11 best membership site platforms for creators to boost earnings in 2023

Are you looking for the best membership site platform but not sure where to start?

We have everything you want to know!

Membership sites are incredibly popular thanks to their huge revenue potential. It’s a billion dollar industry and is still growing.

Whether you want to boost an existing membership business or start one from scratch, this article will help you choose the right membership site software for your needs.

Top 11 membership site platforms

Choosing the right platform can be challenging for your project. Here are our top picks summarized in a table for you.

Platform	Starting Price	Our opinion
SureMembers	$99/yr ($8.25/mo). 1st year starts at $69/yr	Easy to use WordPress plugin to create and manage any type of membership website.
AccessAlly	$82/mo	A membership platform suitable for large projects with multiple requirements and high budgets.
Kajabi	$149/mo	A user friendly membership platform with a drag and drop page builder to create essential pages.
Kartra	$99/mo	Drag and drop editor and predesigned templates make it easy to create multi-tier membership websites.
MemberSpace	Free + paid plan starts at $49/mo	A great choice for CMS fans looking to build a membership website where visitors don’t need to leave for anything.
Mighty Networks	$33/mo	An excellent platform to nurture a community that engages through AI tools and a custom mobile app.
Podia	Free + paid plan starts at $33/mo	Suitable for beginners who want an easy and risk-free start to building a highly engaging community.
Teachable	Free + paid plan starts at $39/mo	An all-in-one platform for educators who want the freedom and ease of designing online courses however they want.
Thinkfic	Free + paid plan starts at $36/mo	An excellent choice for creators who want to sell online courses and digital products on a single platform.
Uscreen	$79/mo + $0.99 per subscription	Best for creators who want to build a Netflix-like video streaming website for an exclusive community.
Wild Apricot	$60/mo	An ideal choice for creators who like to manage their subscription platform on the go. It’s powerful enough for huge databases.

Let’s look at them in a little more detail.

1. SureMembers

SureMembers come first on our list of the best membership site platforms.

Features

• Flexible user group management
• Reports and analytics showing membership status and performance
• Seamlessly integrate with hundreds of third-party tools
• Ability to restrict content and downloads
• Enables multiple payment methods and easy subscription handling with SureCart
• Fully automate your membership site by integrating with SureTriggers

Pros

• Modern interface and user friendly design
• Auto login for members via SureCart
• Customize the checkout pages and cart however you like
• Easy to customize registration forms to align with your branding
• High-level security and privacy measures to secure sensitive data

Cons

• No monthly plans available
• Require third-party tools to create forums

Cost: SureMembers offers three annual plans: Pro ($99/yr), Business ($199/yr), and Agency ($299/yr). You can save up to 50% in the first year.

Our opinion

SureMembers is one of the most powerful membership plugins for WordPress.

You could be an agency, blogger, podcaster, influencer, eCommerce guru or anyone who wants to build an engaging community.

SureMembers is a simple-to-use software that allows you to configure multi level memberships in just a few clicks. You can specify how content can be accessed by members or groups based on your preferences.

There are a range of features available with this plugin, including a flexible content restriction option, drip content, customized checkout process, user-friendly interface, and a variety of other features.

With the drip content feature, you can release content on a predefined schedule.

For instance, you can deliver content to members when you want, after signups or distribute it over a certain time period.

It is up to you whether to restrict posts, eBooks, audio files or video lessons to paid members or allow free or partial access.

In addition to content, SureMembers can hide and show menu items to eligible members depending on the settings you configure.

SureMembers integrates seamlessly with SureCart to add Stripe, PayPal and Mollie to your site. It means you can offer a wide range of payment methods to members.

2. AccessAlly

AccessAlly is designed for coaches, trainers and creators.

Features:

• Comprehensive subscription management
• Bulk course enrollment
• Easy to receive one-off and recurring payments
• Built-in support to manage an affiliate program
• Easy member migration from other platforms

Pros

• 1-click upsells and order bumps
• Abandoned cart follow-up
• Built-in powerful LMS

Cons

• Lack of a recurring subscription migration feature
• You’ll need a big budget

Cost: AccessAlly offers three plans: Essentials ($82/mo), Pro ($108/mo), Community ($124/mo)

Our opinion

It’s the all-in-one WordPress plugin you need to build a course and membership business with all the bells and whistles.

It’s loaded with a built-in LMS, affiliate marketing tools and tons of supportive features to teach better, sell more and engage longer.

You can also build a strong community around your business and manage it through built-in tools to keep it alive and engaging.

AccessAlly is an end-to-end membership site platform suitable for large projects with multiple requirements and high budgets.

With all the features at your disposal, the plugin has a learning curve. You may need some time to fully understand a number of modules you may never need in your business.

3. Kajabi

Creators who want a simple solution to publish and sell their content will like Kajabi.

Features:

• Extensive community management tools
• Lots of premade templates
• Easy to use drag and drop visual builders
• Allows drip content and video hosting
• Set subscription tiers such as recurring payments, one-off payments and one-click upsells

Pros

• Free mobile apps (Android/IOS)
• No percentage cut from revenue
• Native community feature

Cons

• Limited features
• High cost

Cost: 0% transaction fee. Kajabi offers three plans: Basic ($149/mo), Growth ($199/mo), and Pro ($399/mo)

Our opinion

Kajabi is a membership platform that anyone can use to earn from online courses, coaching, podcasts, memberships and communities.

It makes life simple for non-coders by offering a drag and drop website builder, landing page creator, several themes and comprehensive membership management tools.

You only need to select the right option and Kajab creates everything for you. For instance, when you select a membership site template, Kajab creates essential pages, opt-in forms, landing pages and course pages.

Its email marketing module automates most manual tasks to target the right members. Kajabi automatically tags members based on their behavior and engagement.

You can also create private communities and monetize them with recurring payments.

Features such as live calls, real-time chat, leaderboards, challenges and many more make communities more engaging.

Overall, Kajabi has a user friendly interface but an extremely feature-rich platform to help you successfully run your membership business.

4. Kartra

Kartra is a comprehensive marketing solution for your online business. It automates everything and makes things as simple as possible.

Features

• Comprehensive marketing and sales features for various tasks
• 500+ customizable product and content page templates
• Customizable member areas to match your brand needs
• Create a weekly, bi-weekly, monthly or annual subscriptions
• Easily add video, audio playlists or quizzes wherever you need

Pros

• Built-in help desk to support customers
• Drag and drop page builder with split testing
• Easy to manage affiliate programs

Cons

• Missing features like live chat with members
• Has a learning curve for beginners

Cost: Kartra offers four plans: Starter ($99/mo), Silver ($199/mo), Gold ($299/mo) and Platinum ($499/mo). With annual options, you can save significantly. For high volume businesses, Kartra also offers enterprise level plans.

Our opinion

You can build a multi-tier membership website and share content with your customers using Kartra’s membership and community features.

Its drag and drop editor allows you to design your membership site the way you want. You can use hundreds of pre-designed templates and products to give your site a professional look.

Kartra offers in-depth analytics, strong lead generation and marketing tools to help you strategize your business in a better way.

The platform is reasonably priced and offers several plans to suit most business needs.

5. MemberSpace

MemberSpace can work with multiple platforms including WordPress, Squarespace, Notion, Duda, Wix and Hubspot. It’s designed in a way so anyone can build a membership site.

Features

• Several conversion-boosting features are part of the platform
• Create free and paid membership tiers
• Auto recover abandoned member signup
• Auto recover failed recurring member
• Automatically handles proration billing

Pros

• 14-day free trial with all plans
• Supports 100+ currencies
• Create unlimited members

Cons

• Only supports Stripe for payments
• Lacks a native website builder

Cost: MemberSpace offers two plans: Free (1 website), Professional Plan ($49/mo for unlimited websites)

Our Opinion

You can create a complete membership site or use a part of it for memberships. This plugin can do both with ease.

Using MemberSpace, you can protect your content with a paywall and only allow it to be accessed when you want. For instance, you can offer a few free videos and enable a paywall for the rest.

Your members don’t have to leave your site for essential tasks. They can sign up, login, access and manage their membership area, all on your website.

If you already have a membership site, MemberSpace can help you import the entire membership data including billing details. It also integrates with Stripe to collect payments.

If you’re a CMS fan, MemberSpace is definitely worth trying.

6. Mighty Networks

Mighty Networks is about more than just managing memberships!

It’s a way to build a highly engaged community and offer courses or resources.

Features

• Build your own branded mobile app for Android and iOS
• Offer free mobile apps on Android and iOS for members
• Notify students about a new course or a course update
• Import existing networks into Mighty Networks
• Flexible membership pricing: one-time, monthly or annual subscriptions

Pros

• Clutter free design
• 14 day free trial available
• Students can customize notifications to their liking

Cons

• Lack of video hosting. You need an external and ultrafast WordPress hosting service
• No in-built quizzes module available

Cost: Mighty Networks offers two plans: Community ($33/mo), Business ($99/mo). The Mighty Pro plan is customized to fit your needs.

Our opinion

Your community can have a higher rate of interaction than any other social media page which makes Mighty Networks more suitable for businesses.

What’s even better is that you can have your own branded mobile app to offer members.

You could be an educator, nutritionist, or entrepreneur with endless ideas and Mighty Networks will help you sell anything in your exclusive space.

It also allows you to engage with your community in several ways. This includes creating courses, forums, live events, live streaming, Q&A sessions and messaging your members.

One thing that sets Mighty Networks apart is its integration with ChatGPT. This does a number of things, including creating community names, sales pages and more.

7. Podia

Podia is a membership site platform that makes it easy to build a revenue-generating community.

Features

• Easy to build, customize and host your membership website
• Allow linking an existing domain to your community
• Live chat and one-to-one video sessions are possible
• Allow connecting memberships to social platforms (Facebook groups or Slack)
• Bundle different products and sell them as one

Pros

• No transaction fees on paid plans
• Powerful email marketing module
• Create and host unlimited courses and students

Cons

• Advanced community features are absent
• Not many customization options for large businesses

Cost: Podia offers three plans: Free, Mover ($33/mo) and Shaker ($75/mo).

Our opinion

Podia is a simple, no-code platform suitable for all skill levels. You can effortlessly create your membership website in 10 minutes and use its drag and drop builder to shape it however you want.

It allows you to generate revenue from selling a variety of products such as memberships, online courses, webinars and digital products.

You can create free and multi-tier paid membership communities and offer your members a price plan of your choice.

Members can interact with posts, topics and comments in their feeds and use multimedia such as images, videos, and text in their discussions.

Although Podia does not offer a mobile app like Mighty Networks, it’s responsive enough to work on any device.

It’s free to start using Podia, but remember it charges 8% on every transaction, which isn’t the case with paid plans.

8. Teachable

Whether a passion project or a multi-million dollar business, Teachable is suitable for all types of online course membership websites.

Features

• Multiple payment methods with an end to end payout solution
• Lots of third-party integrations available such as Zapier, MailChimp and Aweber
• AI course curriculum generator makes creators more productive
• Built-in upsell and order bump features to maximize revenue
• Built-in marketing features to promote your business

Pros

• Intuitive interface for course building
• Supports multiple payment processors
• 1:1 coaching available

Cons

• Transaction fee with the Basic plan
• Managing multiple membership tiers can be tedious

Cost: Teachable offers four plans: Free, Basic ($39/mo), Pro ($119/mo) and Business ($499/mo)

Our opinion

Teachable is designed exclusively for educators looking to monetize their online courses and build a business from the ground up.

One of the things that attracts course creators to Teachable is the freedom to choose a medium for their course. As a course creator you will be able to sell courses in any format that you desire such as videos, audios, and PDF’s.

Although this platform is designed to sell online courses, you can benefit from several subscription features.

For instance, you can create membership subscriptions with the course bundle feature and sell them monthly or annually.

Online creators love platforms that are feature rich and make it easy to process payments. Teachable is one of them!

You can integrate a variety of third party tools and offer students multiple payment methods so they can pay you easily.

Although Teachable has no built-in community feature, you can integrate with the third-party community building platform, Circle.so.

9. Thinkific

Just like Teachable, Thinkfic is designed to help content creators build courses and monetize them.

Features

• Design and customize your website and courses with a drag and drop page builder
• Create payment plans and subscriptions in a variety of ways. Even offer free trials
• Use multiple payment methods through Stripe and PayPal
• Track course progress and auto notify the students
• Drip content tools

Pros

• Easy to design and sell courses
• Integration with more than 1,000 third-party tools including Zapier and Google Adwords
• Mobile responsive content

Cons

• You need higher plans to use advanced features
• No mobile app for students

Cost: Thinkfic offers four plans: Free, Basic ($36/mo), Start ($74/mo), Grow ($149/mo)

Our opinion

Thinkfic makes it easy to sell online courses, memberships and digital products.

It gives you several options for choosing the format for your course, including video, audio, PDF or webinar.

There’s a number of interactive surveys, assignments, and quizzes your students can take to show their progress and help engagement.

The platform also provides options to ensure students watch complete videos.

You can use the mandatory video completion feature to decide what comes next. You can even disable downloads to keep students engaged on the platform.

Even though Thinkfic has endless features for designing and selling your courses, it falls behind Kartra and Kajabi when it comes to marketing.

10. Uscreen

While there are many membership platforms that allow you to display video content, only a select few are dedicated to videos.

Features

• Create a Netflix-style viewing experience
• Monetize videos through rental, purchase or subscriptions
• Use premade video themes or design your own with a drag and drop builder
• Develop your own branded OTT app for iOS, Android, Roku or Apple TV
• Powerful search and discovery features to help boost views

Pros

• Downloadable videos to watch offline
• Built-in marketing tools for lead generation
• Community building features

Cons

• Limited video storage space
• Per subscriber fee plus monthly charges

Cost: Uscreen offers three plans: Basic ($79/mo + $0.99 per subscriber/mo), Growth ($159/mo + $0.85 per subscriber/mo) and Uscreen Plus (custom quote + $0.50 per subscriber/mo)

Our opinion

Uscreen is a robust membership platform for video creators that want to create a streaming service like Netflix.

If you’re a YouTuber like Mr. Beast or a yoga instructor like Adriene, Uscreen gives you fully loaded space to create,upload and sell video content however you want.

Exclusivity is the biggest advantage you can enjoy on Uscreen which is rare on crowded social networking platforms.

Instead of hopping from one social network to another, you can manage your entire video business in one place. This way you can own your audience and build your brand.

Uscreen plans include video hosting, website creation, lots of built-in tools and endless third-party integrations so you can scale your video business.

A few interesting features we like about Uscreen are the ability to generate leads, create landing pages, build mobile and TV apps, and powerful analytics to know what’s happening on your site.

11. Wild Apricot

Wild Apricot is the ideal membership website software for organizations who value the simple handling of day-to-day membership tasks.

Features

• Access and manage the platform from mobile apps
• Instant payment, auto-generated invoices and receipts make life easy
• Receive donations and recurring payments on your site
• Drag and drop builder and premade themes to build a site and mobile app
• Create private or publicly accessible membership directories

Pros

• User friendly and straightforward interface
• Powerful reporting and analytical tools
• Limit access to the site based on membership level

Cons

• LMS support is lacking
• Small businesses may find pricing steep

Cost: Wild Apricot offers seven plans: Personal ($60/mo), Group ($75/mo), Community ($140/mo), Professional ($240/mo), Network ($440/mo), Enterprise ($530/mo), Global ($900/mo)

Our opinion

The cloud-based technology Wild Apricot uses stores your membership data and makes things super convenient and secure.

Searching through a large database, automating renewals, customizing membership levels and storing data securely are some of the benefits of Wild Apricot cloud.

It provides a drag and drop builder which makes it very simple for anyone to build a mobile responsive website. Not just websites, the builder also helps you create blogs, member areas, member directories and event listings.

Additionally, you get two separate apps: one for admins to manage memberships and payments on the go. The other for members to access the site, edit profiles and register for events.

Wild Apricot also works seamlessly with existing systems. For instance, its email system can integrate with your contact list to send out emails to keep members informed.

Membership site platforms FAQs

Final thoughts

As the social space becomes more and more crowded, creators need platforms that connect them with their true fans and help them grow a steady income.

If that sounds like something you want to create, these 11 membership site platforms are the top ones to choose from.

Some of them are WordPress solutions while others are SaaS platforms.

Whichever you choose, they can all give you a great start!

Do you have an active membership business? Would you like to start one? We would love to hear about your experience in the comments.