Membership Sites are the best way to keep your users engaged. Membership Sites come with two benefits, it keeps your existing users engaged through exclusive deals & offers, and it attracts new users as well. Thus, with the best membership site builders on the internet, you can create successful membership site platforms to earn a good amount of profit through subscriptions.
You might be wondering why you need a membership site when website content is attracting a good amount of traffic. Through membership sites, you can increase repeat visitors to your site, and increase session time, and hence, the chances of purchases also increase. Here’s a list of the best membership site platforms that you can use to create your membership site.
Here are my top picks for the best membership site platforms, that you must try:
Best Membership Site Platforms
Kajabi Overall Best Membership Site Platform
Analytics
Mobile apps
Websites
LearnDash best wordpress membership plugin
Drag & Drop Course Builder
Manage courses seamlessly
Free and premium add-ons
Integrates With Most Popular Apps
Podia Best Membership Site for small business
Membership posts
Seamlessly bundle your other products
Connect to Facebook
Graphy Best for large organizations
Advanced Marketing Tools Integrated Payment Gateways
Secure Platform
Quizzes, Certificates & Badges
LearnWorlds Best For Online Multimedia Courses
Advanced Website Builder
Reports Center
Mobile App Builder
Thinkific
Advanced CSS/HTML Editing
Support for Video, Audio, PDF, text, HTML
Reliable Hosting
Wild Apricot
Simple Set-Up
Membership Management
Online Event Registration
Teachable
Custom Domain
Comprehensive Dashboard
Accept international payment
Memberpress
Pretty Pricing Pages
Easily Build & Sell Courses
Coupons
Wix
Wix Editor
Artificial Design Intelligence
Advanced web applications
Memberful
Dashboard Analytics
Seamless integration with WordPress
Sell memberships without a website
YourMembership
Workflow Automation
Accounting
DashBoard and Advanced Reporting
Wishlist
Drip and schedule
Solid Functionality
Archive content
Table Of Contents
If you’re an expert, authority, or influencer in a niche or field, there’s a good chance people will pay to hear your thoughts and follow your lessons. You can monetize your expertise and create recurring revenue.
Check our blog Best Side Hustles To Make Extra Money
Although running a website can be a fulfilling career, relying on sales doesn’t guarantee regular payment. As a result, many businesses seek alternative ways to generate a more steady income. One way of doing this is by setting up a subscription model.
If you are looking for an alternative to generating extra income then you must check our blog on Best Small Business Ideas With Low Investment.
Whether you are an owner, member, partner, or manager it is not always possible to receive process documents. Here is the need to choose a professional registered agent for your business. Check out the Best Registered Agent Services for your business.
Subscription models have been around for a long time, but modern digital content consumption, along with the increasing dominance of eCommerce, has created a unique demand for consistently fresh content – and a membership site is a perfect solution.
If you are a non-tech savvy user and want to create fresh content then you must be looking for a blogging platform, right?
Check our blog on the Best Blogging Sites For Beginners.
So If you are interested in developing a new source of recurring revenue and starting a membership site, this article is just for you. In this article, I am going to list down and review some of the best membership site platforms.
What Is A Membership Site?
A membership site is simply a website where access to specific content is protected and placed behind a member login page. The membership site offers users access to protected content when they sign up. Protected content on a membership site can be available for free or for a fee.
What Is Membership Site Platform?
A membership site platform, also known as Membership Management Software, is an all-in-one tool used by many different types of organizations to manage all their membership functions online. A proper membership site platform offers all the necessary tools needed for creating a subscription-based website. Best LMS Tools come with options o build a membership site.
What Features Do You Need in Membership Site Platforms?
- Gated and Exclusive Content: Your site should be targeted to both the members of your site as well as the viewers.
- Integration with tools: Integration with other tools that you already use or planning to use is very much important. For example, your payment tools and CRM tools are very much important.
- Statistics: When you are running a membership that provides you with monthly or yearly revenue, you must look at the stats of your site. For example, which content of your site is bringing more revenue. This type of information helps you in future business planning.
- Customer Support: Like every other SaaS software, responsive customer support is a must-have to solve the queries and problems of the users.
- Automation Features: Automated sales workflows help you convert potential members and retain existing users. You can send automated email reminders, welcome notes, retargeted ads, discount offers based on specific actions and more.
- Ease Of Use: The Software should be easy to use. As a newbie too, one should be able to use the software without any complication.
- Membership Tiers: An flawless membership site builder should comply with different levels and provide the necessary information as and when required.
- Price: Last but not least is the price. The pricing of the tool must be reasonable enough and justified with the features it offers.
What Are The Best Membership Platform?
- Kajabi – Overall Best Membership Site Platform
- Graphy– Best Membership Site Platforms For Organization
- Learnworlds– Best Membership Site Tool For creating online multimedia courses.
- LearnDash– Best WordPress Membership Plugin & Course Builder
- Podia – Best Membership Site Platforms For Promoting Site
- Spayee – Best Membership Site Tool For Small and mid-sized businesses.
- Thinkific– Best Membership Site Tool For Building A Website
- Teachable – Best Membership Site Tool For built-in email marketing services.
- Wild Apricot– Best Membership Site Platform For Free
- MemberPress – Best Online Membership Platform
- Wix – Best Membership Site WordPress
- Memberful– Best Membership Platform 2021
Thinkific is a course creation and membership site platform that helps users of any background share their knowledge while making a profit. Being a cloud-based tool, it can host all of your content for you.
Thinkific offers clean navigation, a familiar interface, and straightforward instructions, making creating courses extremely easy, even for those with little or no experience running an online course platform.
The Thinkific membership site platform doesn’t require advanced technical knowledge. It is easy to use and accepts all popular content formats — including HTML, PDF, images & videos, etc. You’re even able to add presentations, quizzes, exams, assignments, and surveys to your course.
Thinkific lets you easily create and customize courses to match your brand. You can quickly upload, drag & drop the content to create the perfect curriculum. Thinkific is simple enough to launch a course quickly but powerful enough for the most demanding online schools – no coding required. This is my personal favorite and Best Membership Site Platform.
Thinkific Features
- Thinkific’s fast & reliable hosting for your video and course content.
- Thinkific has full support for video, audio, PDF, text, HTML, voice-over slide presentations, surveys, quizzes, and downloadable attachments alongside 3rd party content tools like Typeform, Google Docs, and more.
- You can import existing content quickly with our intuitive drag-and-drop course builder.
- You can customize your domain or use your own custom domain for a completely branded experience.
- With Advanced CSS/HTML Editing, you can take full control over the look of your site with access to CSS, HTML, and variables with the Liquid templating language.
- You can distribute downloadable files and assignments directly through your course.
- Thinkific is simple enough to launch a course quickly but powerful enough for the most demanding online schools – no coding required.
- You can export the data of your site at any time.
- Site Monitoring Dashboard enables you to get total information and an overview of your site.
- Built-in analytics as well as integrated analytics via Mixpanel and Google Analytics will give you insightful information on your sales.
Thinkific Pricing
Thinkific does offer a free trial and After your free trial, Thinkific is $99/month. You can cancel, anytime.
Wild Apricot is a membership management software for emerging nonprofits and state and local chapters, a leading independent software review site. With Personify Wild apricot software, you can attract, renew, search and manage your members with ease in one central, cloud-based solution. This is one of the best Membership Site Platforms for organizations.
Personify Features
- Save Time: Automate tasks to manage members, payments, your website, events, and more.
- Grow Membership: New members can join in under 30 seconds, as well as register for events and send payments — all online. Never lose track of a potential member.
- Look Professional: In a matter of hours have a professional-looking, mobile-friendly localized website where your members can join, register for events or access a local directory. For regional chapters, create a standardized look and feel across all your websites.
- Simple Set-Up: No IT required. The software is a do-it-yourself solution. If you do get stuck, you can find answers on our help site or on our online community or chat with our in-house support team between 9:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. EST, Monday to Friday.
- Membership Management: Simplify member acquisition and automate membership renewals. Set up administrator privileges for your board, staff, and volunteers and manage levels of access.
- Online Event Registration: You can promote events with customizable online registration, automated reminders, calendar invites, attendance tracking, and payments. Check-in event attendees from your smartphone.
Personify Wild Apricot Pricing
Personify Wild Apricot offers 8 plans:
- Free – Free
- Personal – $48/month
- Group – $60/month
- Community – 110/month
- Professional – $190/month
- Network – $350/month
- Enterprise – $420/month
- Global – $720/month
Teachable is a cloud-based online course builder platform for producing rich teaching websites and online multimedia lectures. A tiered subscription solution, Free account users all the way up to Professional, High Volume, and Enterprise enjoy the unlimited course and student capabilities. This is one of the Best Membership Site Platforms for creating multi-media courses.
All offer access to intuitive web-hosted publishing tools, offering template customization and rebranding options with no coding knowledge required. Content assets encompassing images, audio, and video can be imported in from popular cloud storage including Dropbox while administering high and low-level updates. A revised Course Page Editor simplifies editing, although more advanced HTML/CSS development can be performed via the integrated Power Editor.
Teachable allows Calendar integration with Scheduling software like Calendly to schedule and host activities and events. Third-party forms and surveys are also available to gather feedback from students and members.
Want to see some Teachable alternatives? Read our blog: Best Teachable Alternatives
Teacable Features
- Easily link your existing website to Teachable under a custom domain.
- Use a teachable power editor to create engaging, multimedia lectures, videos, and coaching sessions like online tutoring sites.
- Track sales and insight with a comprehensive dashboard.
- Create a gorgeous, money-making sales page with the flexible page editor.
- Offer coupons and advanced pricing options including subscriptions, memberships, one-time payments, bundles, and more.
- Accept international payment in 130+ currencies. Plus, it offers PayPal and mobile payments for your online school and coaching services.
Teachable Pricing
Teachables offers 3 plans
- Basic – $99/month
- Pro – $229/month
- Business – $249/month
Kajabi is a membership site platform with the most ways to monetize what you know. Whether it’s online courses, coaching, memberships, podcasts, newsletters, communities, and more, Kajabi gives you all the tools you need to build, market, and sell it with just a few clicks.
You can access your website, products, marketing, community, and more from a single dashboard. And since everything is built together, it just works together, better. Kajabi’s platform comes fully equipped with everything you need to build a robust, thriving membership program. Besides courses, you can use the tool to launch your affiliate program, run podcasts, or automate your entire sales flow. This is one of the Best Membership Site Platforms for promoting sites.
Check the in-depth comparison of Kajabi over other LMS platforms in our Kajabi vs Teachable blog.
Kajabi Feature
- Products: Turn your content into a polished online course, subscription, or any other digital product you can imagine.
- Websites: Set up a fully integrated website on Kajabi that connects everything about your business in one place.
- Payments: Simple, seamless integration with Stripe and Paypal gets you paid easier, faster.
- Email: Kajabi’s visual editor lets you create and customize beautiful emails that integrate video, countdown timers, and more.
- Pages: Build dynamic landing pages without a designer. Pick a theme, customize, and hit publish without worrying about tech.
- Pipelines: Optimize and scale your business with Kajabi’s fully automated marketing campaigns and funnels.
- Analytics: Data alone isn’t enough to grow your business. Kajabi gives you the right metrics, organized into reports you’ll actually use.
- Mobile apps: The Kajabi mobile app puts your products right in their pocket, allowing them to get the most out of their purchase from where ever they are. Not many alternatives to Kajabi offer that.
Kajabi Pricing
Kajabi offers 3 plans
- Basic – $119/month
- Growth – $ 159/month
- Pro – $ 319/month
MemberPress is a membership site builder that will help you build astounding WordPress membership sites, accept credit cards securely, sell online courses, control who sees your content and sell digital downloads. MemberPress is an easy-to-use WordPress Membership Plugin. It will help you to instantly start charging your users for access to your content.
MemberPress will help you confidently create, manage and track membership subscriptions and sell digital download products. In addition to these features, MemberPress will allow you to manage your members by granting and revoking their access to posts, pages, videos, categories, tags, feeds, communities, digital files, and more based on what memberships they belong to.
It is to be noted that the creators of MemberPress designed Easy Affiliate with small business owners in mind. Easy Affiliate is an amazing Affiliate Program you can seamlessly add to your existing WordPress site. This is one of the Best Membership Site Platforms for medium and small-sized businesses.
MemberPress Feature
- Easy Setup: You shouldn’t need a Ph.D. in computer science to get your WordPress Membership Site up and running. MemberPress is one of the easiest membership site software in existence. All you need to do is install the plugin, enter your payment gateway details, set up some products, and you’ll be all set.Powerful Access Rules: MemberPress gives you fine-grained control over what content your users can see based on what membership or digital products they’ve purchased. MemberPress allows you to restrict access to pages, child pages, posts, custom post types, categories, tags, and almost any other files in your WordPress installation.
- Easily Build & Sell Courses: MemberPress is a WordPress Membership and LMS plugin. With our Courses add-on, you get all the ease of use you expect from MemberPress combined with powerful LMS features designed to make building online courses super simple. The add-on takes all the complexity and boils it down to a basic, click-and-go process. The best thing is, Courses are built right in and no separate download is required.
- Coupons: Coupons make it easy to run promotions and giveaways. So they’re a critical component of any online business. MemberPress allows you to generate as many coupons as you want, control when they expire and their number of uses, and even customize your coupon codes.
- Reporting: MemberPress makes sure it will give you all of the information you’ll need and none of the information you won’t. MemberPress reports will always let you know how much money you’re bringing in, which products are selling, and much more.
- Pretty Pricing Pages: Easy and powerful, MemberPress allows you to generate dynamic pricing pages for your membership products. You can sort the order of your products, change the copy, change the look and feel, and more. MemberPress also features several pricing page themes out of the box. So your pricing page looks good—no CSS or HTML coding required.
MemberPress Pricing
MemberPress offers 3 plans
- Pro – $399/year
- Plus – $299/year
- Basic – $179/Year
If you don’t like MemberPress over the next 14 days, MemberPress will refund 100% of your money. No questions asked.
Wix
Wix has built a coding-free system for website owners to let visitors register and get access to exclusive content. Additionally, it’s also possible to sell paid subscriptions online without third-party integrations. On top of that, you can combine these sets of features with other Wix apps like Wix Bookings or your Wix blog. This is one of the Best Membership Site Platforms for building a website.
Wix Features
- Wix’s intuitive technology and powerful built-in features let you to creative freedom to design a website.
- The Wix Editor will give you complete design freedom. Every design element is customizable.
- Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) lets you create a beautifully designed website s in no time.
- With Velo by Wix, you can build advanced web applications your way. Make your site more dynamic using serverless computing on our open dev platform. You can create custom interactions and functionality for your project with JavaScript and Wix APIs.
- Wix offers a wide range of built-in components to help build your online presence hassle-free.
- Send customized email marketing campaigns designed to bring visitors to your site.
- Easily sync to a variety of apps that integrate right into your site giving you all the marketing functions that you need.
- Use the Wix Video Maker to create beautiful videos instantly.
- Wix’s built-in analytics tools let you make more informed decisions to improve your site. Monitor your site’s traffic, see where your visitors are coming from and how they behave on your site.
Wix Pricing
Wix provides 3 plans for Business
- Business VIP: $49 per month
- Business Unlimited: $27 per month
- Business Basic: $23 per month
You will get a 100% money-back guarantee within 14 days if you are not satisfied with Wix.
Podia is an online platform that lets you create and sell online courses, memberships, and digital downloads (e.g. ebooks). With Podia, you can host your course content, deliver it in a professional manner, build a storefront to sell your courses as well as accept payments on your website.
From your sales page to your member dashboard, Podia is designed to shine a spotlight on your brand, not get in its way. You can customize the look and feel of your entire site in minutes, no design or development experience is required.
Every Podia membership includes the key features listed below, plus all of its other “all-in-one” features, including our complete website builder, email marketing tools, secure payment processing, hosting for your other digital products, and so much more. This is one of the Best Membership Site Platforms for build-in email marketing services.
Podia Features
- Unlimited members and membership levels: Create as many membership plans – for as many members – as you want, each with different perks, content, and prices.
- Membership posts: Publish members-only content. Add pinned posts, schedule content in advance, and control which membership plans see which posts.
- Public posts: Make any post visible to anyone who visits your membership site. Think of it like a public-facing blog post.
- Seamlessly bundle your other products: With just a couple of clicks, including access to your other Podia-hosted products with any membership plan.
- Free trial: Offer a free trial to new members, giving them a risk-free chance to try before they buy.Comments & likes: Engage your audience by inviting them to share their thoughts, ask questions, or like your content.
- Connect to Facebook, Slack, or Palapa: Link to your Facebook Group, Slack Channel, or Palapa community so only paying members can join.
- Bill monthly or yearly: Charge for access to your membership on a monthly or annual basis.
- Instant payouts: Get paid faster with instant payouts; there’s no holding or waiting period, so you get your money as quickly as possible.
- Coupons: Nudge your customers to buy with coupons that can be customized with expirations, usage caps, and product limitations.
- Messaging: An on-page chat widget lets you close deals with site visitors and engage with logged-in course customers.
- Email marketing: With built-in features like broadcasts and automated campaigns, Podia replaces your expensive email platform.
- Online payments: Automatically accept credit card payments via Stripe or PayPal; securely store your customers’ payment information for future purchases.
Podia Pricing
Podia offers 3 plans:
- Mover – $39/month
- Shaker – $79/month
- Earthquker – $179/month
Memberful is a service that makes it easy to start an online membership-based community. It manages subscription plans, one-off purchases, authentication, communication, and much more. Memberful is perhaps the best-in-class membership software for independent creators, publishers, educators, podcasters, and more. This is one of the best Free membership site platforms.
Memberful has grown significantly over the past few years. They started with WordPress, but they now integrate with several more services and platforms, including Discourse, Zapier, Discord, LearnDash LMS plugin for WordPress, Campaign Monitor, and more. Since they were acquired by Patreon in 2018, they’ve added several more features and expanded into custom landing pages and paid podcasts. This is one of the best Free membership site builder tools.
Memberful Features
- Create any kind of subscription plan
- Optimized Checkout
- Dashboard Analytics
- Easy Member Management
- Seamless integration with WordPress
- Sell memberships without a website
Memberful Pricing
Memberful offers 3 plans:
- Starter – $ 0/month
- Pro – $25/month
- Premium – $100/month
YourMembership is a membership website builder that is developed for nonprofits, associations, and other member-based organizations looking to increase member engagement and improve staff efficiency. From membership management and custom-designed websites to event registration and an online member community, YourMembership empowers you to focus on what’s most important: your members. This is one of the Best Membership Site Platforms online.
YourMembership Features
- Membership Management: Give members an easy path to sign up and renew with auto-renewal functionality. Empower members to manage their own membership information via an online portal.Event Management: Create a personalized registration path for attendees, speakers, and sponsors, only displaying relevant tickets and event sessions.Website and Design Hosting: Connect members with modern hosting and user-friendly website that look on every website.
- Workflow Automation: Increase staff efficiency with automated workflows for repetitive day-to-day tasks.Online Community: Drive continuous engagement by instantly connecting your members to each other and your organization, while becoming part of your member’s daily social habits.
- Accounting: Accept payments securely with integrated payment processing that meets the highest standard for security.
- DashBoard and Advanced Reporting: Quickly gain visibility to member growth, retention rates, engagement scores, and more, so you can make data-driven decisions to move your organization forward.Ecommerce and store: Promote and manage dues, registrations, donations, and store items in one integrated e-commerce system that boosts the bottom line.
YourMembership Pricing
There is no pricing information available on the official websites. You have to reach out to the vendor for a custom quote.
WishList is a simple and powerful membership platform. It can be used by podcasters, authors, creators, and Coaches. If you want to create online courses, you can easily build and sell online courses. Not only this, you can build recurring revenue with a membership site. This is one of the Best Membership Site Platforms for WordPress.
WisList Member Feature
- Solid Functionality: Skip cookie-cutter membership sites. Get industry-leading versatility and control, without limitations in design, integrations, redirects, or functionality.Unlimited “modular” membership levels: Build as many membership levels as you want, choose who can access each piece of content (or not), and create targeted promotions.
- Seamless connection with the best of WordPress: Protect your content without intruding on on-site design. WishList Member plays nice with WP themes, page builders, and plugins.
- Drip and schedule: Automate content distribution to your community. Drip your favorite content to new members, schedule posts to go live on an exact date.
- Archive content: Encourage members to maintain their subscriptions by periodically archiving content, so only people who were members before the archive date have access.Protect your valuable content: Establish different membership levels to offer free, premium, or pay-per-post content. Your gated content is protected by leading online security.
- “Sneak peak” + partial display: If a non-member stumbles upon gated content, you can create “sneak peak” snippets to give them a taste of what they’re missing—and invite them to sign up.
- Multiple payment setups: Create monthly subscriptions, pay per post, or multiple paid membership levels—in any possible configuration or combination.
- Admin dashboard: Gain a bird’s-eye view of everything going on in your membership site. Get real-time stats about your community.
- Custom engagement: Create custom login screens, enable email notifications to keep members informed, and control permissions at a granular level.
- Onboarding Forms: Use onboarding forms to learn more about each new member who signs up. Keep their data protected with GDPR compliance.
WishList Member Pricing
The pricing of WishList starts at $147 per year for one site.
Weebly is an online drag and drops website builder that lets users create unique websites and online stores. The platform is also available for mobile devices that can be used to create and publish websites on the go.
Weebly offers integrations with over twenty third-party apps that are useful for your website, blog, or online store. You can also purchase your own domain from Weebly or launch your website with a subdomain provided by the company.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has been integrated deep into the system which makes it easier to get organic traffic from search engines. Weebly has tons of professional themes that can be customized to match the identity of your brand or business.
Weebly Features
- Theme: Beautiful themes created by top designers make your website look polished and professional on any device. Every theme is ready to launch immediately and is fully customizable.
- Drag & Drop Builder: You can create the perfect site with powerful tools with drag and drop builder.
- Custom Font: Show off your brand and personal style with unique fonts.
- Image Editor: You can create professional photos without leaving your website.
- Video and Audio: Display your videos with stunning clarity.
- Custom HTML/CSS and Javascript: The option to fully customize everything you need.
- SSL Security: One-click SSL certificates, DDoS Mitigation, and a support team available 24/7 to keep your site safe.
- Digital Marketing: Drive traffic to your site with integrated social media marketing, SEO tools, and AdWords credit.
- Statistics: Easily track how many people visited your website, which pages they visited, what search terms they used to find your site, and which websites referred traffic to your site directly from the Weebly dashboard. Check your site stats from any device with Weebly’s popular mobile apps.
- Forms: Weebly’s drag and drop online form builder makes it easy to build custom contact forms, RSVP lists, and surveys. Integrate these elements into your website for a variety of unique engagement and data gathering options.
Weebly Pricing
Weebly offers 4 plans for creating a website:
- Free – $0.00
- Connect – $ 5.00/month
- Pro – $12.00/month
- Business – $25.00/month
Conclusion
Every business must attract and grow a user base. You could have the best idea in the world, but without users, there is no revenue, and without revenue, there is no business.
You must have heard a phrase that “If You Are Good At Something, Never Do It Free“. So if you are an expert in your respective domain. You understand the ins and outs of the space you operate in and the pain points in the market. So, why not take that knowledge and repurpose it into a membership site to better engage customers, increase loyalty and generate even more revenue? But to do, above here, I have listed and reviewed some of the best Membership Site platforms.
Hope you liked reading this article on “Best Membership Site Platforms“. If you have any questions regarding the topic, you can leave them in the comment section below. I will be happy to respond.
