It’s most important to choose an appropriate membership platform with respect to personal needs, if you are preparing to create a membership site
Although, a choice of various membership website builders is there, and all of them have a unique thing to offer, so making a right decision can be a difficult task.
In this regard, I will guide about the best membership site platforms that exist in 2023, along with their main features, weaknesses and strengths. Moreover, I’ll share some tips which may help you figure out the right choice for your business.
For discovering the best membership site platform for your business, you must be mindful of what to search for in your membership software.
So you need to stockpile the things that are crucial to build a membership site, and then you may also include your specific requirements.
Hosted platforms are usually more easy to use, additionally, you don’t take the trouble of worrying about technical things like maintenance, hosting, site speed, or security.
In contrast, creation of a membership on WordPress, needs an extraordinary tech-savvy. Although, in its functionality, you receive more extendibility and flexibility.
So for a common and non-techie creator, hosted membership website builders usually work well, and I suggest that you should only go to the WordPress route when you’ve got custom requirements which cannot be fulfilled by some hosted platforms.
Top membership experts, including all others and Stu McLaren in their Tribe program, recommend that you should include a number of delivery formats and content types in your membership, and your platform must permit you to do that.
For an instance, you may offer just a single piece of content each month (may be week) or include a few online courses.
Likewise, you can also use several content delivery formats like audio files, videos, live coaching calls, blog posts, newsletters, downloadable checklists, etc.
Apart from the content, there are diverse tools of engagement and learning which creators use in their memberships, and you could have need of one or more of them:
Drip Feed: You may need your content released on the basis of a schedule instead of providing an immediate access to the entire content.
Quizzes and Certificates: In case, if your membership lies in a specific niche (e.g., cybersecurity), you may need to use the tools like quizzes, assignments, and certificates.
Gamification Tools: If your primary focus rests in driving engagement, and to reward your members with the points and badges you should gamify the membership.
A community creation is a significant way which can boost the membership retention, it is a key selling point for membership websites in a number of cases.
As many of the creators use Facebook Group or something similar for their community, a number of people prefer to have a community area on their website.
In addition, several memberships of a private community that is their main offering, in such kind of case you would need to have more powerful community features.
You may take a call about the way you want to opt and you’ll be able to choose a membership platform in accordance.
In general, Membership pricing contains a few elements that your platform should support:
To conclude, with the help of a variety of third-party solutions —analytics solutions (e.g., Google Analytics), email marketing services (e.g., ConvertKit), payment processors (e.g., Stripe), your membership software should have ability to play well.
Let’s have a look on the 5 best membership site platforms and the ways they can assist you to launch an online membership.
Kajabi is a membership site platform with all-in-one features which lets you deliver your content by creating a membership site. Plus, you can create a well-developed website for your brand and manage all facets of marketing and sales on the very platform.
When we talk about the membership site creation, Kajabi offers everything for a hosted platform. It enables you to create your online courses with the help of quizzes, videos, and other multimedia content. Furthermore, you can update your content in addition to setting pre-requisite lessons.
Likewise, it contains 10+ beautifully devised Product Themes which specialize in working the best irrespective of whether you are interested in delivering an online course or just to offer any standalone training.
It also offers an app for iOS or Android devices, therefore if your members is comfortable in consuming content on mobile, they’ll surely enjoy a better learning experience.
One more useful membership feature that Kajabi offers is community that enables you to make a private community area for your own members. You are also able to include Podcasts and Coaching in your membership.
Kajabi offers a very flexible package when it comes to your membership pricing. It enables your members to pay weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually. In addition to it, you also have the facility to offer a free-trial or charge an upfront setup fee.
Kajabi offers a dedicated subscription metrics report when it comes to analytics, therefore, you are enabled to track monthly recurring revenue (MRR) of your membership site, it’s and churn rate and average revenue per user (ARPU).
Currently, with its inbuilt sales and marketing features, Kajabi brings everything to the best. It offers a sales channel builder that enables you to track your customer’s journey and build an end-to-end marketing funnel.
With Kajabi you can also create landing pages, run webinars, start email marketing campaigns, management of your affiliate program and automation of your whole marketing workflow.
To conclude, Kajabi permits you to create your front-end website and your blog, which enables you to handle your entire business on the platform.
Kajabi is among the more expensive options out there when it comes to the pricing.
Its pricing varies from $149/month, and the well-liked plan costs $199/month. Yet, no transaction fee in any of their pricing plans.
Kajabi is a tremendously feature-rich platform that is ready to assist you with all aspects of running a membership site business. If you’re searching for an all-in-one membership platform Kajabi can be an ideal choice for you.
Another established hosted membership website builder is Thinkific. Although, in contrast to Kajabi, it is primarily focused on offering main features which include ability to deliver and host your content along with processing online payments.
It is the reason that Thinkific isn’t offering an inbuilt blogging feature, email marketing tools, a funnel builder, and it requires use of third-party tools for such things.
Still, Thinkific is one of the best options for creating online courses and membership sites.
It enables you to create an engaging course along with multiple content types, which may include quizzes, assignments, videos, and PDFs. It can release your content by creating learning paths or on a drip schedule.
There is just a single theme when it comes to the course player, however it is incredibly well designed from a user’s perspective, and it works very well for all types of online courses.
The course player is much more mobile responsive, as the users can comfortably enjoy your content in their mobile browsers. But till now, Thinkific, doesn’t possess any mobile app.
One more significant feature of Thinkific is that it offers for building memberships is that it has capability to make an online community on the platform.
You have options to create monthly or annual subscriptions when it comes to pricing your membership, additionally, you have the capacity to include a free-trial or charge a setup fee. Likewise, it is quite easy in Thinkific to make a tiered level for your membership.
In conclusion, Thinkific is offering many other significant selling tools including the ability to create the sales pages, create 1-click upsells and coupons, process payments, engage in affiliate marketing, etc.
When it comes to the pricing, you can get started with Thinkific for free. The minimum cost for a monthly paid plan is $49 per month, and it provides all the essential features of course creation.
Although, a number of important membership features (e.g., bundles, Communities, subscription pricing, etc.) demand the PRO plan that charges $99 per month.
Cutting it to short, Thinkific is very reasonable in its price. Thinkific can be a great choice if you are looking for a standalone platform to build your membership site.
The Basic plan or minimum cost plans is $39 per month (+5% transaction fee) and the most liked plan starts with $119 per month (0% transaction fee).
Finally, Teachable can be a good option if your membership includes a number of courses bundled together and if you are looking for a more affordable solution.
MemberPress ranks among the best and most popular WordPress membership plugins. It is quite distinct from “all-in-one” plugins like AccessAlly.
So, it includes all the essential requirements of a membership site as, protection of content, subscription payments handling, and creating tiered membership levels.
MemberPress enables you to protect your WordPress pages and posts and it also restricts access to them on the basis of membership plans that a user has owned.
Courses add-on can be used as If you are looking to offer some online courses in your membership. Although, it lacks some essential features, so you’ll be comfortable in consuming a third-party WordPress LMS plugin like LearnDash.
There is a great flexibility as for as the pricing is concerned, it covers setting up the custom periods for recurring payments, creating free or paid trials of varying lengths, controlling the number of payments, etc.
In conclusion, the MemberPress provides a number of very handy features for membership management and reportings.
MemberPress is considerably more economic as compared to the other options given above when it comes to pricing, but it also lacks many things.
The lowest cost Plan is $179 per year which provides you with one site license, on the other hand the best Plan costs $299 per year which gives the license of two sites.
If you are intending to create a full-fledged membership site, MemberPress would not be the most suitable option for you as you would need to patch many third-party plugins together.
But, MemberPress could be all that you need if you want your WordPress pages and posts quickly turned into a membership site.
Another all-in-one online business platform is Kartra, which also has ability to create a membership website.
The membership site builder of Kartra allows you to add standalone content like quizzes, audio playlists, text and video, and produce online courses. You are also allowed to drip-feed your content on the basis of a schedule.
The area of default members is so well designed that to coordinate your brand and fulfill the specific requirements you can customize it. Additionally, it permits your members to access your content on all devices, even on mobile.
On the other hand, for member engagement, Kartra does not have very much to offer. But inside Kartra, you are unable to do live sessions or create a community area. The possible way to interact with your members is through the comment section.
It provides a great flexibility while pricing your membership site. You are allowed to create weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual subscriptions, which may include a free trial, or paid trial.
Furthermore, you can simply build multiple access levels for your site and you are also allowed to offer some special content to your subscribers in specific tiers.
Above all, the platform permits you to make landing pages, set up a website which would be fully-fledged, launch some email marketing campaigns, and manage an affiliate program.
Pricing
As far as the pricing is concerned, Kartra’s basic plan starts with $99 per month, which comprises all the features that platform offers. The best known package is the Silver plan, which costs $199 per month.
There are several choices as subscription platform for creators, and the diversity of choices can make right platform selection more tough and tricky.
It’s the cause that I suggest you keep things simple! Initially, go into the hosted membership software because these are simple to use and work well for most of the creators.
If you are in search of an all-in-one membership site platform which may run your business, I will suggest to go for Kajabi.
Instead, you should go with Thinkific, if your marketing funnels are already in a good place and you want a platform which may host and deliver your membership content.
The third platform which I suggest is Mighty Networks. It provides a great opportunity to create a community-focused membership site.
How should I build a subscription platform for creators?
You can create a subscription-based membership site through the use of a hosted membership platform or it could be done by addition of a membership plugin to the website platform. After that, members-only content can be managed you can also set up access rules. At the end, you may have to set up your billing frequency and payment plans.
How to find the best membership site software?
Kajabi is the best membership site software that permits the creation of a subscription-based website for online courses, coaching, communities, teams, and affiliates.
What makes a good membership site?
What makes a distinction between a membership website, a blog or some other kind of creator platforms? In fact, it is the extent of interaction between your members. The social relations that they shape with you and the work you do, and between themselves, are the real bonds that which compels them to restore their membership and frequently visit your site.
