The subscription economy has grown by 435% in less than 10 years.
That staggering growth has something to do with the power of membership sites to attract and retain customers – while supplying audiences with more of the content they want to see.
Most importantly, it’s a way to create secure, recurring income from your content and get paid for the awesome stuff you create.
For course creators, the benefits of membership sites are something you can’t ignore – it’s just a matter of getting started.
Here are the best membership platforms on the market right now, including key features, pricing and more to help you kick-start your membership business and make the most of your existing audience.
Click the links to skip ahead to the info you need:
What are the benefits of having a membership site?
We’re not saying you should jump on the membership site bandwagon just because everyone else is doing it – but there are some major benefits that come with creating an exclusive membership site for your business.
Here are 5 of the top benefits you can expect from a successful membership site:
Better communication
First and foremost, a dedicated membership site gives you a corner of the internet to call your own where you can connect with your customers on a deeper, more consistent level.
With a membership site, you can spark conversations, generate excitement around new product launches and foster closer connections with your audience.
More brands are recognizing the power of authenticity to connect to and retain customers and a membership site is one of the most effective methods for generating a genuine bond with your audience built on honesty, trust and transparency.
More control
Creating your own membership site grants you far more control than hosting your community on a social media site. You can use the same content – but you’re not subject to sudden algorithm changes or the whims of paid advertising. Instead, the power to run your community is in your hands and yours alone.
Extra revenue
If you already have an existing audience for your brand, it would be a waste not to take advantage of it! Building a membership site for your business means opening up new revenue streams, enabling you to monetize your community and generate that all-important monthly recurring income.
Increased Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
With a membership site, you not only keep your customers closer, you also keep them for longer. By introducing a membership subscription to your business model, you can massively increase the Customer Lifetime Value for every customer. The longer they stay a part of your community, the more chances you have to sell to them and encourage repeat purchases. More contact = more revenue. It’s that simple.
Feedback opportunities
A membership site also has the added benefit of giving you a platform where you can gather continuous feedback from your customers, in the form of discussions, surveys and even customer interviews. This gives you more data on what you can do to improve your products and services – and how to keep your members happy!
Related: 7 Steps To Building An Online Community
18 best membership site platforms
Of course, every business will have a slightly different set of criteria for what they’re looking for from a membership site.
Depending on your needs, your growth plans and even your industry, you’ll likely be looking for different features, customization options and more.
Here’s our pick of the best membership site platforms on the market – including the key features you need to know about to kick-start your membership business and find the right platform for you.
Click the links to skip ahead and see more information on every platform.
| Has a free plan: ✅ Paid plans: from $36/month | |
| Has a free plan: ❌ Paid plans: from $119/month Add-on features like Branded Mobile available | |
| Has a free plan: ✅ Paid plans: from $33/month | |
| Has a free plan: ❌ Paid plans: from $33/month | |
| Has a free plan: ❌ Paid plans: from $279.65/year (approx $23/month) | |
| Has a free plan: ❌ Paid plans: from $79/month | |
| Has a free plan: ❌ Paid plans: from $79/month | |
| Has a free plan: ❌ Paid plans: from $67/month | |
| Has a free plan: ❌ Paid plans: from $48/month | |
| Has a free plan: ✅ Paid plans: from $228/year (approx $19/month) | |
| Has a free plan: ❌ Paid plans: from $599/month | |
| Has a free plan: ❌ Paid plans: from $82/month | |
| Has a free plan: ✅ Paid plans: from $25/month | |
| Has a free plan: ❌ Paid plans: from $25/month | |
| Has a free plan: ✅ Paid plans: from $10/month | |
| Has a free plan: ❌ Paid plans: from $29/month | |
| Has a free plan: ❌ Paid plans: from $9.99/month | |
| Has a free plan: ✅ Paid plans: from $29/month |
Key features:
- Drag-and-drop branded site builder
- Unlimited courses and students
- Interactive online learning communities
- No-code mobile app for your students to access courses and community discussions
- Detailed reporting and tracking
- Advanced security features
- Dedicated customer success team
- Email and live chat support
Pricing: Get started with Thinkific for free with 0% transaction fees. Paid plans start from just $36 per month.
Build meaningful relationships with Thinkific Communities and turn everyday interactions into income. Create a paid membership community for your learners with tiered pricing and exclusive content features to engage your audience, build trust and maximize impact.
This leading all-in-one membership site platform allows you to quickly and easily design inspiring online learning environments and seamlessly integrate memberships for a more connected experience with your customers. Detailed analytics and reporting help you stay on top of membership management and make continuous changes to keep your audience happy. And with add-on features like a Branded Mobile app ($199/mo), it’s easy to connect with your audience on the devices they use most, while keeping your brand at the forefront.
Best-in-class online course platform Thinkific is dedicated to making the process of building a membership community trouble-free. A specialist customer success team and committed community mean there’s always someone on hand to help you achieve your goals – and turn your membership site into a roaring success.
Key features:
- Ready-to-use templates for building membership sites
- Customizable management dashboard
- Subscription-specific insights and analytics
- Mobile-friendly features
- 24/7 customer support
Pricing: No free plan, paid plans start from $119 per month.
About Kajabi:
Kajabi empowers users to create, grow and maintain a membership-based business with a dedicated website builder, dashboard, and specialized membership management software. Subscription-specific reports give you essential insights into key membership metrics like churn rate, monthly recurring revenue, and more. Whether you have 50 or 50,000 members, Kajabi makes membership manageable.
To help you sell subscriptions to your membership site and boost customer retention, Kajabi also includes a range of sales and marketing tools. The email marketing and pipeline building features help even novice membership creators hook customers and win more subscriptions. If you need any help, Kajabi offers friendly 24/7 customer support.
Related:
- Thinkific vs Kajabi – A detailed comparison
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Key features:
- Straightforward no-code membership site builder
- Create private or invite-only groups
- No limit on different tiered pricing options
- Give members access to products within your community
- Supports multimedia chats and discussions
Pricing: Start using Podia for free with 8% fee on all transactions. Paid plans start from $33 per month with no transaction fees.
About Podia:
With a mission to simplify the membership-building process, Podia is a simple, straightforward membership site platform. In fact, it’s so easy they say you can build a website in just 10 minutes. Podia’s no-code platform gives you the simplicity and flexibility to create free, paid and tiered membership communities. There’s no limit on the number of plans you can create for your customers.
Podia’s membership site platform includes a home feed with topics, posts, and comments. It also supports multimedia conversations so you can jump-start discussions with your learners using images, video, text, and over 1900 types of embedded content. Try Podia for free – but watch out for transaction fees.
Related: Podia vs Thinkific – A detailed comparison.
Key features:
- Upgrade to build your own branded mobile apps and website
- Sell courses, community and memberships together
- Add unlimited members
- Join Community Design training to learn the basics
- All plans include live streaming and video
Pricing: Start with a free trial, paid plans start from $33 per month.
Build a thriving membership site with Mighty Networks, a membership platform with more than enough features to keep you busy! Mighty Networks is designed for businesses with growth in mind, ranging from small sites with just a handful of members up to large-scale communities in the thousands. Creators can sell their courses, community, and memberships together in bundles – and add unlimited members too.
For first-time users, Mighty Networks takes you step-by-step through setting up your community. And when you’re ready, upgrade to a higher plan to unlock the power to create your own branded mobile apps and website. If it seems complicated at first, Mighty Networks offers live Community Design training to its customers in the form of a course, events, and feedback in the Mighty Community.
Related:
Key features:
- Members-only dashboard for subscribers
- Paywall your content in a few clicks
- Create customizable coupons
- Drip feed content with timed releases
- Use the WordPress Affiliate Plugin for easy affiliate marketing
Pricing: No free plan, paid plans start from $279.65 per year (approx. $23 per month).
A membership site platform designed for WordPress, MemberPress is an easy-to-use plugin designed to help you monetize your WordPress site. While it lacks the range of features that other membership site platforms have, MemberPress includes the essential features creators need to set up a membership community and start getting paid.
Build, manage and monitor memberships on your WordPress site with MemberPress’ suite of tools. Top features include options to paywall content and drip feed new releases. You can also sell customizable coupons to encourage customers to make a purchase. MemberPress includes an easy WordPress Affiliate Plugin too, so you can set your most loyal members up as brand ambassadors.
Key features:
- Membership site platform dedicated to video
- Netflix-style video catalog
- Choose from subscriptions, donations, video rentals and more
- Admin dashboard for monitoring engagement
- Live streaming, countdowns and chat on Growth plan
Pricing: Start with a free trial, paid plans start from $79 per month – to build a community, users need to upgrade to the Uscreen Growth plan from $159 per month, plus additional charges of $0.50 per subscriber per month.
Jump start your membership community with Uscreen’s video membership website dedicated to video creators and entrepreneurs. Thanks to its video-focused design, Uscreen Plus offers video creators cool features like live streaming, live countdowns and video streaming apps.
Uscreen helps creators keep all their videos and memberships in one place. Choose your favorite theme from the Uscreen template library and create a personalized website in no time. Uscreen also includes an intuitive video library to give you a Netflix-style platform for presenting your work and boosting sales.
Key features:
- Unlimited membership sites
- Drag-and-drop editor for creating your site
- Create multiple access tiers for memberships
- Automation tools for marketing and onboarding
- Live chat support
Pricing: No free plan, paid plans start from $79 per month.
Kartra’s all-in-one marketing platform makes automating your business easy. Their Memberships features allow you to share your content with your customer base – choose from a private community space, a membership site with multiple access tiers and more. Kartra is designed to be flexible with additional automation tools to quickly onboard new members and get them up and running.
To build your membership site, Kartra provides a drag-and-drop editor along with 500+ customizable product and content page templates. When it comes to marketing, Kartra’s lead generation software and automated email and SMS tools, as well as detailed analytics and reporting, helps you create a targeted strategy to win more leads.
Related: Thinkific vs Kartra
Key features:
- Live classes, webinars and live chat options
- In-built email system and automation tools
- Unlimited courses and student enrollments
- Bulk enrollments for all courses
- Social network style community space
Pricing: No free plan, paid plans start from $67 per month.
Built around sales and marketing, New Zenler’s membership site platform includes a range of features to make marketing your content and community simple. Set up automated emails to your customers with Zenler Mail, the platform’s in-built email system, and utilize powerful customer segmentation tools to tailor your marketing efforts to your audience. Additional features like live streaming, a live chat room and live lessons give you more face-to-face time with your community too.
Within your membership site, users can start discussions, follow one another, ask questions, comment and share content with social media style tools. When you’re setting up your membership plans, you also get to choose who has access and set a price for the privilege. It’s up to you how you run your business – New Zenler just gives you the tools to do it.
Key features:
- Mobile app for members and admins
- Multi-device access with cloud-storage for member data
- Mobile-friendly website builder
- In-built email system
- Drag-and-drop templates for designing membership sites
Pricing: Start with a free trial, paid plans start from $48 per month.
Designed for smaller businesses and organizations, Wild Apricot aims to simplify the day-to-day tasks of running a community. It gives you all the tools you need to manage your membership – whether you’re a creator, non-profit, association or anything else.
Extra user-friendly and straightforward, Wild Apricot’s membership site platform includes top features like a mobile-friendly website builder, fast payment processing, and a mobile app for members and admins. All member data is stored in the Wild Apricot cloud so you and your team can access member data from any device, wherever you’re working from.
Key features:
- Unlimited courses, members, admins and more
- 1000s of native integrations
- Social network style community hub
- Advanced security and privacy
- 24/7 tech support
Pricing: Start using BuddyBoss for free, paid plans start from $228 per year (approx $19 per month).
Create your online community on WordPress with BuddyBoss – this advanced membership site plugin gives you the freedom to sell memberships, create a community hub, and launch your own mobile app. Build a public or private social network space for your members with activity feeds, direct messages, mentions and more.
Centered on connecting audiences, BuddyBoss aims to make every interaction with their membership site platform enjoyable for both members and administrators. The platform is known for its speed and responsiveness, as well as its advanced security and privacy features. It also grants community-builders the option for unlimited courses, members, admins and groups.
Key features:
- Customizable themes for your membership site
- Automated community moderation tools
- Gamification including badges, leaderboard and more
- Segment your community into flexible blocks
- Track key metrics with powerful analytics
Pricing: No free plan, paid plans start from $599 per month.
Championing easy communication with your customers, Tribe’s membership site platform focuses on boosting engagement and community participation. Top features include gamification tools like badges and a leaderboard to encourage more engagement and increase brand loyalty. Modify the platform to suit your brand with customizable themes and styles and use Tribe’s embed tools to integrate your community within your existing website and apps.
To help you build a vibrant brand community, Tribe’s Spaces tool lets you structure your community with flexible containers. Member access tools also let you control who can see which communities, so you can segment your audience however you like. You can also automate community moderation with dedicated tools designed to keep your community safe and civil.
Key features:
- Unlimited and flexible membership formats
- 1-click upgrade for easy membership management
- Customizable member dashboards
- Automatic member login and automated reminder emails
- Easy subscription management tools for processing payments
Pricing: No free plan, paid plans start from $82 per month.
Make membership management a breeze with the AccessAlly membership site platform. This WordPress plugin is designed with entrepreneurs in mind, putting all the membership-building features you need in one place. Choose from free, paid or evergreen membership levels with 1-click upgrade features so members can easily manage their subscriptions.
The AccessAlly membership site platform includes a range of ways to monetize your audience, letting creators choose between different forms of memberships, from all-access to cohort-based access and drip scheduling. You can also sell past content so members can access previous lessons, resources and back issues they missed.
Key features:
- Offer free and paid trials for new members
- Group subscription tools with multiple members
- Sell gift subscriptions with personalized messages
- Dashboard analytics for detailed insights
- Integrates with Discord
Pricing: Start using Memberful for free with 10% fee on all transactions, paid plans start from $25 per month, plus 4.9% transaction fees.
Memberful offers creators a customizable membership site platform with flexible features to adapt to your growing business. Create any kind of subscription plan you want, according to what’s right for your audience and your business. With easy member management, you can onboard members and get paid in no time.
What makes this membership site platform stand out is its integrations – connect your private community with Discord to create private communities for chatting and connecting. With Memberful, you can also offer free or paid trials for your audience so they can see if your membership is the right fit for them. You can also sell group subscriptions with multiple memberships within one account for reaching larger organizations.
Key features:
- 100% open-source platform
- Powerful community moderation tools
- Unlimited conversation history
- Users retain full ownership of data
- Comprehensive customer support
Pricing: Start with a free trial, paid plans start from $25 per month.
A 100% open source discussion platform, Discourse offers users something a little different for building their membership business. One of the best membership site platforms on the market for customization, Discourse grants you endless options for optimizing your membership space to maximize engagement while keeping on brand.
Built for discussion, Discourse lets you create private invite-only spaces for your members or unlimited customized communities. It also includes high-level moderation tools to keep your community safe and on topic. If you want to go back and view a topic again, Discourse offers unlimited conversation history – and you retain ownership over all your data.
Key features:
- Beginner-friendly website templates
- Automated marketing tools
- Detailed insights and reporting
- Streamlined login and registration for new members
- Send customized invitations
Pricing: Start using Weebly for free, paid plans start from $10 per month.
Start growing your membership business with Weebly’s easy website builder. With in-built eCommerce tools, automated marketing features and insights, Weebly gives entrepreneurs all the basics to launch and monetize their first membership site.
Weebly lets you create and manage multiple member groups with customized invitations and bulk enrollments. On the user end, streamlined login and registration makes it easy for new members to sign up and access your membership site, minimizing digital friction.
Key features:
- Works with all popular CMS
- Automated email follow-ups
- Multiple currency options
- Free migration service
- Get paid in just 2 days
Pricing: No free plan, paid plans start from $29 per month.
Carve out a corner of your website specifically for members with MemberSpace. This membership site platform allows creators to paywall their content in just a few clicks – it’s as simple as that. Create memberships for your courses, video tutorials and resources with multiple membership tiers and automated up-sells. MemberSpace also offers a free migration service to make switching to their membership site platform as easy as possible.
MemberSpace has a wide range of features aimed at maximizing revenue from your membership site, like automated emails for abandoned signups and failed payments. Empower your members to manage their subscriptions with free trials, easy upgrades, cancellation alternatives to reduce churn. Charge your customers in multiple currencies and create custom coupon codes and billing options. And when the money comes into your MemberSpace account, they send it directly to your bank in just 2 days.
Key features:
- Create a membership site directly within Shopify
- Unlimited membership tiers
- Change, show or hide member content
- Sell recurring subscriptions to existing customers
- Sell online or offline services
Pricing: No free plan, paid plans start from $9.99 per month.
Monetize your audience with Bold Memberships on Shopify. This membership site app is tailored to Shopify businesses, enabling users to create a membership program with custom access and subscriptions directly within an existing online store. Get instant recurring revenue with multiple membership tiers and simple paywalling that lets you show, hide and change members-only content as you choose.
While Bold Memberships lacks some of the complex customization features of other membership site platforms, it’s ideal if you already have an existing following on Shopify. Start earning revenue from your community instantly.
Key features:
- Sell membership subscriptions as bundles with course content
- Integrates with ConvertKit, Zapier and more
- Create multiple subscription levels
- Reward members with discounts and exclusive content
- Create a dedicated affiliate program
Pricing: Start using Teachable for free, paid plans start from $29 per month.
The membership site platform built for educators, Teachable helps entrepreneurs start monetizing their course business from scratch. While the platform is tailored to online course creation, it also has benefits for community-building too. Features like course bundles help creators sell membership subscriptions alongside their existing products. You can choose to sell your bundles as monthly or yearly subscriptions, depending on your preferences. Set up a customized affiliate program to encourage more referrals from your existing audience too.
Teachable benefits from solid customer support options to help walk users step-by-step through the many features the platform offers. This makes it well-suited to first-time entrepreneurs who need extra support.
Related:
Monetize your community with the best membership site platforms
These top membership site platforms are all designed with one thing in mind – monetizing your community and helping creators like you turn a profit from your content.
The best membership site platforms include all the tools and features you need to create a professional, seamless membership site in no time at all. Don’t let your audience slip out of reach, start winning subscribers and retaining more customers today!
To get started, try Thinkific for free.
This article was originally published Dec 2022 and was updated Feb 2023 to be even more relevant and useful.
