MembershipWorks

What MembershipWorks is

MembershipWorks is membership management software that you add to a website you already have, rather than a site builder you move into. The home page says its system is designed for chambers of commerce, professional, trade and industry associations, networking groups, societies, nonprofits and other membership groups, and the reviews quoted there come from association boards, a women's business organization and a small chamber of commerce. The reader it fits is an administrator or volunteer who has to run dues, a member directory, event sign-ups and a job board without hiring a developer.

The home page sums up the scope as an all-in-one membership software solution: membership management, a member directory, an event calendar and registrations, online payments, donations, a shopping cart and web forms, job boards, announcement boards and classified ads, and member-only content.

What you build and how

There is no canvas or drag-and-drop editor here. You build a membership site by adding MembershipWorks to your existing site and then configuring the member-side features in its admin. The company says that with "simple copy and paste integration, most MembershipWorks customers choose to handle it themselves," and that no coding knowledge is required. One of its comparison pages describes the method as copying and pasting code snippets or shortcodes into the site you already run. The site has setup guides and demos for WordPress (through a plugin), Squarespace, Weebly, Without Code, Wix, Duda and HTML5, plus a video demo of the admin and a personal demo you can schedule. The compatibility tables on the comparison pages also name Drupal, Joomla and Spacecraft, and one footnote says the integration cannot be used with Weebly sites running a Square Online Store. The company also says its features do not rely on iFrames, which matters for page speed and for keeping members on your own domain.

Members and directory. Membership management and a member directory are the first two features on the list. One reviewer on the home page, Bruce D Johnson, says the association loves "the power of the profiles and the control our members have over them." Dr. Tenesha Wards, who took over a women's business organization whose website took 6 months to build and still could not take payments for events, host a directory or run membership reports, says the difference is that those things "do not have to be built out each one individually" because they are already in the program.

How accounts are counted. Plans are sized in accounts. A comparison page on the site explains that MembershipWorks by default does not count event attendees or donors as accounts, although that can be switched on, and that the extra contacts of a business or group account do not count separately, so a business account with 4 employees still counts as 1 account.

Events. The event calendar and registration feature lets members sign up for events and pay for them. Bruce D Johnson mentions the Stripe integration for paying for events and the calendar he calls "eternal."

Payments, donations and forms. The site lists member billing and online payments, plus donations, shopping carts and forms. The comparison tables name Stripe, Authorize.net and PayPal as the payment gateways and say there are no additional per-transaction charges beyond the gateway's own fees.

Job board, announcements and classifieds. A job board and an announcement board are separate features. The company says paid plans include a boards feature that can run a classified ads board, which it pitches at chambers and trade associations looking for more ways for members to interact.

Members-only website. A members-only content feature restricts pages and items to signed-in members, and the site names it among its core features.

Accounting, email and admins. The key integrations listed are MailChimp, QuickBooks Online and Desktop, and Xero, and the company says organizations already using QuickBooks or Xero for bookkeeping can connect them. Paid plans can create as many secondary admins as needed, with the primary admin controlling each one's permissions, and the tables list admin seats on paid plans as unlimited. Contact logging (CRM), the job board, classified ads and member cards are described as included in all paid plans.

Hosting. MembershipWorks used to sell a hosting service: a dedicated WordPress server with its plugin pre-installed and website templates (Blue Lift, Feast, Pomegranate, Wilco, Sky and Biblio). The site states it "no longer offers website hosting as of 2023" and points customers to other WordPress hosts or to Squarespace, Weebly, Wix, Without Code or Duda. The same page notes that membership, event and financial data were stored on separate servers dedicated to that purpose, not on the website server.

Staying portable. Because the membership layer sits inside your website, the company argues that you can change or update your site at any time without having to rebuild your membership database. The menu also links to a developer directory where organizations can find a developer and developers can create a listing, and to an international section and a system status page.

What the pages say about plans and support

The pages say pricing starts at $0, with a free plan for organizations that have 50 or fewer members, and paid plans starting at $35 a month for 300 accounts. The company says it offers the same features on all paid plans, and its comparison tables list a $0 setup fee and no onboarding fees.

Support is a selling point. The home page says you can reach the team by phone or email or schedule a one-on-one screen-share training session, and that customer support is included at no extra cost. The comparison pages describe the training as free and unlimited, held one-on-one or as a group session with your staff, and pitch it at organizations with annual turnover among volunteers and board members. They point to reviews on Capterra, G2, Reviews.io and the WordPress repository. Gareth Rayner, quoted on the home page, says he went "12 days from finding them online to going live with a full transfer from my existing site," and also praises the response rate on the company's Google community for FAQs and requests. Tammy Doriot, from a small chamber in a historic town, says the team designed some additions to fit the chamber's needs. Bruce D Johnson says the development team has added new capabilities based on feedback.

Who it suits and who it does not

MembershipWorks suits a chamber, association, nonprofit or club that already has a website on WordPress, Squarespace, Wix or a similar platform and wants directories, event registration, dues and a job board without rebuilding that site. The free tier for 50 or fewer members fits a very small group testing the idea, and the $35 tier for 300 accounts fits a growing one. Unlimited admins and the included training suit volunteer-run groups where the person who set things up leaves after a year or two.

It is a weaker fit for a creator selling courses or a paid newsletter, because the feature list is built around organizations and their members, not lessons or content libraries. And since you attach it to a site you build yourself, you still own the look of the site, and a hosting service from MembershipWorks is no longer available. If you want the vendor to host and design the whole website, this is not that product.