What are the best services for creating and managing membership sites?
Here's my pick of the best services for creating and managing membership sites.
1. Podia.
The best solution for promoting membership sites via email marketing ($39/month).
Podia is a digital storefront that allows you to create and sell membership content, online courses, digital downloads, webinars, etc.
It assists you throughout the sales funnel, including creating sales pages, capturing emails, invoicing European VAT, and processing payments.
The website builder helps you create sites that are mobile, tablet, and desktop friendly, with automatic update options. Podia works in the background without compromising business confidentiality and allows you to collect all payments from members without paying transaction fees.
You can also view purchases by logging in once and filter, sort, and export all purchases, earnings, and customer data. You can accept one-time payments or set different membership levels, like monthly/annual levels or free trial periods.
It also allows you to monetize online courses, digital programs, or periodic content as part of a membership plan, as well as a free newsletter service.
Features
- Feed your content to the top.
- Integrated livechat option.
- Pin important messages to the top of the page.
- Schedule message updates in advance.
- Allow members to comment and respond to shared content.
- Send email notifications when content is added.
- Integrate videos, images, and social media content into member messages.
- Connect the membership to the Facebook group, Slack, or Palapa account.
- Community service to connect like-minded people.
- Affiliate program to promote membership.
- Add coupons based on duration and usage limit.
- Checkouts optimized for conversions with faster payouts.
- Customer service availability 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- Bundle different products into a single membership plan.
- Create individual pages or posts for your members.
- Restrict specific “Premium Access” messages based on membership level.
- Allow members to access “public messages” through links or indexing by search engines.
Podia also has an integrated email marketing platform that allows you to send newsletters, create dropwise campaigns, and segment subscribers. You can also track your subscribers, email open rate, clicks, conversion rate, and more.
The only problem is that Podia doesn't support learning paths and the option to charge installation fees. However, you can integrate it with advanced tools like Zapier, Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, Paypal, etc.
Pricing
Podia offers 3 payment plans:
- Mover: $39/month
- Shaker: $79/month
- Earthquaker: $166 /month
Both plans offer 7-days-a-week reports, live Q&A sessions, messaging, email marketing, webinars, your own website, etc. They also offer a 14-day free trial.
Try Podia for free
2. Thinkific.
Best global membership site platform (free - $499 /month).
Thinkific Is a online course platform that helps you create, sell, and sell courses and membership sites. It provides a drag-and-drop creator to help you build and design your courses and websites.
You can also download videos, quizzes, schedule lessons, automate your content, and customize other elements of your site. The drag-and-drop creator also allows you to sort the different sections of the page and customize the site theme to suit your style.
If you are a developer, you get full access to the design and the ability to create the domain name of your choice. You also have plenty of options for creating plans and subscriptions, including free trials, payment plans, and personalized first-month payments.
Thinkific also allows you to add instant payment options with a variant of over 100 currencies to your site. You can accept payments through secure options like MasterCard, Visa, American Express, and third-party payment gateways like Stripe and Paypal.
You can also take advantage of features like course completion tracking, automated progress emails, course discussions, and more to engage your audience. It also maintains cloud-based databases with a built-in SSL certificate and 24/7 server monitoring.
Features
- Contents of the drip program.
- Downloadable content.
- Javascript tracking.
- Mobile-friendly content.
- Single login (SSO).
- Site monitoring dashboard.
- Persistent content and expiring content.
- Complete video and content hosting.
- URLs and meta tag keywords adapted to SEO.
- You can add multiple instructor profiles.
- automated progress and reminder emails.
- Full support for video, audio, PDF, text, HTML, slideshows, and more
- Integration with over 1000 tools like Google Adwords, Zapier, Mailchimp, etc.
Plus, it offers advanced marketing and e-commerce features to help you promote your course or site. Marketing functions include affiliate rewards, email sending, data tracking, external application add-ons, ad tracking, retargeting campaigns, and more.
It also offers additional support to students by providing progress indicators, proofreading options, language control options, and completion certificates. In addition, it tracks data and uses all information to create reports, segment audiences, and export them for other purposes.
Pricing
Thinkific offers 4 pricing plans:
- Free: $0
- Bacis: $49/month
- Pro: $99/month
- Premiere: $499 /month
- Business: Plan on quotation
All plans offer features like the ability to add quizzes and surveys, content hosting, instant access to your funds, etc. All plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Start with Thinkific.
3. Teachable.
The best solution for creating multimedia course content ($39/month).
Teachable is one of the most popular online course platforms for creating, selling, and hosting courses and membership sites. It offers several personalization tools to create and personalize content, as well as additional support for making payments.
It has a page editor that allows you to create a membership site, multimedia conferences, videos, a sales page and coaching sessions. You can even add team members and other contributors and set their specific permissions and roles.
The only downside is that Teachable doesn't allow you to create separate posts or pages — you need to provide all of the information as a course. It also does not allow the creation of an individual community for your members.
Additionally, this tool does not allow you to create a free trial for your membership level. There's also no option to charge a personalized upfront payment. You can only create annual and monthly payment levels.
That said, it allows you to offer coupons and discount offers to members for increased subscriptions and memberships. You can also accept payments in over 130 currencies via PayPal and other payment methods.
Teachable also handles payments to all third-party authors and contributors, affiliate payments, first and last touch attribution, and more.
It allows you to create and integrate various types of content, including quizzes, surveys, drip content, certificates, and course compliance, etc. It also supports integration with any tools you want, including Helpdesk software like Zendesk, Olark, Intercom, etc.
Features
- Integrated course reader.
- Pixel conversion support.
- Organize one-on-one sessions.
- Unlimited video bandwidth.
- Livechat support.
- Full EU VAT coverage for member payments.
- Integrated affiliate marketing tools.
- The dashboard allows you to monitor the evolution of memberships and to obtain information about students.
- Link your existing site using a custom domain.
- Integrate forms and surveys into your site to gather feedback.
Teachable also allows the integration of Calendly to schedule and host activities and events. Third-party forms and surveys are also available to gather feedback from students and members.
Additionally, it provides hosting for data security and 24/7 data monitoring to provide support during outages, including automatic updates. It uses a 2048-bit SSL certificate and only works with PCI Level 1 compliant payment providers to ensure security.
Pricing
Teachable offers 3 subscription plans:
- Basic: $39/month
- Pro: $119 /month
- Enterprise: $299 /month
For all paid plans, you get unlimited courses and members, integrated payment processing, quizzes, EU VAT (value added tax), etc.
Try Teachable now for free
4. Wild Apricot.
Great for small businesses and non-profit organizations (free - $600/month).
Wild Apricot is a cloud-based membership site tool for creating and managing membership sites.
It automates membership-related tasks and is suitable for bloggers, arts councils, non-profit organizations, clubs, historical societies, and more.
It provides a drag-and-drop creator and ready-to-use themes to easily create mobile-friendly sites. These themes and the creator help you create a membership application page, a members-only area, a news blog, a member directory, an events list, and more.
The platform also saves your members' data in the cloud, allowing you to access it at any time, from any device. It also allows you to search and manage your database, automate renewals, customize membership levels, securely store member data, and more.
You also have a mobile application to manage contacts, edit events, register members, accept payments, etc. on the go. In addition, the mobile application allows you to consult your directory, view members' profiles, edit or update them, etc.
Even your members have their own mobile application to manage their profiles, register for events, and search the directory.
Wild Apricot also allows instant payments to be made and invoices and receipts to be automatically generated. You can even use your site to collect online donations and set up recurring contributions.
Features
- Event management functions.
- Automatic database update in real time.
- Set up recurring contributions.
- Integrate an event calendar on your site.
- Verify members and event attendees using QR codes.
- Guest and waitlist option available.
- Mobile-friendly website themes.
- Integration with Square for credit card payments
- Exporting your financial data to Excel or QuickBooks
- 2 separate mobile applications for administrators and members.
Wild Apricot also has an email system that integrates with your company database, allowing automatic confirmations and reminders. It also allows advanced contact search, targeted campaigns, email open rate and status tracking, and more.
You can also use Wild Apricot's creator and themes to create an online store. There are features like online catalogs for selling products, adding product variants, and allowing special prices for members.
Pricing
Wild Apricot offers eight monthly billing options:
- Free: Always free (up to 50 contacts)
- Personal: $40/month (for up to 100 contacts)
- Group: $50/month (for up to 250 contacts)
- Community: $90/month (for up to 500 contacts)
- Professional: $160/ month (for a maximum of 2,000 contacts)
- Network: $290/month (for a maximum of 5,000 contacts)
- Business: $350/month (for up to 15,000 contacts)
- Global: $600/month (for up to 50,000 contacts)
The Freemium plan doesn't offer an online store, payment options, or mobile apps, but you get these features with all paid plans.
I'd advise you to start with the free plan if you don't have a lot of contacts and then switch to one of their most popular plans — either Group or Community.
- If you sign up for the group plan, you get a $50 Amazon gift card when you renew your plan for 3 months.
- If you sign up for the community plan or higher, you get a $100 Amazon gift card after 3 months of subscription.
Start with Wild Apricot.
5. Kajabi.
Best high-end membership platform ($119/month).
Kajabi is an all-in-one online business platform that helps you create online courses, coaching sites, and membership sites.
It offers customizable templates and a drag-and-drop system to create membership sites without any prior coding knowledge.
You even have templates for creating landing pages and email marketing campaigns to promote your membership site and courses. It allows you to send unique emails, automated sequences based on customer behavior, event announcements, and more.
It also has a visual editor to preview and customize your site and include things like countdowns and videos. The dashboard also connects your website to your marketing campaigns, emails, landing pages, and products.
Membership software also helps you build automated pipelines using sales models and funnels that have already been developed. There are various ready-to-use game manuals and pre-established frameworks for launching membership activities of any type.
These sales pipelines help you chart and track the journey of your members. Besides courses, you can use this tool to launch your affiliate program, broadcast podcasts, or automate your entire sales flow.
When it comes to analytics, Kajabi analyzes and displays data from all touchpoints to monitor your subscription rate. It also keeps track of your revenue, deals sold, subscription metrics, and more. You also get “subscription abandonment rate reports” to identify key profitable sectors.
Features
- Create quizzes and surveys.
- Tool for creating sales pages.
- Video hosting and drip by drop content.
- 10+ themes.
- Private online community space for members.
- Predicting users and monitoring member progress.
- Integrated CRM to track, segment, and filter members.
Plus, it helps you get paid faster thanks to the integration of payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe at no additional cost. Kajabi also allows you to set different subscription levels, including recurring payment, one-time plan, trial payment plans, one-click upsells, and more.
In addition, you have a mobile application for Android and iOS devices. The mobile application also includes account recovery functions through saved progress and connection to a single link.
Pricing
Kajabi offers 3 pricing plans:
- Basic: $119/month
- Growth: $159/month
- Pro: $319 /month
All plans include automation, ready-to-use templates, zero transaction fees, the ability to organize online seminars, chat support, etc. It also offers a 14-day free trial with all plans.
6. WPQuickstart by Nexcess.
Best membership site platform for WordPress ($49/month - $149/month).
WPQuickStart for Membership Sites is the only solution that helps you create fast, functional membership sites in minutes. It combines popular software (Restrict Content Pro, Kadence Pro, and more) with top-quality hosting specially designed for WordPress.
With the easy setup wizard, all you need to do is answer a few questions, define membership levels and payment methods, upload content, and get your membership site up and running. WPQuickStart for Membership Sites does the heavy lifting so you don't have to.
An automatic email system is also in place to communicate with your members. It is possible to program emails and modify pre-established email templates.
You also get payment flexibility through integrated integrations with payment gateways like Stripe, Braintree, 2Checkout, Authorize.net, and PayPal. Additionally, you have access to detailed reports that give you insight into your company's performance, profits, and subscriptions.
You don't need to worry about safety either. They employ WordPress security experts who monitor your site for security breaches and threats.
Features
- The possibility of offering multi-level subscription packages (including free, trial and premium).
- WordPress hosting managed entirely by Nexcess.
- Plugins and themes worth $349 are included in every membership plan.
- Email support, plugin updates, and free additions.
- Auto-scaling to keep up with traffic growth.
- CDN (Content Delivery Network) integrated into 22 locations.
Pricing
WPQuickStart by Nexcess comes with 3 paid plans:
- Essential membership ($49/month) - One site, 30GB storage, 3TB bandwidth.
- Pro membership ($99/month) - One site, 60GB storage, 5TB bandwidth.
- Premium Membership ($149/month) - One site, 100GB storage, 5TB bandwidth.
All paid plans include 30-day backups, unlimited email accounts, a trial environment, and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
You'll also get discounts if you choose to pay annually. For example, the price of the Essential subscription will be $40.83 /month for an annual subscription.
Try WPQuickStart
7. MemberPress.
The best for WordPress websites ($149 /year).
MemberPress is a WordPress plugin and an LMS plugin that helps you create WordPress membership sites, courses, and digital downloads.
It offers all the standard functions such as reserved content, creating membership levels, accepting credit card payments, and more.
The setup process only takes 3 steps, including installing the plugin, entering payment details, and adding products. It comes with customizable themes to help you create price page variants for membership products.
You can choose to use customizable themes or create your own CSS-style pages. The tool allows you to add multiple membership levels, including personalized recurring payments, free or paid trials, annual fees, etc. You can even limit the number of payments.
It offers total control of content access rules and allows you to restrict access based on membership or digital products purchased. You can control access to child pages, messages, custom message types, categories, tags, and more.
The membership plugin also allows you to generate and manage unlimited coupons for running promotions and giveaways. There are also options for customizing coupon codes and controlling how many times they are used and when they expire.
Features
- Manage and track members' subscriptions.
- Add forums and social communities.
- Integrates with your existing WordPress website.
- Set up your payment gateway using the API.
- Reports to track financial status, sales, and marketing activities
- It allows the scheduled delivery of content and the expiration of access to the content.
- Members can create, update, upgrade, or cancel subscriptions directly from the website.
- An automated billing system that automatically grants or revokes payment based on payment status.
MemberPress also allows you to install and use WordPress forum plugins like bbPress to create your own password-protected community. The Pro edition of the software includes the Affiliate Royale plugin that helps manage any affiliate program.
Plus, it integrates with numerous third-party payment gateways and business applications like Paypal, Mailchimp, ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, etc. You can also install other WordPress themes from companies like StudioPress and WooThemes.
Integrating with Zapier also helps you manage data and connect with various products and services. It also provides a user manual and a support team to resolve questions about administration pages or features.
Pricing
MemberPress is offered with 3 annual subscription plans:
- Basic: $149 /year
- Plus: $249 /year
- Pro: $349 /year
All plans include payment integrations, customizable checkout, content protection, content draining, course creation, a self-service dashboard for members, etc. It also offers a 14-day money-back guarantee.
8. Wix.
The best for creating a website ($23/month).
Wix Is a website creation software that helps you manage your entire web presence by creating, designing, and developing websites. It allows you to add a “members-only area” to your site and restrict access to exclusive content.
With the help of over 500+ templates, the tool helps you create various variants like a blog, a portfolio, a web application or an online store. Standard features include customizable domain name, CDN performance, traffic monitoring, SSL certificate, multiple languages, and more.
Member services include free trials, subscriptions, punch cards, display services, schedules, and limited-time discounts. You can offer various subscription options like recurring payments, open trial sessions, member-only content, exclusive services, and more.
You can also accept payments in cash, cards, wallets, or payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, Alipay, etc. It also has a built-in “Wix Payments” option and allows you to receive payments in over 40 currencies.
It also sends automated quotes and invoices and integrates with popular accounting tools suchlike Quickbooks to rationalize economic activities.
Features
- Host online sessions with Zoom.
- Livechat support.
- Offer coupons and discounts.
- Notify members by email or text message.
- Bundle of services with membership plans and packages.
- Integration of the calendar for the programming of activities.
- Possibility to accept recurring payments.
- Generation of promo codes and coupons.
- SEO features to manage organic growth on search engines.
- Personalized booking forms to enter members' contact details.
- Track the performance of your business and the attendance of your customers.
- Manage calendars, members, attendance, and customers.
- Programming option for the purchase of services and products.
- Authorization to collaborate with other members on your website.
- Portability of operations and interactions via the mobile application.
- Launch professional email campaigns with personalized domain names.
- Lead generation tools with the possibility of tracking invoices and quotes.
- Plugin to add a business phone number.
- Integrations with over 250 professional website solutions.
It also provides resources like blogs, partnerships, a privacy center, and design integrations to improve website performance.
Pricing
Wix offers 3 plans that can help you add a members-only area to your site, including:
- VIP: $49/month
- Unlimited: $27/month
- Basic: $23/month
You can create the member area for free if you don't need to process payments. Even paid plans come with a 14-day money-back guarantee.
What are the services for creating and managing membership sites?
Membership site platforms or”membership management software“are a one-stop shop for creating, managing, and promoting membership websites. They allow you to restrict access to exclusive content and to accept online payments, donations, and fees.
Most website owners create members-only areas to offer content such as courses, coaching, special reports, newsletters, events, etc. In addition to accessing reserved content, you can also offer special coupons and discounts to attract potential members.
Most membership management software allows you to:
- Process and regulate fees, donations, etc.
- Create events, reminders, payment information, and more
- Communicate and engage with members through emails and newsletters.
- Send automated invoices.
- Create a database with all the contact information for all of your members.
- Engage and increase the number of members with the event calendar, blogs, member directories, and more.
- Track your earnings and the journey of your members.
- Get full access to member analytics.
What features do you need in the services to create and manage membership sites?
After reviewing all of these site creation tools, it's time to choose a platform for you.
To make your choice easier, I offer you a list of key points to consider before investing in a membership tool.
Here are the characteristics to take into account:
1. Protected and exclusive content.
Your site should appeal to both members and people who are just visiting your site. The platform should be able to provide content that is relevant to members and an overview of what you offer to repeat visitors.
2. Contact segmentation.
A good membership platform will be able to automatically classify your contacts into members and non-members. It should also offer services based on customer relationship management and classify other assignments according to the desired target.
3. User and Member pages.
The platform should offer the ability to create custom membership pages, forms, events, sales pages, pricing pages, etc. Most membership tools also come with templates and a “drag and drop” editor to easily create various membership pages.
4. Characteristics of automation.
Automated sales flows help you convert potential members and retain existing users. You can send email reminders, welcome notes, retargeted ads, discount offers based on specific actions, and more.
5. Payment gateway integrations.
You won't need this feature if you're offering a free membership. On the other hand, if you offer a paid membership, choose a membership platform that integrates with third-party payment operators like Stripe and Paypal. It must also accept payments by wallets and cards.
6. Membership levels.
An ideal membership site creator should comply at various levels and provide the necessary information as and when needed. It should allow for recurring payments, one-time payment options, annual/monthly subscriptions, free trials, etc.
Other key features include integration with third-party business applications, email marketing functionality, the ability to track engagement analytics, blogging, and more.
Summary.
That's it — it was my list of the best services for creating and managing membership sites. Offering content and membership options is one of the best ways to enrich the customer experience and earn revenue.
If you want to create a members-only area, add subscription levels, and earn revenue from your content, consider these platforms:
- Podia : The best for integrated email marketing services.
- Thinkific : the best overall tool for creating and managing membership sites.
- Wild Apricot : Ideal for organizations and small and medium-sized businesses.
- Kajabi : The best to promote your site.
- Teachable : The best solution for creating online multimedia courses.
- MemberPress : The best solution to transform a WordPress site into a membership site.
- Wix : The best for creating a website.
