A: Hi Docartsumo,

Great question — happy to walk you through what works.

Subdomains + WordPress

Yes, this works. You control your domain's DNS, so you can run your store at your main domain (or a subdomain like shop.yourdomain.com) and put WordPress on another subdomain like community.yourdomain.com or members.yourdomain.com. We don't host WordPress for you, but the subdomain setup is on your DNS side — no platform restrictions. From there you can add a link in your store's navigation menu so customers move between the two surfaces naturally.

Blog

You don't need WordPress for blogging — LaunchMyStore has a full native blog built in:

Multiple blogs per store (e.g. "News", "Guides", "Customer Stories")
Articles with author, tags, featured image, SEO settings
Comments and moderation as per theme
Landing pages
Fully styled by your theme
If blogging is the main thing you wanted from WordPress, you can skip the WordPress setup entirely and keep everything in one place easier to manage, faster to load, and one less subscription to pay.

Membership and forum

These two aren't built-in today, and we don't yet have a one-click app for either in the marketplace. Three honest options depending on how much community you actually need:

Light community — turn on Foundry Reviews from our marketplace for photo reviews and Q&A on your product pages, and Glow Loyalty & Rewards for a points/tier system that customers can join. These two together cover a lot of what merchants ask for when they say "community features" — discussions on products, rewards for repeat buyers, recognition for loyal customers. No external hosting needed, no developer needed, takes about 15 minutes to install both.

External forum/membership on a subdomain — if you want a true forum and gated membership area, host them separately and link to them from your store. Common picks for non-technical owners:

Circle (circle.so) — clean modern community platform, no setup, no plugins, around $49/month. Includes member tiers, gated spaces, posts, comments, events.
Discourse (discourse.org) — open-source forum, hosted option around $20/month. The classic forum experience.
WordPress + MemberPress + bbPress — what you originally suggested. Works fine, more moving parts, requires some maintenance on your end.
You'd run any of these on community.yourdomain.com and link to it from your store nav. Customers register there separately (single sign-on between the two is possible but takes a developer to set up).

A custom-built membership app for your store specifically — gated products, tier-based pricing, member-only content rendered right in your storefront. This needs a developer (yours or one from our partners network) and typically takes 3-5 days. Let us know if you want us to scope this and we'll send you partner options.

Recommendation for your situation

Without knowing the scale, I'd suggest:

Use our native blog (no plugin needed).
Install Foundry Reviews + Glow Loyalty from the marketplace today.
If after a few weeks you still feel you need a real forum and members area, set up Circle on community.yourdomain.com — easiest path with no technical work.
If you grow into wanting a custom membership tier experience inside the store, reply here and we'll connect you with a partner who can build it.