13 Best Membership Site Platforms (Ultimate Guide for 2023)

If you’re planning to build a membership site, it’s important to pick the right membership platform according to your needs.

However, there are many different membership website builders to choose from, and they all have something unique to offer, so it can be difficult to figure out the right option.

In this guide, I will share the best membership site platforms that exist in 2023, the key features they offer, and their strengths and weaknesses, and I’ll also share some tips to help you pick the right one for your business.

Before exploring each platform individually, let’s start by discussing some of the key things you should look for in your membership platform.

What to Look For in the Best Membership Platform?

To find the best membership site platform for your business, you must first understand what to look for in your membership software.

So you need to take stock of things that are essential for creating a membership site, and then you should also consider your specific requirements.

Hosted Solution vs WordPress Plugin

Hosted platforms are generally much easier to use, plus you don’t need to worry about any technical things like hosting, site speed, maintenance, or security.

Building a membership on WordPress, on the other hand, requires you to be much more tech-savvy. However, you also get much more flexibility and extendability in functionality.

So hosted membership website builders work better for the average, non-techie creator, and I recommend that you go the WordPress route only when you’ve got custom requirements that can’t be met by any of the hosted platforms.

Content and Engagement

All the top membership experts, including Stu McLaren in The Membership Experience program, recommend you include various content types and delivery formats in your membership, and your platform should allow you to do that.

For example, you may want to just offer a single piece of content every month (or week) or include some online courses.

Similarly, you can use a lot of different content delivery formats like videos, audio files, live coaching calls, newsletters, blog posts, downloadable checklists, etc.

Apart from the content, there are a variety of learning and engagement tools that creators use in their memberships, and you may need to use one or more of them:

• Drip Feed: You may want to release your content based on a schedule rather than giving immediate access to all your content.
• Quizzes and Certificates: If your membership is in a certain niche (e.g., cybersecurity), you might want to use tools like quizzes, assignments, and certificates.
• Gamification Tools: If your main focus is to drive engagement, you should gamify your membership and reward your members with badges and points.

Community Area

Creating a community is a great way to boost membership retention, and, in many cases, it is a major selling point for membership websites.

While some creators use something like a Facebook Group for their community, many prefer to have a community area on their website.

Plus, many memberships include a private community as their main offering, in which case you would need more powerful community features.

You need to take a call on which way you want to go and choose a membership platform accordingly.

​Membership Pricing

Membership pricing generally has a few different elements that your platform needs to support:

• Payment Frequency: Does the platform allow you to create a monthly/annual subscription? Does it support additional options like a weekly or a quarterly subscription?
• Membership Tiers: Can you easily create multiple membership tiers and allocate different content? Does the platform allow you to easily move users between different tiers?
• Free Trial: Can you create a free (or a paid) trial for your membership site?
• Setup Fee: Can you charge an upfront fee for your membership?

These are some of the common pricing features that successful membership sites use, but you may have additional requirements, so make sure your platform supports them.

Finally, your membership software should play well with a variety of third-party solutions — email marketing services (e.g., ConvertKit), payment processors (e.g., Stripe), and analytics solutions (e.g., Google Analytics).

And, don’t forget to take into account your budget and the level of customer support you need.

Now, let’s dive into the 13 best membership site platforms and how they can help you launch an online membership.

1. Kajabi

Best all-in-one membership site platform

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Pros of Kajabi

• All-in-one platform
• Powerful online course builder
• Native community feature
• Free iOS/Android mobile app
• Powerful sales & marketing tools

Cons of Kajabi

• Doesn’t handle sales taxes
• Starting price is steep

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Pricing: $149 – $399/month

VISIT SITE

Kajabi is an all-in-one membership site platform that allows you to build a membership site and deliver your content. In addition, you can build a fully-fledged website for your brand and handle every aspect of sales and marketing on the platform itself.

When it comes to membership site creation, Kajabi has the most to offer for a hosted platform. It allows you to create online courses with videos, quizzes, and other multimedia content. Plus, you can drip-feed your content as well as set pre-requisite lessons.

Moreover, it has 10+ beautifully designed Product Themes that work well irrespective of whether you want to deliver an online course or just offer some standalone training.

It even offers a mobile app for iOS/ Android devices, so if your members often consume content on mobile, they’ll have a much better learning experience.

Another handy membership feature that Kajabi offers is Community which allows you to create a private community area for your members. In addition, you can include Coaching and Podcasts in your membership.

When it comes to pricing your membership, Kajabi offers you a lot of flexibility. Your members can pay weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually. Plus you have the ability to provide a free trial or charge an upfront setup fee.

And if you’re wondering how easy it is to set up tiered memberships, you’ll be happy to know that creating membership levels and allocating content to them is pretty straightforward as well.

When it comes to analytics, Kajabi has a dedicated subscription metrics report, so you can track your membership site’s monthly recurring revenue (MRR), average revenue per user (ARPU), and churn rate.

Now, Kajabi takes everything to the next level with its inbuilt sales and marketing features. They offer a sales pipeline builder, allowing you to map out your customer journey and build end-to-end marketing funnels.

You can also create landing pages, launch email marketing campaigns, run webinars, manage your affiliate program and automate your entire marketing workflow.

Finally, you can create your front-end website and your blog on Kajabi, which makes it possible for you to run your entire business on the platform. 

Pricing

When it comes to pricing, Kajabi is one of the more expensive options out there.

Kajabi pricing starts from $149/month, and its most popular plan costs $199/month. However, none of their pricing plans charge a transaction fee.

Overall, Kajabi is an extremely feature-rich platform that can help you with all aspects of running a membership site business. It will be an ideal option for you if you’re looking for an all-in-one membership platform.

2. Thinkific

Best standalone membership site builder

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Pros of Thinkific

• Powerful online course builder
• Has a community feature
• Zoom integration for live sessions
• Flexible website builder
• Dedicated app store

Cons of Thinkific

• Doesn’t have native mobile apps
• Doesn’t handle sales taxes

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Pricing: Free – $499/month

VISIT SITE

​Thinkific is another popular hosted membership website builder. However, unlike Kajabi, the focus is mainly on offering the core features, including the ability to host and deliver your content and process online payments.

So Thinkific doesn’t offer an inbuilt blogging feature, a funnel builder, or email marketing tools, and you’ll need to use third-party tools for these capabilities.

Having said that, Thinkific is a great option for creating membership sites and online courses.

It allows you to create engaging courses with multiple content types, including videos, PDFs, quizzes, and assignments, and release your content based on a drip schedule or create learning paths.

When it comes to the course player, there is just one theme, but it is very well designed from a user experience point of view, and it will work well for all types of online courses.

In addition, you can create custom pages and restrict access to them based on a user’s membership plan, which is really handy if you want to deliver one-off content on an ongoing basis.

As far as mobile learning experience is concerned, the course player is mobile responsive, and your users can watch your content in any mobile browser. Thinkific, at this point, doesn’t have a mobile app.

Another useful feature that Thinkific offers for building memberships is the ability to create an online community on the platform.

When it comes to pricing your membership, you can create monthly or annual subscriptions, and you can also include a free trial or charge a setup fee. Plus, creating tiered levels for your membership is quite simple in Thinkific.

Finally, Thinkific offers some other handy selling tools like the ability to build sales pages, process payments, create 1-click upsells and coupons, engage in affiliate marketing, etc.

Pricing

As far as Thinkific pricing is concerned, you can get started for free. The lowest paid plan costs $49/month, and for that, you get all the essential course creation features.

However, many of the essential features for memberships (e.g., bundles, subscription pricing, Communities, etc.) require the PRO plan, which costs $99/month.

Overall, Thinkific is quite reasonably priced and if you’re looking for a standalone platform to build your membership site, Thinkific will work great for you.

3. Mighty Networks

Best for community-based memberships

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Pros of Mighty Networks

• Powerful community builder
• Ability to create online courses
• Native live streaming
• Free iOS/Android mobile app

Cons of Mighty Networks

• Website builder lacks flexibility
• Charges a transaction fee

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Pricing: $39 – $119/month

VISIT SITE

Mighty Networks is pretty different from all the hosted platforms that we have discussed till now, in the sense that it is primarily an online community platform.

It offers best-in-class features for building an engaged online community, including the ability to create posts, full articles, and polls and questions, organize your content using topics, create free/paid groups within your community, and other features like member directory, direct messaging between members, live events, etc.

What I like the most about Mighty Networks, though, is that your members can access the community area using their free iOS and Android apps.

Moreover, you can also create online courses, and it supports essential features like content structuring and progress tracking.

When it comes to pricing your membership and selling it, Mighty Networks allows you to charge a one-time, monthly, or annual subscription, with or without a free trial. Plus, there are different ways in which you can charge for your Mighty Network. 

For example, you can keep the larger community free but charge for courses and mastermind groups within it. Or, you can charge for community access and also specify separate charges for courses and groups.

Pricing

As far as Mighty Networks pricing is concerned, the entry-level plan is the Community Plan which costs $39/month (+3% transaction fee) and the most popular tier is the Business Plan which costs $119/month (+2% transaction fee). 

To sum it all up, if you’re planning to create a mastermind group or any sort of community-focused membership, Mighty Networks will work great for you.

4. New Zenler

Affordable all-in-one membership platform

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Pros of New Zenler

• All-in-one membership platform
• Flexible course builder
• Ability to offer live classes
• Native community-building features
• Marketing funnel builder

Cons of New Zenler

• The platform is in beta
• No iOS/Android mobile apps
• Limited subscription reporting

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Pricing: $67 – $197/month

VISIT SITE

New Zenler is an all-in-one membership platform that lets you create a membership site by bundling courses and community. Besides that, you get inbuilt site-building and sales and marketing features.

In terms of membership creation, you can build courses by adding different content types such as videos, audio files, PDFs, etc. And to enhance student learning, you can add quizzes, assignments, and surveys to these courses.

Moreover, New Zenler lets you build a membership community where you and your users can create posts and have discussions.

Another handy membership feature is creating one-off blog posts for your members. The platform allows you to limit the visibility of a blog post to students enrolled in particular courses, so you can use it to deliver your membership content.

When it comes to pricing your membership, New Zenler is quite flexible. It lets you create multiple membership tiers and price them in different ways.

To start with, you can bundle entire courses and community together. Or, you can even choose to include specific course sections and lessons in your membership plan.

For subscription pricing, members can pay monthly, yearly, half-yearly, or on a custom period basis. It’s also possible to provide a free trial and charge a one-time setup fee.

To sell your membership, you get a powerful sales page builder, a well-optimized checkout process, order bumps, and 1-click upsells to boost the conversion. The platform also handles EU VAT.

Moreover, New Zenler has inbuilt features for marketing your membership, such as a blogging tool, a marketing funnel builder, and email marketing tools.

Pricing

As far as New Zenler pricing is concerned, there are two paid plans. The lower tier is the Pro plan, which costs $67/month and comes with almost all the platform features. The higher tier costs $197/month, which gives more admin roles and SSO functionality.

Overall, New Zenler is a great membership builder, and if you are looking for a budget-friendly, all-in-one platform, New Zenler will be an excellent option for you.

5. Podia

Easiest to use membership site platform

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Pros of Podia

• Super easy to use
• Supports coaching and community
• Handles EU VAT
• Ability to send autoresponders

Cons of Podia

• Features need improvement
• No mobile apps feature
• Basic reporting tools

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Pricing: $39 – $79/month

VISIT SITE

Podia is another online platform that lets you quickly build a membership site. To start with, you can create an online course with videos, PDFs, basic quizzes, etc. You can also drip-feed your content.

When it comes to course delivery, the course player looks elegant and is very well-designed from an end-user point of view. 

Even though Podia doesn’t offer a mobile app, the course player is mobile responsive and users can watch your content on any device.

Another thing that I like about membership site creation in Podia is the ability to create multiple products such as Coaching, digital downloads, and webinars. In addition, Podia also lets you build a separate community area for your members.

However, note that these features are still very basic and require significant improvement.

When it comes to pricing your membership, you can create a monthly/annual subscription and offer a free trial. Moreover, creating multiple tiers and assigning different courses and Posts to them is pretty straightforward.

Finally, Podia allows you to create a sales page, process payments through a well-optimized checkout process, charge EU VAT, and run your affiliate program.

Pricing

As far as Podia pricing is concerned, it offers three plans. The lowest tier is called the Mover Plan and it costs $39/month.

However, it doesn’t include the essential membership features offered by Podia which are only available on the Shaker Plan ($89/month) and above.

Overall, if you just require the basic features for your membership site and are looking for a simple and affordable solution, then Podia should work well for you.

6. Teachable

Membership platform with best free plan

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Pros of Teachable

• Super easy to use
• Powerful online course builder
• Has a product for 1:1 Coaching
• Well-optimized checkout process
• Has a free plan

Cons of Teachable

• Not easy to create multiple tiers
• No native community feature
• Doesn’t track subscription metrics

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Pricing: Free – $299/month

VISIT SITE

Teachable is an extremely popular online course platform that allows you to create courses and memberships under your own brand.

What I like about Teachable is how easy it is to create an engaging online course. You can create an online course with videos, audio files, PDFs, quizzes, etc., and you can deliver it professionally through the inbuilt course player.

Moreover, it supports features for graded quizzes, dripping your content, creating certificates, course compliance, 1:1 coaching, etc.

However, all your content will need to be delivered through online courses as you won’t have the ability to create individual posts or pages.

Even though Teachable doesn’t give you the option to create a community area natively, it does integrate with Circle.so—a popular community platform.

Now, the process of creating multiple membership tiers isn’t very straightforward. You’ll need to create multiple course bundles and do a lot of workarounds to offer different levels for your membership.

Having said that, Teachable offers some useful selling tools for your membership which include a sales page builder, well-optimized checkout pages, EU VAT support, affiliate marketing tools, etc.

Pricing

As far as Teachable pricing is concerned, it offers a free plan ($1 + 10% transaction fee), where you can have unlimited members and products. It is one of the few membership platforms to have such a generous free plan.

The lowest-paid plan, the Basic plan, costs $39/month (+5% transaction fee) and the most popular tier sits at $119/month (0% transaction fee).

In conclusion, if your membership basically involves a bunch of courses bundled together and you want a more affordable solution, Teachable will work well for you.

7. Kartra

Best platform for sales and marketing

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Pros of Kartra

• All-in-one platform
• Powerful sales & marketing tools
• Native helpdesk & scheduling tools
• Robust reporting tools

Cons of Kartra

• Not easy to use
• Lacks important engagement tools
• No mobile apps functionality

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Pricing: $99 – $499/month

VISIT SITE

Kartra is an all-in-one online business platform that also comes with the ability to build a membership website.

Kartra’s membership site builder lets you create online courses and also add standalone content like video, audio playlists, text, quizzes, etc. You can further drip your content based on a schedule.

The default members area is nicely designed and you can customize it further to match your brand and meet your requirements. Moreover, your members can access your content on all devices, including mobile.

However, Kartra doesn’t have much to offer for member engagement. You can’t do live sessions or build a community area inside Kartra. The only thing you can do is interact with your members through the comment section.

However, where Kartra really shines is its sales and marketing capabilities.

It gives you a lot of flexibility in pricing your membership site. You can create weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual subscriptions, including a free trial, or even charge an initial fee.

Moreover, you can easily create multiple access levels for your site and offer exclusive content to subscribers in a particular tier.

On top of that, the platform allows you to create landing pages, set up a fully-fledged website, launch email marketing campaigns, and manage an affiliate program. 

Pricing

When it comes to pricing, Kartra’s Starter plan comes at $99/month, and it includes all the features the platform has to offer. The most popular package is the Silver plan, and it costs $199/month.

Kartra is pretty reasonably priced, given everything it has to offer. Plus, the pricing plans vary based on things like the number of contacts, so you will only need to switch to a higher plan when your business grows. 

Overall, if you want to build a basic membership site but need more powerful sales and marketing features, Kartra can be a good option for you.

8. Uscreen

Best for subscription video on demand

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Pros of Uscreen

• Flexible video catalog builder
• Native live streaming feature
• Supports OTT apps for mobile and Smart TVs

Cons of Uscreen

• Puts a limit on video storage
• Charges a per-subscriber fee

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Pricing: $99 – $199/month

VISIT SITE

Uscreen stands out from other hosted platforms on this list as it is designed to help you create a subscription-based video-on-demand business under your brand.

So you can use the platform to create a video-based membership site to teach your audience a useful skill or start your own entertainment streaming service like Netflix. 

The platform allows you to upload your videos and categorize them to create a well-organized video catalog and you can also add filters and tags to the catalog to make it more user-friendly.

Plus, you can group your videos into playlists and chapters using the ‘Collections’ feature, which can be quite useful for creating online courses. 

You can further engage your audience by creating and streaming live events automatically. You can also record these events and publish them.

However, where Uscreen really shines is that it lets you launch your own branded membership apps—not just on iOS and Android devices but also for various smart TV devices like Roku Box and AppleTV. 

For sales and marketing, Uscreen offers a few useful features, including the ability to build a brand website.

Moreover, you can create monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, and yearly subscriptions for your membership site, plus you can easily set up multi-tiered subscriptions.

Apart from that, you can create coupons, sell gift cards, and follow up with abandoned cart users, in addition to tracking all the important subscription metrics.

Pricing

Uscreen’s Basic plan comes at $99/month and gives you most of the platform’s essential features. The most popular plan is the Growth plan which costs $199/month.

On top of the cost of the tier, Uscreen also charges you a subscription fee of $0.50 per active subscriber per month. Besides that, there’s a 5% transaction fee on one-time sales.

Overall, Uscreen is one of the best platforms for established creators to build a subscription-based video-on-demand business.

9. Wild Apricot

Best for associations and organizations

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Pros of Wild Apricot

• Powerful membership management tools
• Useful events management features
• Mobile apps for members & admin
• Flexible payment/pricing options

Cons of Wild Apricot

• No LMS functionality
• Can be an expensive option

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Pricing: Free – $720/month

VISIT SITE

Wild Apricot is a hosted membership management platform designed to help organizations such as associations and NGOs manage their membership programs online.

With Wild Apricot, you can create membership directories that can either be public or only accessible to your members, create membership application forms, and set up a fully-fledged website as well. 

You can also create members-only pages, add blogs, and set up discussion forums within your membership site. Moreover, you can limit access to certain parts of your site to specific membership levels or groups to create a multi-tiered site. 

On top of that, you can create event listings on your site and even send confirmation and reminder emails for events to your members. Plus, the platform allows you to send regular email blasts and newsletters to members to keep them informed and engaged. 

What I like the most about Wild Apricot is that it offers two separate mobile apps—one for members to access your site and another for admins to manage your membership.

Finally, it gives you the flexibility to price your membership and process payments through various providers. You can even set up donation pages for specific fundraising events or campaigns on your website.

The only thing you should keep in mind is that the platform doesn’t include a learning management system since it is designed for an entirely different purpose.

Pricing

As far as pricing is concerned, Wild Apricot has a flexible pricing model that increases as your membership size grows.

The Starter plan comes at $40/month, with higher plans going up to $720/month, and the plans vary based on the number of members they support. Wild Apricot also offers a free plan, but it lacks essential features like email blasts and payments. 

Overall, the platform is ideal for organizations like associations and not for profits as it has all the features they are likely to need while setting up their membership program online. 

10. AccessAlly

Best all-in-one WordPress membership plugin

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Pros of AccessAlly

• Inbuilt LMS functionality
• Powerful engagement tools
• Easy member management
• Useful sales & marketing features

Cons of AccessAlly

• Lack of extendability
• Expensive for a WordPress plugin

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Pricing: $99 – $250/month

VISIT SITE

While the hosted platforms work great for most creators, they aren’t the best option for you if you want more flexibility in terms of functionality and customization options.

In this case, you should use a self-hosted platform like WordPress and a membership plugin like AccessAlly to build your membership site.

AccessAlly is very different from a traditional WordPress membership plugin as it doesn’t just offer powerful membership management and selling tools—it also includes inbuilt LMS capability. 

It allows you to create regular WordPress posts and pages in your membership, but you can also create online courses with quizzes, assignments, certificates, etc.

Moreover, you can grant access to your content all at once, release them based on a schedule, or even unlock content based on a user’s progress.

As far as membership pricing is concerned, you have many options. You can create one-time, monthly, or annual subscriptions, offer a free/paid trial and create multiple membership tiers.

It also offers some very powerful membership management tools which allow your members to cancel, upgrade or downgrade their membership plans. As an admin, you can also pause someone’s subscription or let them skip payments.

Moreover, AccessAlly offers you some handy selling tools like well-designed checkout pages, coupon codes, sales taxes, order bumps, 1-click upsells, cart abandonment tracking, inbuilt affiliate tracking, etc.

Pricing

When it comes to plugin cost, AccessAlly has a steep price tag. Its Essentials option is $99/month; however, if you want to access the premium course creation features, you need to go for the Pro plan, which costs $129/month.

You can see that AccessAlly is pretty expensive by the standards of a WordPress membership/LMS plugin.

When you add the cost of your website hosting, video storage, and things like website themes and other plugins, you’ll end up paying much more than even what the hosted platforms charge.

Having said that, AccessAlly is the most feature-rich yet easy-to-use option for building a membership site on WordPress, and if pricing isn’t an issue for you, you should give it a try.

11. MemberPress

Best standalone WordPress membership plugin

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Pros of MemberPress

• Pretty extensible
• Inbuilt LMS functionality
• Flexible access rules
• Powerful member management features

Cons of MemberPress

• No native community feature
• Overall setup can be difficult

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Pricing: $179 – $399/year

VISIT SITE

​MemberPress is one of the most popular WordPress membership plugins, and it is very different from an “all-in-one” plugin like AccessAlly.

So, it covers the basic requirements of a membership site like content protection, handling subscription payments, and creating tiered membership levels.

With MemberPress, you can protect your WordPress pages and posts and restrict access to them based on which membership plan a user has purchased.

If you want to offer online courses in your membership, you can use their Courses add-on. However, it lacks some essential features, so you’ll be better off using a third-party WordPress LMS plugin like LearnDash.

When it comes to pricing your membership, you have a lot of flexibility, including setting custom periods for recurring payments, creating free/paid trials of any length, limiting the number of payments, etc.

Finally, MemberPress offers some very handy features for reporting and membership management.

Pricing

As far as the plugin pricing is concerned, MemberPress is significantly cheaper than the other options above, but it also has a lot less to offer. 

The Basic Plan costs $179/year and gives you one site license, while the Plus Plan costs $299/year and gives you two site licenses.

If you’re planning to build a fully-fledged membership site, MemberPress won’t be the best option for you unless you want to patch together many third-party plugins.

However, if you want to quickly turn your WordPress posts and pages into a membership site, MemberPress is all you’ll need.

12. MemberSpace

Best cross-platform membership plugin

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Pros of MemberSpace

• Simple to use
• Works with popular website builders
• Powerful membership management
• Flexible pricing options

Cons of MemberSpace

• No LMS functionality
• Doesn’t include content hosting
• Extremely high pricing

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Pricing: $29-$199/month

VISIT SITE

MemberSpace is an easy-to-use app that helps add membership site functionality to website builders, such as WordPress, SquareSpace, and Wix.

To build a membership site, you have to host your content externally and create membership pages on your website platform. Then, you can use MemberSpace to restrict access to the selected web pages.

In terms of pricing options, you can keep the access free, charge one-time payment, recurring payment, or create a payment plan. You can also add a free trial or set a custom billing date. 

Moreover, creating tiers in MemberSpace is pretty simple. You need to set pricing for each tier and select the pages you want to include. 

MemberSpace also has some useful sales and marketing features such as abandoned cart tracking, failed charge recovery, cancellation alert, automated upsell, cancellation workflows, etc.

Pricing

MemberSpace offers three plans, and all of them include the platform’s core features. The differences between the three plans are in terms of the number of websites and transaction fees. 

The entry-level plan costs $29/month and a 4% transaction fee. As you grow, you can switch to the higher plans that cost $49/month (+3% transaction fee) and $199/month (+1% transaction fee).

Overall, MemberSpace is a good option for creating simple memberships on your existing website, but the cost is too high.

13. Patreon

Popular crowdfunding membership platform

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Pros of Patreon

• Ability to create multiple content types
• Offers iOS and Android mobile apps
• No fixed monthly payment
• Ability to sell merchandise

Cons of Patreon

• High transaction fee
• Inflexible pricing options
• No subscription metrics analytics

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Pricing: $0/month (+5%-12% fee)

VISIT SITE

Patreon is a popular crowdfunding membership site platform for creative audiences such as writers, virtual artists, podcasters, and musicians. The platform lets your fans support your work with small regular payments.

Patreon lets creators offer cool perks like exclusive access to them and bonus content. You can also sell merchandise to your audience.

Launching a membership on Patreon is super easy. First, you need to create pages and add different content types: videos, audio files, text, polls, images, live streaming, and links.

Keep in mind that you’ll need to integrate with third-party apps for video hosting and live streaming.

Then, you can set up membership tiers and select what content to include in each of them.

Pricing-wise, Patreon isn’t very flexible. It only allows you to create monthly or yearly subscriptions. You can’t do things like a free trial or a setup fee.

Pricing

As far as pricing is concerned, Patreon offers three plans. There’s no fixed monthly charge but only a transaction fee. The entry-level plan charges a 5% transaction fee, while the top plan charges a 12% transaction fee.

I’m not a big fan of Patreon’s pricing. It charges a hefty transaction fee, especially when you consider that it doesn’t promote your membership to other patrons.

Overall, Patreon isn’t the right option for building a full-fledged membership site. However, it should work fine if you want a quick way for your audience to support you through donations and small purchases.

In my view, these are the best membership site platforms available on the market. Some creators use a few other options, but I haven’t mentioned them in this guide because I don’t recommend using them.

For example, it’s possible to create a membership site using platforms like ClickFunnels, Squarespace, and Wix, but I don’t recommend you go this route because these platforms lack many essential features you’ll need.

Best Membership Platforms – Final Verdict

There are many different options for membership website platforms, and the vast number of choices can make selecting the right platform challenging and overwhelming. 

That’s why I recommend you keep things simple! First, explore the hosted membership software as these are much easier to use and will work well for most creators.

However, If these platforms don’t meet your requirements, you would probably need to go the WordPress route and rely on a combination of plugins, depending on your requirements.

I hope this guide helped you make a decision. Do you have any questions about any of these membership website builders? Which platform do you think will work best for you and why? Please leave a comment below and let me know.

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