11 Best Membership Site Platforms in 2024 (Free + Paid Membership Website Options)

Last updated: March 28, 2024

A membership site is a small world of its own where members have exclusive access to digital goodies – downloadable content, discussion forums, live events, online courses, coaching sessions, mastermind groups, and more are only a few clicks away!

The best thing is that all this is available as a part of a warm and welcoming community where members can interact, network, and even make new friends with people with shared interests.

Whether you’re a content creator, a coach, or an artist, building a membership site is one of the best ways to interact with your audience meaningfully, increase engagement, build a loyal following, and of course, earn recurring revenue.

In this article, we will guide you through selecting the best membership platform to transform the way you connect with your audience and establish your online income through a membership website.

8 Top Features to Look For on Membership Site Platforms

The first step to choosing the best membership site platform is to identify the features that will help you accomplish your career goals and engage meaningfully with your audience.

Powerful Content Creation Tools

Content is king when it comes to membership sites. People will join and remain in your membership program largely due to the content that you provide them on a regular basis.

With that, powerful content creation tools allow you to create diverse and interactive content to keep your membership content fresh and engaging, attracting, retaining members, and overall increasing membership engagement.

These are some of the content creation tools that you should look out for:

• Ability to create various content posts from videos, text, polls, or share any digital files
• Ability to schedule your content to be automatically published at a future date to save time and stay organized
• Ability to see live previews of your content before it gets published
• Ability to offer different content to different members based on their membership level
• Allows members to interact with your content in a meaningful way through comments and likes

Members to Manage Themselves

Providing self-management tools gives members the convenience and autonomy to handle their own account details without relying on you for customer support (this will spare you from a ton of customer tickets that will eat away at your time). Look for platforms that allow your members to manage their own accounts such as accessing and updating their information, viewing their billing history, updating their emails and passwords, upgrading or canceling their own memberships, and more.

Flexible Pricing & Payment Options for Members

The more options you give your audience for joining your membership site, the higher the chances they’ll sign up. Flexibility in pricing and payment options can come in various forms, so here are some things to look out for:

• Ability to offer multiple membership tiers with various pricing plans
• Ability to offer membership plans that automatically charge your members at the intervals of your choice including weekly, monthly, annually, and more
• Ability to send automatic email notifications to members after successful payments and reminders to update card details when payments fail. This feature helps to ensure that your members are kept informed and can easily update their payment information, reducing the risk of failed payments
• Ability to offer free trials for your memberships so that customers can try your service before being charged

Scalability of Your Membership Platform

Scalability means your membership website platform should not only support your business as it grows but also offer tools that promote that growth. Therefore, you should be able to sell unlimited products to an unlimited number of members, carry out membership management tasks easily, have access to payment processors, and accept several currencies – all of this at a reasonable price.

Website Branding & Customization

You should be able to build a membership website exactly as you like it and allow your personal brand to shine. Therefore, opt for a platform with an intuitive website builder with customizable templates. The good news? There are tons of platforms that will allow you to build a beautiful and professional membership site without having to write a single line of code (yes, anyone without any technical skills can build membership websites).

Marketing Tools

You may have a rockstar membership site, but you need to get the word out there and consistently stay in touch with your audience. At the very least, your membership site platform should offer email marketing, affiliates & referrals, and the ability to create offers and discounts.

Mobile Responsiveness

It’s safe to say that all users expect to be able to access your membership site from their mobile devices, be it a laptop, tablet, or smartphone. With this in mind, choose a platform that is mobile responsive and ideally allows you to build your own mobile app.

Analytics

You should know at any point how your membership site is performing. Sales analytics and reports that show where your visitors come from will help you make better marketing decisions and avoid wasting money on platforms that don’t work for you. An added benefit is the ability to measure engagement with specific pieces of content.

11 Best Membership Site Platforms (Free + Paid Options)

If you want to build some serious engagement with your audience, a membership site is the way to go. Here is the list of the best membership site platforms that you should consider:

1. Payhip – Most Recommended 🔥
2. Mighty Networks
3. Uscreen
4. Patreon
5. AccessAlly
6. Zenler
7. Thinkific
8. Kajabi
9. Teachable
10. WildApricot
11. Bold Memberships

1. Payhip – Most Recommended Membership Site Platform 🔥

Payhip is the top membership site platform with all the powerful features you need to sell memberships and engage with your audience.

Payhip is a one-stop-shop eCommerce platform for digital products with over 130,000 creators onboard. Payhip’s features not only enable you to build and grow a membership site, but you’ll also be able to sell digital products (eBooks, workbooks, templates, printables, music, and more!), online courses, or even physical products!

Payhip provides robust content creation tools that allow you to create an engaging membership content experience. This includes the ability to schedule posts, see live content previews before posting, create a variety of engaging content (from videos, images, texts, polls, digital files, etc), allow members to interact with your content through comments and likes, and so much more! You’ll also be able to offer different content to different members based on their membership level. This is a great way to reward your most loyal followers and incentivize others to join your community.

Payhip offers amazing flexibility when it comes to membership pricing and payment options. You can offer multiple membership tiers with different pricing and with different levels of access and benefits. You have full control over how often you’d want to charge your members including monthly/quarterly/annual subscriptions, lifetime memberships, and freemium pricing.

You can also offer a free trial to attract leads. By offering a risk-free opportunity to experience the site’s content, features, and benefits, you can capture the interest of potential members who might be hesitant to commit without first trying it out.

Your members will love how easily they can manage their subscriptions and personal information – upgrade, downgrade, or cancel their subscriptions on their own, update their information (like credit card number and email address), and view their billing history.

Last but not least, Payhip has a forever-free plan with unlimited access to all of Payhip’s features. You’ll be charged a 5% transaction fee per transaction, which is an incredibly competitive price amongst any of the membership platforms you’ll come across.

Advantages

• Generous forever-free plan with unlimited platform access (most affordable membership site in the market)
• Unlimited members and membership levels
• Powerful content creation tools: schedule posts, rich media, selective content for various membership levels
• Flexible pricing & payment options
• Efficient membership management
• Highly scalable
• Seamless and secure checkout
• Fully customizable and responsive membership site (no technical skills required)
• Ability to expand your website monetization opportunities by selling other products e.g. digital downloads, online courses, coaching services, and even physical products
• Wide variety of marketing tools

Disadvantages

• No mobile app

Pricing

Payhip comes with three pricing plans, including a free plan with all features available:

• Free forever (+5% transaction fee per sale)
• Plus: $29/month (+2% transaction fee per sale)
• Pro: $99/month (0% transaction fee)

2. Mighty Networks

Mighty Networks is an online community platform and among the top membership site platforms that enables creators and coaches to grow outside social media and gain full control of their community. It offers rich engagement features, like live-streamed events, personalized activity feeds, and real-time chat.

The platform allows you to build separate Spaces, as they are called, to segment your audience and communicate with each group separately. Mighty Networks also allows you to sell single events to non-members, and it recently introduced branded mobile apps.

That said, Mighty Networks lacks flexibility in terms of payment – for example, you can’t offer payment plans, and the only payment processor available is Stripe. Its marketing tools are also rather limited, with even basic options, like affiliate marketing and coupons, missing from its offerings. Several customer reviews also mention that the platform is a bit hard to navigate.

Advantages

• Branded mobile apps for iOS and Android
• Native live streaming
• Direct messaging
• Personalized activity feed
• AI-powered Mighty Host
• Unlimited members

Disadvantages

• Limited customization
• Inflexible pricing & payment options
• Limited marketing options
• Hard to navigate

Pricing

Mighty Networks offers a 14-day free trial and three pricing plans. Mighty Networks charges transaction fees on all pricing plans.

• The Community Plan – $39/mo
• The Business Plan – $119/mo
• Mighty Pro – Request demo

3. Uscreen

Uscreen is a video monetization platform that offers a Netflix-style listing and categorization for a better user experience. With Uscreen, you can launch your own Android and iOS app, a TV app, or an Apple watch app. You can organize your content into playlists, collections, and more and either rent it, offer lifetime access, or charge pay-per-view.

Uscreen enables your community members to build their own profiles, watch live streams and comment in real time via the embed chat. The platform also features strong marketing features, like affiliates, a reduce-churn tool, subscription upsell, a built-in lead generation tool, and more.

On the flip side, Uscreen can be quite pricey especially if you’re just starting out.

Advantages

• Native live streaming
• Flexible membership tiers and selling
• Robust marketing
• Mobile, TV, and Smartwatch apps available
• Netflix-style Viewing Experience

Disadvantages 

• Limited analytics
• Pricey compared to other solutions
• Limited & cumbersome customization
• Limited ability to expand your income streams on your website

Pricing 

Uscreen offers a 14-day free trial and has three pricing plans. It also charges +$0.50 per subscriber/month.

• Basic – $99/month
• Growth – $199/month
• Unscreen plus – customized

4. Patreon

Patreon is a crowdfunding platform and one of the best alternatives to traditional membership platforms that enables creators to sell memberships and build an engaged community of followers.

Creators can monetize their product or service either via a subscription or per piece. You can chat with your members in real time, offer gated content, create private RSS feeds to share upcoming events and content, and build exclusive forums. Another pro of the platform is live streaming.

The transaction fees are definitely something to think about before opting for Patreon, as they can get as high as 12%. Another downside of the platform is that it doesn’t offer any marketing tools, and even the tagging system (through which Patreons are discovered) is not particularly helpful since the categories are rather broad.

One of the biggest downfalls of using Patreon is the fact that it isn’t YOUR membership site. You’re sending free traffic to Patreon’s website where you could have built a membership site using your own domain and sending traffic to your own website.

Advantages

• Native iOS and Android mobile apps
• Live streaming
• Tier memberships
• Live chat
• Robust analytics

Disadvantages 

• Transaction fees
• Limited marketing tools
• Limited discoverability
• No ownership over your own membership site

Pricing 

Patreon has three pricing plans with increasing transaction fees. You can get started for free, though, and start paying for your plan once you get your first customer.

• Lite – 5% commission
• Pro – 8% commission
• Premium – 12% commission

5. AccessAlly

AccessAlly is a WordPress membership plugin that enables you to sell memberships within your existing website on the world’s most popular cms. You can set flexible payment options for your customers, including one-time payment, every X month, or annual. Members can upgrade or downgrade their subscriptions easily on their own.

Using the platform’s tagging system, you can set membership labels and manage members faster. AccessAlly enables you to drip-feed content, which makes scheduling so much simpler. Member dashboards are designed with upselling in mind to encourage customers to buy.

On the flip side, AccessAlly is rather complicated to set up and figure out, and there are some limitations in design customization.

Advantages

• Unlimited members
• Flexible subscription plans
• Automation capabilities
• Drip content

Disadvantages 

• Limitations in design customization
• No live stream
• Steep learning curve

Pricing 

AccessAlly doesn’t offer a free trial, but it does offer a 60-day money-back guarantee. It comes with three pricing plans.

• AccessAlly Essentials – $99/mo
• AccessAlly Pro – $129/mo

Community – $149/mo

6. Zenler

Zenler is an all-in-one course creation platform with strong community features, like live streams that can be broadcast to Facebook and YouTube, chat rooms, and discussion forums. It has a built-in Zoom integration to host your live events.

Zenler allows for easy customer segmentation and features preloaded email sequences for better communication with your members. You can sell your memberships in several ways, including with one-off payments, in payment plans, or subscriptions set in custom periods. You can also set up a free trial.

Zenler is fairly easy to use, but its features are limited overall. For example, it lacks page customization options, like white labeling or multiple templates, and it offers decent but rather marketing features only, like coupons, affiliates, and email marketing.

Advantages

• Intuitive and easy to set up
• Email marketing automation
• Flexible payment options
• Live streams
• Drip schedule

Disadvantages 

• Limited marketing features
• Lack of tools for customization
• Limited reporting (no visual reports or video analytics)

Pricing 

Zenler offers two pricing plans and charges no transaction fees.

• Pro – $67/mo
• Premium – 197/mo

7. Thinkific

Thinkific is another all-in-one course creation platform suitable for building a thriving community. Members can build their profiles and use @ mentions to connect in an environment resembling social media. They can also post in the community, react or respond to comments, and get notified when someone else comments on their posts.

Thinkific allows you to sell subscriptions with flexible payment options for your members while receiving zero fees. It also features virtual rooms called Spaces, where you can share content and initiate discussions. It offers useful marketing features, including affiliates and referrals.

One notable downside is the lack of direct integration with email marketing tools – you can only connect to one via Zapier. While Thinkific does offer a free plan, you’ll most likely need to upgrade to their higher plans in order to be able to establish a professional membership site because the lower plans have very limited features.

Advantages

• No transaction fees
• Good marketing features
• Flexible membership plans
• White labeling

Disadvantages 

• Limited customization
• No live streaming
• Email marketing available only via Zapier
• Limited features on free or less-expensive plans

Pricing 

Thinkific offers a free plan with limited features and three paid plans:

• Free Plan – $0
• Basic – $49/mo
• Start – $99/mo
• Grow – $199/mo

8. Kajabi

Kajabi is one of the best platforms for creators and coaches that stands out for its robust marketing features and supportive Kajabi Heroes community. It features a built-in email marketing tool and automated sales funnels. Kajabi has dedicated membership website templates to help you design your website faster.

As far as community features are concerned, it offers a member directory & leaderboard to identify your most active members, challenges, live video calls, events (with the option to RSVP),  newsfeed, chats, and direct messaging.

Kajabi allows you to list your membership site in the Kajabi app, but you can’t build your own. Although there are subscription-specific reports, they don’t dive deep into member behavior.

Advantages

• Integrated email marketing
• Automated marketing functions
• Seamless checkout
• Intuitive

Disadvantages 

• No direct Zoom integration
• Limited integrations
• Limited reporting
• Expensive

Pricing 

Kajabi offers a 14-day free trial and three pricing plans.

• Basic plan – $149/mo
• Growth plan – $199/mo
• Pro plan – $399/mo

9. Teachable

Teachable is a platform dedicated for knowledge creators and organizations that want to create, market, and sell their offerings. The platform supports multiple types of content and memberships and stands out for its user-friendliness.

It enables you to drip-feed your content and has good marketing tools, including native integration with email marketing tools, a built-in affiliate tool, and upselling options.

Teachable doesn’t feature a built-in community – but it does integrate with Circle.io, available with all paid plans, for which you’ll have to pay extra based on the plan you’ll choose.

Advantages

• Easy to use
• Good marketing features
• Integration with video conferencing tools
• Flexible pricing & payment plans

Disadvantages 

• No built-in community feature
• Prices have increased
• Limited website customization
• Teachable’s features are more geared towards selling online courses instead of memberships

Pricing 

Teachable offers four pricing plans:

• Free plan & 10% transaction fees (limited features)
• Basic plan with 5% transaction fees – $59/mo
• Pro plan without transaction fees – $159/mo
• Business plan without transaction fees – $665/mo

10. WildApricot

WildApricot is a membership platform that enables you to build one or more membership sites with gated content, a blog, and discussion forums. One of the most well-liked features is event management through customizable registration forms, where you can offer discounts, early bird pricing, and more.

WildApricot has a built-in email system and a contacts database, enabling you to stay in touch with your members through automated emails, like reminders and confirmations. It also offers mobile apps for administrators and users to increase engagement and event participation.

That said, the platform’s menu is confusing for some users. There are also complaints that the platform hasn’t been enriched with new features lately and that customer support is not efficient.

Advantages

• Built-in email marketing
• Mobile app
• Easy checkout
• Task automation
• Event & member management

Disadvantages

• Limited web design customization
• Price increases
• Limited reporting
• Some users may have difficulties navigating the platform

Pricing

Wild Apricot offers a 60-day free trial and multiple paid plans:

• Personal – $60/mo
• Group – $75/mo
• Community – $140/mo
• Professional – $240/mo
• Network – $440/mo
• Enterprise – $530/mo
• Global – $900/mo

11. Bold Memberships

Bold Memberships is a Shopify app designed to help merchants create and manage recurring membership programs on their Shopify stores.

Unlike other platforms mentioned in this article, Bold Memberships can only be used on websites that are built using Shopify. This means very limited functionality as compared to other platforms that are more geared specifically towards creating robust membership websites.

Advantages

• Great for Shopify users who are looking to add a membership product to their store

Disadvantages

• Can only be used within Shopify
• Expensive considering the fact that you’ll need to pay for Shopify’s subscription fees AND also Bold Memberships’ subscription fee
• Not scalable as your costs continue to increase as your membership grows

Pricing

Bold Memberships’ charges are based on the number of members that you have.

• 1-50 members – $9.99/mo
• 51-100 members – $19.99/mo
• 101-1000 members – $49.99/mo
• 1001-5000 members – $199.99/mo

Final Thoughts – Building Your Own Membership Website

This list of the best membership platforms can help you not only expand your audience but also increase engagement and membership retention. If you’re keen on learning more about start your own membership site, check out our comprehensive guide on how to build a membership site for free.

Using the right membership site platform can make or break your business. We recommend using Payhip as it provides a generous forever-free plan where you can launch your membership without incurring any fees! Payhip also offers powerful features for you to create an engaging membership experience, as well as other powerful features to establish additional revenue through other digital products.

Sign up for your free (forever) Payhip account now to launch your membership site within minutes!