membershipbased website

[health3]

Hello all, I have been designing (looks only no programsing) websites for quite some time now, but I am wanting to make my own membership based site. I have been searching for days on how to do this but I just cant seem to figure it out. Here is what I'm wanting...
A page where they type in there informaiton, including their own user name and password, and they would then pick the plan they want to purchase, (i have both paypal and google merchant) Upon completeing the purchase, I would like the system to allow them instant access to the different areas of the site.

There will be different levels of membership, therefore different areas that are accessable. I would also like them to have a profile page but again, I can not find any help in searching the net.

Does anyone know of how i can accomplish this, or at least know of a site that can walk me through it.

[shadmego]

With the complexity of this project, I would recommend you look at using Joomla! as your core. You can look at Community Builder for your membership pages, and there are several subscription-based components you can use to restrict access to various sections of your site based on subscription levels.

Even using these available programs, set up might be a bit involved, but it would be better to do this than try to build an entire content/user management system from scratch.

www.joomla.org (Joomla! website)
www.joomlapolis.com (Community Builder website)

~regards, and welcome to the Community!

[sjlplat]

After writing a few custom content management systems myself, I'll have to agree with shadmego. If you're not an experienced with server-side scripting, a custom CMS is a huge undertaking. You might find Joomla modules that can achieve the results you desire.