Renewal season is coming, the board wants numbers, and you’re deciding where your membership should live. Here’s what WildApricot does well, what you get with MemberPress.ai, and how to tell which one fits.
WildApricot puts your membership, events, member emails, payments and website in one place, with a drag-and-drop tool for building the site. Payments run through its built-in Personify Payments, or through other popular payment systems for an extra fee. WildApricot has been part of the Personify family since 2017.
Dues, renewals, the directory, chapters, events and the board report. Here’s how each one works in WildApricot, and with MemberPress.ai.
WildApricot
Sets up recurring payments so members don’t miss one, and collects dues automatically.
With MemberPress.ai
Tell Opal your member categories once, the way you’d explain them to a new board member: regular, student, retired, a firm rate. Each becomes its own membership, billed every year, with its own sign-up page, and the first dues come in through those pages. When the board votes a dues increase, you say so once and she updates the dues.
WildApricot
Reminds members when it’s time to renew and sends them the invoice, on a schedule of notices you can adjust.
With MemberPress.ai
Opal checks which of your renewal reminders are switched off. When renewals drop, she tells you if a reminder that matters was off.
WildApricot
Searchable member directories you can customize, showing each member’s profile.
With MemberPress.ai
Opal doesn’t build a member directory on her own. If the directory is the heart of what your members pay for, plan for it alongside.
WildApricot
Multi-chapter accounts let you oversee memberships, events and emails across all your chapters from one central dashboard, and create financial reports and membership summaries. Multi-chapter pricing is available for an organization with several chapters.
With MemberPress.ai
On the paid plan, ask Opal for the chapter update and she drafts the page for you to edit and publish. You choose which members can open it in MemberPress’s own access rules.
WildApricot
Custom registration forms, payments, automatic reminder emails and attendance tracking.
With MemberPress.ai
Opal doesn’t run event registration on her own. If events are central for you, plan for them alongside.
WildApricot
Reports you can customize and export, with live numbers on renewals, lapsed members and retention.
With MemberPress.ai
Ask how many members renewed, who lapsed and what dues brought in, and Opal answers from your own site’s records. On the paid plan, that includes this year against last.
WildApricot prices by how many contacts you keep, and every package has the same features. For up to 100 contacts it’s $66 a month billed monthly, $59.40 a month if you pay a year ahead, or $56.10 a month if you pay two years ahead. The price goes up as your contact list grows.
It lists no setup fees and no per-transaction fees, and you can try it free for 60 days. Prices are in US dollars. Multiple chapters of the same organization get their own multi-chapter pricing.
The free plan reads your site and tells you what’s happening on it. The paid plan does the work: $79 a month, with your first site included.
It runs on your association’s own WordPress site, with MemberPress on it, free or paid. To take dues online, you connect Stripe or PayPal in MemberPress’s payment settings.
Both are good homes for an association. It comes down to what your members pay for, and where you want it to live.
WildApricot fits if you want one subscription that holds the website, the directory, event registration and payments together, or if you oversee several chapters from one place.
MemberPress.ai fits if you want your membership and dues on a WordPress site the association owns, with your member list and payment account staying yours, and Opal to set it up and keep it running through renewal season. Already have a WordPress site? You connect the one you have.
Connect your association’s site and tell Opal how your dues work. She sets it up, then keeps it running through renewal season.