common uses for the Subscriber role include:

A prerequisite for posting comments on the site
A way to display subscriber-only content
A method of collecting an email address to use later for marketing purposes

WordPress Subscriber’s Capabilities

Example nav menu when a Subscriber is logged into WordPress

Here is a list of capabilities that a WordPress Subscriber has.

Dashboard

Can view the “Activity” and “WordPress News & Events” Dashboard widgets

Profile

Can edit their own profile

WordPress Dashboard Activity & News/Events widgets — Example Dashboard that a Subscriber will see when logged into WordPress

Here’s an example of what the Subscriber role CANNOT do:

no access to any site wide Settings
no access to Themes or Plugins
no access to the Posts or Pages screen
no access to the Users screen
no access to the Comments screen
no access to the Media screen (cannot upload files)
cannot import or export content