14 Options for Managing Membership Websites
Published in Web DevelopmentMembership websites have increased in popularity in recent years. They present an excellent income opportunity for the site owner and a great value (depending on the content) for users. If you have thought about setting up a membership site but weren’t sure where to get started, here is a look at 14 options that will allow you to get started with your own membership site.
AMember
AMember is probably the most popular choice for managing a membership site. It is ideally suited for sites that sell digital downloads. A built in two-tier affiliate program is included, as well as many other features including free installation, easy web-based administration, automated signups and expirations and more. The price of AMember is $179.95.
WishList Member WordPress Plugin
WishList Member is a premium plugin that can help you build a membership site powered by WordPress. It allows you to establish multiple levels of membership and features easy member management, secure RSS feeds, and much more. Because it is a WordPress plugin, installation is quick and easy. A single-site licnese costs $97 and a multi-site (unlimited) license is $297.
Instant Member
Instant Member allows you to set up multiple levels of membership and includes an affiliate program, plus loads of other features. You can set up coupon codes and trial memberships. The price is a one-time fee of $147.
Easy Member Pro
Easy Member Pro includes a wide range of features for managing your membership site, the rights to use it on unlimited domains, and a built-in affiliate program to promote your membership site. It includes a content management system, templates for page layouts, plus all the features needed for member management. The cost is a one-time payment of $97.
ProfileManagerPremium
ProfileManagerPremium includes many features for membership sites including, newsletters for your members, member profiles, multiple membership types, and much more. One unique feature is that members can upload pictures, video or other content. The cost is $199 and includes free installation.
SubHub
SubHub is managed software that will allow you to set up a membership site that includes articles, forums, audio and video, and downloads. It includes a content management system and a single administration panel to manage the site. The cost is $97 per month or $997 per year (14-day free trial is available).
MemberSmart Pro
MemberSmart Pro is fully-featured membership software that includes unlimited levels of membership, email administration, payment and income reports, and more. WordPress and Joomla pulgins are available. The cost of MemberSmart Pro is $179, or $249 for MemberSmart Pro plus a WordPress or Joomla plugin.
MemberWing
MemberWing is a premium plugin for using WordPress to power your membership site. It includes a number of features including gradual content delivery (release content accoring to how long people have been members), four levels of membership, lightweight and easy to install. There is a limited free version of the plugin available and prices range from $99.95 to $295.
YourMembers WordPress Plugin
YourMembers is a WordPress plugin that allows you to create a membership site using WordPress and PayPal or ClickBank. It includes the ability to make part of any post private to members, private RSS feeds, and free trial access. A single-site license costs $50 and a developer’s license is $200.
WP Member
WP Member is another premium plugin for WordPress. WP Member allows you to restrict access to pages and posts based on membership level (you can set up unlimited membership levels) and it will automatically manage users, subscriptions and payments. A one-site license costs $44.99 with additional options for multi-site licenses.
Wild Apricot
Wild Apricot provides all of the features needed to run your membership site, plus email newsletter tools, blogs and forums, event registration and more. There is a free ad-supported version available limited features. Other plans $25 monthly to $200 monthly.
Extreme Member
Extreme Member uses WordPress to manage membership websites. It includes a lot of features including use of coupon codes, multiple membership levels, built-in autoresponders, an affiliate module (depending on the plan you purchase), and more. Pricing ranges from $19-$99 per month.
YourMembership.com
YourMembership.com is a complete membership management system that is marketed towards alumni programs, association, chambers of commerce, government agencies, non-profit organizations, and other such groups. It’s a full-feature system that is more than needed for many entrepreneurs or small businesses that are interested in setting up a membership site. Pricing includes a one-time setup fee of $1,495 (which includes site design) and $5,995 annually.
MemberGate
MemberGate is another advanced option that provides tons of features, more than most small websites will need. The price starts at $3,995 and goes up from there. Included in the price is site design, a built in affiliate program, credit card processing, unlimited member plans, content management, and much more.
Things to Consider When Deciding on Membership Software:
With a wide selection to choose from, there is no solution that is right for everyone. As you are evaluating your options, here are some things to keep in mind that will help you to make the right decision for your situation.
Monthly Pricing vs. One-Time Payments
If you’re trying to compare the prices of various membership site solutions be sure that you understand the difference between those that charge one-time fees and those that charge monthly/recurring fees. Generally, if you purchase a license for a one-time fee you will be hosting it yourself with whatever web host you choose, and if you purchase one that involves monthly payments it will probably include hosting.
Features
There is a very wide variety of features available for the various options that are covered in this post. Of course, the price is also reflective of the features that are included. It’s a good idea to visit the various sites and read through the features that are included, then make a list of those that are necessary for your own needs. Once you know the features that you need or want you can narrow down your choices and compare prices accordingly. Try not to be distracted by features that are impressive, but might not be of any use to you.
CMS
If you are building a membership section on an already-existing website, are you currently using a content management system for that site? If you’re using WordPress you will have several plugins to choose from, and Joomla also presents some options to keep the membership section of the site on the CMS.
Many of the options that were listed above include some type of content management system of their own, and several make use of WordPress. Part of your decision should be based on the CMS that you want to use for your membership site.
Support
Most of the options listed above include some type of support. In some cases there may be a forum available, and for others you may have email support, but only for a limited amount of time. Generally, the plans that involve monthly payments also include some type of ongoing support. If you think it’s likely that you will need support, make sure this factors in to your decision and that you are comfortable with the support that will be available from the option that you choose.
Multiple Websites
You may want to build a membership site on one domain, or you may have several websites that are possibilities for memberships. Additionally, designers and developers may be interested in selling membership sites to clients. Most of the options listed here will provide some choices that allow you to choose bewteen a single-site license or a multi-site license.
What’s Your Experience?
If you would like to share your experience with any membership site software please leave a comment.
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62 Responses
Nice list!
Another site/application I’m familiar with is http://www.associationsonline.com/ – specifically targeting associations for membership management.
Is Amember easy to configure design wise so it matches in with your site? I’ve been looking into membership options and I hear good things about Amember, but am unsure how easy it is to configure.
Gotta tell you I wasn’t familiar with half these…I’m really glad Michel Fortin tweeted this out. Rock on; thanks
Is there a membership plug-in for wordpress that also has an affiliate program?
Thanks
I know that several well-known bloggers are promoting WishList as an up-and-coming competitor with Amember. I’d love hear about some experiences – need one of these on a project right now.
I’ve been using amember for http://www.howitookit.com and so far I’ve found it quite easy to use.
Nice to see a list but a pity none of these options are free.
Would be good to list a couple of the free options for people who wish to play with the concept of a membership website.
Nicde blog..I have sought information about how the requirements to participate in the membership site.Can you explain further.
Thanks!
MIke,
It is customizable through the use of templates (header, footer, etc.). You can find more info on that here – http://manual.amember.com/Templates_Customization
Samueljesse,
I don’t think any of the WP plugins listed here (or others) have a built in affiliate program.
Brandon,
I agree, I’d be interested in seeing several firsthand stories about WishList Member. In some ways I think doing it through a WP plugin would be a big advantage, and in other ways it seems to not be as good as a separate solution. I did find some reviews by Googling WishList Member Plugin but nothing that helpful.
Charlie,
There are a few problems with using a free option. First, it probably won’t have many features and if you’re running a membership site there are certain features that are necessary or else you will have to spend a ton of time doing things manually. Second, if you start a membership site with a free program and then want to convert to one of the other options it will be more work than if you started with that option in the first place. There are some free WordPress plugins that create “membership sites” that will block access to anyone who is not a member, but they are not feature rich and I don’t think they involve any type of payment integration.
Don’t forget Memberstar.com – not my site or an affiliation or anything. Ron Ruiz runs it (California, I believe) and the hosted solutions are quick and easy to set up and use ASAP. Neat way to grow a membership from an ebook, too, in the cart set up (still learning the ropes there).
I’ve only used Membergate, but I really wasn’t too impressed with their system. The interface is quite clunky, and most of their website designs look the same, and frankly, out of date. Their CMS drove me nuts, but maybe that’s only because I’m used to true CMSes.
We are just in the process of moving over to a WP platform from html. What a pain and I will tell you the whole Free membership access is what allows us so many conversions.
I sure will be happy when this whole WP transition and new membership access is complete!
@Charlie – Here’s a wordpress plugin (it does cost) that gives payment options, membership levels, ect.
http://premium.wpmudev.org/project/supporter
Thanks for that link to the header/footer design info for amember. looks like the option I’ll be choosing.
Drupal with the excellent CiviCRM plugin is a great free alternative. You get all of the features and access control of Drupal and the member management, mailing list management, event registration and fund raising campaign functions from CiviCRM. Just about any other function you can think of is already available as a Drupal plugin of some sort.
Ubercart is a Drupal plugin that integrates with CiviCRM, can handle selling digital downloads and all of the reporting can be included in the CiviCRM system.
I have been working with professional associations for a very long time and I have just started migrating some of my clients from homegrown solutions or expensive paid solutions to Drupal/CiviCRM. It is fairly easy to theme, configure and customize.
Thanks so much for including us (WishList Member) in the list
I know a couple people asked to hear someone’s experience using WishList Member. Recently we conducted an interview with well known blogger Chris Garrett.
You can download both parts of the interview here:
http://member.wishlistproducts.com/chrisg2/
We’ll be posting more interviews like this real soon but in the meantime you can also see many of our videos (for free) on our main site:
http://member.wishlistproducts.com
If anyone has any specific questions, just let us know.
You can reach our support desk here:
http://wishlistproducts.com/support
Hopefully that helps.
Thanks again.
Take care.
Stu
Quint,
That’s interesting. I wasn’t aware of the CiviCRM plugin.
Stu,
Thank you for providing those links.
I knew about one or two of these products, but not the rest. I’ll certainly be checking out the rest in a week or two.
@Kenneth and @Mike, thanks for the recommendations. In the past I have created my own membership applications but I am definitely checking these out for some potential clients. Thanks for the list and follow-up @Vandelay!
Great scripts you found there. I’ve alsways wanted to start a membership site but never knew where to start.
Hello, thanks for including our wordpress membership plugin (wp-Member).
We have a huge sale in progress. A massive 50% off everything!
If you have any questions, please contact us vie http://wp-member.com/support/
Full details on our latest offers can be found here: http://wp-member.com/site-news/wp-member-coupons/massive-half-price-sale/
Thanks again
From everyone at SmartMediaPro.com
Thanks for this list. I have been planning to research options for managing membership sites but hadn’t started on this yet, so you’ve given me a nice head-start
I’ve searched a WordPress plugin like “Supporter” but I didn’t find.But now I find it here thanks
i am going to switch my website to a membership one – your post is an ultimate destination to make a proper choice.
The wordpress plugins seems good options to start with or to develop a custom one for favorite CMS. A feature that might be interesting is integrating with social media, so people can signup/in with their facebook and twitter.
Thanks for posting this roundup – It would be nice to see a list of free options!
The wordpress plugins is really good options to start with develop a custom one for favorite CMS.
Does anyone know anything about Instant Membership Site Creator. It is supposed to be a WordPress plugin. I have seen a number of sites selling it from $6 up to $30. It seems to be dated 2007. Does it still exist and is there support? Is it any good?
Just a few comments for other people’s comments.
amember is quite powerful, but does require a bit of work to get it moving.
Initially my client wanted an area where subscribers to a specific course could go and a second area where anyone who had subscribed to any course could go.
It was a bit clumsy about the way this was displayed on the signed up member’s page and in the end I decided to put a cop[y of the shared contant in every course folder.
The affiliate scheme is very, very basic. I’m invesigating linking a commerical affiliate package to amember.
On the plus side there are a lot of extra features, such as a way of sending a series of emails after a number of days.
Support is technically very good, relatively quick, but they sort things and don’t necessarily give explanations.
Wishlist I had to turn down as it doesn’t have address fields and the only two affiliates are Clickbank and 1ShoppingCart. They are looking at a link with iDev Affiliate, but there’s problems with the recurring payments.
Vielen Dank, habt mir sehr weiter geholfen. LG aus Deutschland
Having used Wishlist member on a good sized (3000+ trials, roughly 1500 continuing members) membership site, we’ve had a rough go of it.
If you need to do anything out of the ordinary, I’d steer clear. Integrate with another system? Good luck. The latest version I have (which admittedly is 8 or 9 months old – so it is very possible this has changed since then) has an entirely encrypted codebase, and all member information stored in a single, serialized variable. If you want to try to get at it from outside of the confines of that particular wordpress install, you have to reverse engineer their access code based on this single serialized array. It’s a nightmare.
We did get our setup working with idevaffiliate (another system I’m not crazy about), but it took a fair amount of work, and the whole thing is pretty fragile.
On the plus side, wishlist has a great backend interface, and is easy to use. If you are going to use it specifically for a single wordpress installation to protect content, and you don’t intend to expand, or do anything interesting with the membership data, it’s probably a great choice.
The wordpress plugins is really good options to start with develop a custom one for favorite CMS. Hmm ı think that too, thanks
I knew about one or two of these products, but not the rest. I’ll certainly be checking out the rest in a week or two.
My Mini-Review
Two membership sites of ours that we like a lot and that do well are:
1) Subhub site at:
http://www.esupport-club.com
2) GoDaddy / Wild West “Website Tonight” (dirt cheap, these full-featured sites start at under $5 a month) at:
http://ohiohelpgroup.com
Both Subhub and GoDaddy / Wild West have excellent support /& tech teams to help.
Hey thanks for including us http://www.extrememember.com/ in your reviews
If you have any questions about our services let us know. As you maybe aware we’re not just a membership software provider. Our system is a full blown Marketing Platform + Membership System.
To make sure you get the right software for your needs – these are important questions that need to be asked to every membership software vendor:
1. Do they offer Gradual Content Delivery (dripping content) functionality?
2. Do they offer secure digital downloads delivery with link sharing protection?
3. Do they offer ability to sell digital download materials (ebooks, movies, MP3, etc) individually and in groups?
4. Do they offer ability to track members who steal your content? (This will happen if your site grows and having ability to detect thiefs and terminate them ASAP is important)
5. Do they offer support for Google First Click Free standard? This standard was introduced by Google specifically to help premium membership site owners to rank membership sites higher.
6. Does source code if their plugins is encrypted or opened? If it’s encrypted – expect issues with hosting services and inability to modify source code yourself.
7. Do they offer ability to automatically substitute premium digital downloadables with “promotional” versions of such materials?
This is a great feature to have free visitors to download and see “teaser” version of your materials + let google see more rich media materials on your site as well.
Most membership softwares just shows “404″ errors or “access denied” errors. Both visitors and Google would not like that functionality.
8. Do they offer free support forum where issues are openly discussed and solved?
9. Do they offer free trial of their softwares, that you may download without opt-in?
10. Does their software allow you to launch membership site in a few minutes or does it require you to spend month learning their “technology”?
The latest release of MemberWing-X 5.x (http://www.memberwing.com) gives “yes” answer on all these questions.
Gleb
Gleb,
Thanks for the information, but you say theses are questions that someone should ask to make sure the get the right software for their needs. But some of these questions/issues aren’t going to apply to what some people are trying to do with their membership sites. Honestly, it would be more appropriate to say that it is a list of features of MemberWing.
Hi,.
These are actually just part of all MemberWing-X features.
But *all* these features were born by webmasters coming to me and saying that other softwares they tried didn’t support functionality they *really* needed.
Each and single one of features that MemberWing supports was originated by listening to what people really need.
Gleb
Have to agree with Gleb at least on many on his list. We should have asked those before some of our membership site attempts. Hind sight
Esp. content dripping (pre-dating), and 404 errors / access denied. People need to be able to buy and check out quickly. And they need to be able to log in and move around the member’s area, not being logged out every time they click somewhere, or hit an access denied / 404 error page, then have to log back in….frustrating.
Support – -yes, very much needed, and promptly, not just with a forum, but that can help, sure, if it’s active and moderated with someone in-the-know about the software.
And his #10 is a biggie – - you don’t want to sign up, then take a year to figure out how to learn the software, wow. Even an entire month means down time. People need to be able to load some parts of the site and get it off the ground quickly, in the first week or so, to start making it work, unless they have a lot of money to invest – -that’s another story.
Thanks Diana,
it’s good to hear from person with real live experience.
I agree with you on #10 being the utmost important.
My very first client was spiritual teacher without any knowledge of computers or budgets for consulting.
I made MemberWing so that he would grasp the concepts of it in 5 minutes.
MemberWing-X manual is ~50 pages now – but it starts with a half page 4 steps tutorial how to get your premium membership site up and running in 2 minutes.
While your site is active, up and running on the web – now you can slowly learn stuff, add the content and improve from there. From SEO standpoints the quicker site is online – the sooner it is indexed, ranked and the earlier new customers will find you. Most WEB applications (including membership softwares) force you to learn it all first (no matter how long it will take) before deployment. Many non-techy people never able to jump through that initial learning curve and move on. It just too much and too slow for them.
MemberWing reverses this concept completely.
It’s like a car – you just need to have a key to drive it, not being forced to open the hood and tweak engine options and settings before going for a ride.
Gleb
Hey Gleb,
You’re sure welcome. Feels great to be appreciated, so thanks!
I’ll also share one main thing that needs to be covered before going full speed ahead with memberships is their updating / upgrading policy. What we find most often is this:
– if you want upgrades or updates to your site, find out when these occur AND if you can get your site worked on by itself from tech support, i.e. without waiting for a script upgrade.
For example, to fix issues like I mentioned where shoppers and paid members are locked out over and over, and just plain cannot order or do anything unless they end up pulling hair out and contacting you outside your membership site – if they do – -find out about your options here with your faulty site. If you have to wait an entire 6 months to a year or more for the next version of your membership site script to come out – -and “maybe” it will have fixes for your site’s issues – - run. And you do NOT want to vote on your options. Either your fix “will” be there AND work, or forget it.
Your shoppers, clients and business won’t wait. Time doesn’t stand still.
I use Digital Access Pass. It’s far superior to most of the others I have tried and MUCH easier to use and implement.
http://www.digitalaccesspass.com/
I also continue to hear amazing things about Digital Access Pass. It does have an affiliate program (no I am not an affiliate), and is quite reasonably priced for a developers license (I think it’s $197). http://www.digitalaccesspass.com
I’ve yet to use Digital Access Pass but am going to check it out later on, great article. Some are defo worth checking out.
Great products with a company you will love to deal with – thanks Vandelay..
Hey guys,
Looks like this review listing has been around for a while, but seeing this for the first time. Cool bunch of plugins you have listed here.
It would be great to see our product DigitalAccessPass.com (DAP) on the list. Anyone’s search for a wordpress membership plugin would be sorely incomplete without at least including DAP in your research.
So hopefully, you’ll add us to the mix here
Also, we would love to welcome you as an affiliate. So if you’re interested, please ping us via email, and we’ll take care of the rest.
Cheers!
- Ravi Jayagopal
Founder & Co-Developer, DAP
Wild Apricot: I spent hours creating my WIld APricot website, only to find out that it does not protect links to Word, PDF documents etc. This is the only problem I have with them, i.e. the lack of protection for documents. Which is perplexing because the website has the following statement “
“Provide secured access to members.
Create web pages with premium content accessible only to your members – industry research, best practices and more. Easily upload PDF documents, Microsoft Word files and Excel spreadsheets into the secure members-only section.”
I want to add a paid subscription area to some PDF documents. Unfortunately, that is not an option as anyone can then forward or post the links to the documents to public areas on the internet. Too bad- I like everything else about Wild Apricot
TrulyProtected Sites explains it well ” 1. No Truly Protected Files and Links. Wild Apricot allows you to build a private member area where you can restrict pages so that only registered members can view these pages. In my organization I wanted to give access to my members to certain documents. The problem is that although you can limit access to the page containing the links to the downloads, you cannot protect the downloads.
For example, say you have a membership page with a link to your club by-laws. While you can make the page that has this link only accessible to people who are logged in, you are limited because the link is still a “regular link” – e.g. the link is http://www.yoursite.com/subdirectory/filename.doc. So while only people who can login can see the link, the link is still accessible to anyone who knows of it’s existence.”
Ultimate Web Builder has the best membership app and CMS. It has a ton of features and built-in apps, include a SEO tool!
Just a plus 1 for CiviCRM and Drupal. Both open source, both free to use and customise to suit your precise needs. And as CiviCRM 4.1 is launched, it also works with WordPress, or indeed Joomla.
Extremely powerful, extremely flexible, and designed from the ground up for membership organisations and non-profits. A no-brainer.
Why pay for a membership solution when you can get an open-source membership solution that works with Drupal, Joomla or WordPress? Use CiviCRM. Within 3 years half the companies listed above will be bankrupt, sold, merged, or whatever. What happens to your data then?
It’s CiviCRM, it’s open source and your data is yours.
Plus you get so much more: event management, bulk email, donation management, etc.
Guys,
Nice list of membership management solutions.
Can you include our membership solution here?
It is our long term start-up that we decided to share with people for free. It is ready to use secure and tested membership solution that will help you to:
- manage members
- sell membership access
- sell downloadable products
- send newsletter
- offer discounts
Hope you’ll love it
You can download it for free at http://primadg.com/membership-management-system/
WP Member is my favourite , I’m using it in my personel website.
Does one of the WP Plugins also do event registrations?
I really prefer to use a plugin rather than a third-party solution. You never know who is going to go out of business or what products they will discontinue (look at Common Ground).
Hi Hannah,
I’m not sure, but I know Wishlist Member has several addon plugins, so they may have one for event registration. You could also look to see which ones integrate with Gravity Forms because you could use GF to create the form for event registration.
Plugin developers can also go out of business, or just decide to stop developing their plugins. It happens all the time and has happened with several plugins that I’ve purchased over the years.
I chose to use Wishlist, but have a major proble. My 52-week course requires students to login every week to collect their material. WL does not offer an email system to advise them to login. I integrated with aweber, but some members are tardy about confirming their subscriptions. How can I overcome this, short of manually emailing them each week as their modules become available?
Val
Hi Val,
You’d have to talk to Wishlist Member support for help with this issue.