Tired of boring user dashboards in your WordPress sites?
What if you could give your users a full-featured, beautifully styled profile page – complete with custom tabs, dynamic content, and personalized greetings?
In this guide, we’ll show you how to do exactly that (without touching a line of code).
By the end of this guide, you’ll learn how to:
- Create a custom My Account page – a real WordPress user dashboard
- Add and customize tabs (including smart tags and shortcodes)
- Style the layout and design with ease
Profile Page vs. Profile Picture vs. Profile Plugin: What Do You Need?
“User profile page” gets used for three different things on WordPress sites, and each one has its own fix. Here’s how to tell which one you actually need before you install anything.
- Building or customizing the full My Account dashboard – tabs, layout, styling, and content. That’s exactly what this guide walks you through.
- Just adding a profile photo or avatar for your users? That’s a smaller job than a full dashboard rebuild. See our guide on how to add a profile picture to WordPress users instead.
- Still shopping for a plugin and haven’t committed to one yet? Compare the best WordPress user profile plugins side by side before you build anything.
- Want members to actually finish filling out their profile once it exists? See our guide on showing profile completeness in WordPress user profiles.
- Need to let members delete their own account or manage their data? See our guide on letting users delete their account on a WordPress membership site.
If you’ve already settled on User Registration & Membership and want to build the dashboard itself, keep reading.
Creating your custom User Profile Page in WordPress
To build a personalized and dynamic user profile experience in WordPress, we’ll be using the User Registration plugin by ThemeGrill. This powerful plugin offers both free and premium features to help you build a complete frontend profile system — no coding necessary.
With it, you can create a registration form, My Account page, and even customize tabs, layouts, and styles to match your website’s design. From simple personal dashboards to advanced membership-style profiles, User Registration has everything you need to make it happen.
Prefer watching over reading? Here’s the full video walkthrough — or skip straight to the steps below.
💡 Tip: Start with the free version if you need basic registration and profile features. Upgrade to Pro when you’re ready to unlock full customization.
Step 1: Install the User Registration & Membership Plugin for WordPress
First, you need to install the User Registration & Membership. You can find the free version in the WordPress plugin repository.
The free version allows you to create a simple user profile page. However, you must buy the Plus or Professional plan to customize it further using the Customize My Account add-on.
Here’s exactly where the free version stops and Pro picks up, so you know what you’re getting before you install anything:
| Feature | Free | Pro (Plus/Professional) |
|---|---|---|
| Default tabs (Dashboard, Edit Profile, Edit Password, Logout) | Yes | Yes |
| Custom CSS styling | Manual only | Yes |
| Add/edit custom tabs (Customize My Account) | No | Yes |
| Style Customizer (colors, fonts, layout) | No | Yes |
| Custom fields on profile | Basic field types | Yes, plus Advanced Fields add-on |
| Endpoint and Link tab types | No | Yes |
Still weighing your options at this stage? Our roundup of the best WordPress user profile plugins compares User Registration against the other major players.
After that, you can install, activate, and configure the plugin.
You can find a detailed guide on installing and setting up the User Registration plugin here.
Comparing plugins before you commit? Our roundup of the 10 best WordPress user registration plugins breaks down how User Registration stacks up against the alternatives.
Step 2. Creating My Account/User Profile Page
User Registration & Membership plugin will automatically create the following frontend user management pages, essential for a complete user profile system:
- A registration form
- A registration page
- A My Account (user profile) page
Once you’ve installed User Registration Pro and the Customize My Account add-on, you can start creating your custom user profile page.
Under the hood, this My Account page is really a custom user dashboard for WordPress — a private area only logged-in users can see. It ships with four tabs by default:
- Dashboard – the landing screen of the user dashboard, with a welcome message and links to the other tabs
- Edit Profile
- Edit Password
- User Logout
You can customize this WordPress dashboard for users the same way you customize any other tab: toggle Modify Default Content on the Dashboard endpoint (Step 3) to swap in your own text, stats, or shortcodes, then restyle it with the Style Customizer (Step 4). There’s no separate “dashboard builder” — it uses the exact same tools as every other tab.
If you’re using the free version, this provides the core profile builder functionality — ideal for basic sites that need a simple front-end user profile solution. You can style it manually with custom CSS.
To go further — adding more tabs, custom content, icons, links, and layout changes — you’ll need to activate Customize My Account and Style Customizer add-ons, which are available in Plus and Professional plans.
Step 3. Add and Edit Custom Tabs on Your WordPress User Profile Page
To add and customize sections on the user profile pages, you need to enable the Customize My Account add-on from User Registration & Membership > Addons.
After you install and activate this add-on, go to the User Registration >> Settings tab. Then, click on the My Account > Customize My Account section to view existing tabs and their settings.
i. Add New Sections to the Custom User Profile Page:
You can add additional sections to your user profile page by clicking on the Add New button at the top right corner.
You’ll see two options for field type here:
- Endpoint: A tab with custom content inside the profile page
- Link: A tab that redirects users to another page or site
Select the type of field you want to add.
After selecting, click OK. Then, head down and press Save Changes.
ii. Edit Tabs on the User Profile Page:
You can edit the fields and content of each tab of the user profile or My Account page. Since there are two field types, their settings are different.
Endpoint
First, let’s view the settings for the Endpoint.
- Endpoint Slug: The unique URL slug used to identify the tab. It must be distinct.
- Endpoint Label: The visible name of the tab shown to users.
- Endpoint Icon: Choose an icon from the available set to visually represent the tab.
- Access Control: Choose whether to restrict or allow access for specific user roles.
- Modify Default Content: For default tabs like Dashboard, you can toggle this to customize their content.
- Custom Content Placement: Decide where the tab content appears within the layout.
- Override Endpoint Content: Toggle this to completely replace the default tab content.
- Endpoint Custom Content: Use the WYSIWYG editor or HTML editor to add rich text, media, forms, and more.
Links
Contrarily, Links have settings of their own. Here, we’ve created a link tab named “WooCommerce.”
- Link URL (for External Site): Paste the full URL to an external destination.
- Select Page (for Internal Page): Choose an existing WordPress page on your site.
- Link Label: Set the visible name of the link tab.
- Restrict to User Roles: Choose which roles can view this link tab.
- Open in New Tab: Enable this to have the link open in a new browser tab.
After creating a link, it appears in the list of tabs on the left sidebar with other endpoints. All other configuration options (label, icon, role restriction) remain similar to endpoint tabs
🧪 Tip: Use the “Link” tab type to direct users to external platforms like YouTube or internal pages like WooCommerce orders.
iii. Populate Tab Content
Once an endpoint is created, you can populate its content using the WYSIWYG editor under the Endpoint Custom Content option
- Static Text and Media: Use the WYSIWYG editor to add headings, body text, images, videos, or formatted content.
- Smart Tags: Dynamically display user-specific data like their name (
{{user_display_name}}), email, or profile picture. - Shortcodes: Embed forms, order details, or dashboards from other plugins (like Everest Forms or WooCommerce).
- Custom HTML: Insert HTML for layouts, lists, or even embed iframe-based tools.
💡 Example: Add a “Downloads” tab, populate it with shortcodes or links, and assign it a download icon for better UX. Restrict it to paying users.
iv. Rearrange Tabs on the User Profile Page
You can change the position of the tab by simply dragging and dropping the tab to the desired position.
v. Disable and Delete User Profile Tabs:
To hide a tab, turn off the Enabled option. You can also easily delete a tab if you don’t need it.
Step 4. Style the User Profile Page Appearance
The custom design options for user profile are included under User Registration & Membership’s Style Customizer add-on. All you have to do is activate the add-on from User Registration & Membership >> Addons.
With the Style Customizer add-on activated, go to: User Registration & Membership > Settings > Customize My Account > Advanced Settings.
Then, you can click on the Load Style Customizer button.
You will be redirected to the live editing panel similar to the WordPress customizer. There are 6 editing tabs which include:
- Wrapper: Background color, border, padding, radius
- Typography: Heading and link colors
- Navigation: Background, width, hover styles
- Forms: Input field styling, label font, colors
- Buttons: Colors, font size, padding, hover effects
- Additional CSS: Add your own custom styles for full control
You can change the styling of your User Profile page as per your requirements from these tabs and make them unique.
Once you are done, you can save the changes.
Step 5: Send Private Notes to Your Users
Once your user profile page is set up, you can also use it to communicate directly with your users. The Private Notes add-on lets you send a note to a user’s profile, private or public, and they can reply right from their dashboard.
Enable Private Notes from the addon menu and go Private Notes and click Add New. Choose your audience: all users, specific roles, or individual users.
Write your note, and turn on replies if you want users to respond.
This works well for account-specific updates like a payment issue or missing document, without a separate support inbox or email thread.
Step 6: Test the Custom WordPress Profile Page Like a Real User
Create a test account and register using your form. Try:
- Uploading a profile photo (via the Advanced Fields add-on)
- Logging in through the My Account page
- Navigating between tabs
- Editing profile info or password
- Sending messages, files and broadcasts using Private Notes
- Logging out
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I customize the user profile page without the paid add-on? Yes, to a point. The free version gives you the default My Account page with its four built-in tabs (Dashboard, Edit Profile, Edit Password, Logout), and you can restyle it with your own CSS. Adding new tabs, custom content, icons, or the visual Style Customizer requires the Customize My Account add-on, which comes with the Plus and Professional plans.
How is a WordPress profile page different from a profile picture or avatar? A profile page is the entire My Account dashboard — the tabs, layout, and content a logged-in user sees. A profile picture, or avatar, is just one small piece inside it: the image shown next to a user’s name. If a photo upload is all you’re after, our guide to adding profile pictures in WordPress is a faster path than building a full custom page.
Can I add custom fields to the WordPress user profile page? Yes. Custom fields — like phone number, company, or a short bio — can be added to your registration form and then shown on the profile page’s Edit Profile tab. The free version supports basic field types, while the Advanced Fields add-on (Pro) unlocks file uploads, date pickers, and other advanced field types.
Does this work with Elementor or other page builders? Yes. The My Account page itself is just a regular WordPress page, so you can build the page around it — header, footer, surrounding sections — with Elementor or any other page builder. The tabs, styling, and content covered in this guide come from User Registration’s own shortcode/block and work the same no matter what built the rest of the page.
Summing it Up!
That’s it! You’ve now created a custom user profile page in WordPress with dynamic tabs, personalized content, and complete styling flexibility.
The User Registration & Membership plugin acts as a powerful WordPress profile builder, making it easy to design an intuitive My Account area your users will love.
➡️ Ready to try it yourself? Sign up for the User Registration & Membership demo for a practical hands-on.