For any membership organization, the business growth is directly proportional to the level of the service that the organization provides to its members. However, with the increased inclination of people towards membership based services, It is becoming a bit challenging for the businesses to grow their audience, increase member engagement, and get membership sign-ups. This often leads to poor membership management that carries long-lasting effects and may infect an entire association.
Membership Management Software or an association management system is capable of helping associations, clubs, and other membership organizations to eliminate such challenges and provide their services to their members more efficiently.
What is Membership management?
Membership management refers to the process of managing member databases, adding, renewing, upgrading or downgrading memberships, communicating and coordinating with members easily, organizing events, tickets, content, track members’ interest and so on. Proper membership management encourages transparent culture among members of membership-based organizations to establish mutual respect and trust.
In short, it helps membership-based businesses to ensure timely service, efficient support, renewal processes and personalized service.
What are the expectations of members today?
Excellent member service should be the top priority of any association today. It purely reveals your organizations’ personality. Understand, without members you cannot run your association. But, what are the critical expectations of members today? Have a look at the below image;
Speedy service, self-automated service, consistent, personalized support experience, being proactive, listening to them, understanding them, keeping track of their interests, and customizing the services are some of the key expectations of members of any association today.
It might seem like your members are expecting a lot, but no worries. There are plenty of solutions that can help you to deal with this.
A typical free and open source membership management software solution can help you improve your member experience, indeed to a reasonable level. As an organization, you will start spending less time on admin and more time on engaging your members efficiently.
How can membership software help you?
Membership management software helps in managing membership in a simple and easy way that can save nearly about 80% of your administration time. These software are designed to enhance member engagement and add value to your offering. The software enables automated workflows right from induction till renewals, invoicing, booking activities, emailing, and more. The software can be well used to maintain all of your discussion boards, events management, entertainments, food, restaurants, and more.
Almost all the membership management software systems are securely engineered, thus making them ideal to use. Moreover, the vendors guide the users and are available on-hand for strategic support at any time.
Why Do You Need a Membership Software solution?
Automated Process - A membership management software solution can automate the entire process. You can save your time and keep the errors very minimal.
Maintaining data in a safe and secure manner – Storing and maintaining information about your members is easier with membership management software.
Better business productivity – With minimal errors and efficient management, your organization is bound to see greater business productivity.
How to pick the right membership management system?
There are a number of membership management system vendors to choose from. Ensure that you understand the options, costs, and deliverables. If you have time you can do the following;
- Research if the software is ranked high
- Check whether the software offers all the features required for efficient membership management
- Find out how long the provider has been in the business
- Verify the updates of the software
- Verify the number of users count
- Check for the contract terms if any
- Narrow down your selection to further research
If you do not have time to do the above research, you can just read the sections below to help you get an understanding.
What are the different membership management systems?
Membership Management Software on a wider note can be segregated into the following types;
- On-premises
- Cloud-Based
- Free
- Open source
- Freemium
Free membership management software gives the users the freedom to use the software, understand the source code, modify the software, and distribute the software without any restrictions. Unlike proprietary software, the free software solutions do not have any licensing or hidden codes.
How to Choose a Good Membership Management Software Solution?
Primarily, investing in a membership management software system depends on the size, culture, and maturity of your association. It can range from procurement to deploying procedures and can take a bit of your time if not strategized properly.
You might have to go through the following steps;
- Analyze your requirements
- Defining them
- Learn what you need from a particular software solution
- Consider your time and budget
- Identify the tasks that need to be automated
- Identify areas that need improvements
- Check if the software fits your purpose
- Check if the software has some hidden costs
- Check if the software uses the latest best practices
- Trial run the software to check if the software saves you time
- Check if it integrates well with your other systems
- Check if it is easy to maintain
- Check for the security and reliability
- Last, but not the least, check for the post-deployment support from the provider
A combination of all these features makes a good membership management software system.
Features of Membership Management Software
- Simple & intuitive member portal
- Management of multiple memberships
- Member database
- Member portal
- Event management
- Sponsor management
- Application management
- Automatic renewals
- Segment members
- Create a customized profile
- Integrate with other systems
- Accepts multiple currencies and tax
- Content management
- Record maintenance
- Easy payment gateways
- Integrated payment processing
- Multi-user access
- Customized report generation
- Dues management
- Email marketing
- Analytics
- Security
Normally membership management software comes with at least the following features:
- Storing and editing member information
- Creating, renewing, upgrading and downgrading memberships
- Communicating with members by email, social media, message or post
So, go ahead and simplify your membership management with the following best 6 free & open source membership management software;
Comparative Analysis
#1 Admidio
As a free and open source membership management solution, Admidio is the best fit for any size club, organization or group. Every module of Admidio can be easily installed and configured to a new system or to your existing system. Modules include; user management, data management, event module, role and user rights management, create and restore database backups & appointment management.
(Image source: Admidio)
Key Features:
- Secured and controlled access
- Adjustable layout
- Freely configurable main menu
- Facility to export details to other file types
- Easily create roles
- Add custom fields
- Facility to publish events online
- Facility to enable all the members to participate in events that are of their interest
- Create photo albums
- Facility to create events, edit or delete them at any time
- Facility to upload, manage and view photos
- Members can access information all the time
- Variety of Plugins like Birthday list, Category report, Membership fee, etc.
- vCard 3.0 support
- Multi lingual including Indonesian, Spanish, and Chinese simple
- Rights management and access control security features
The latest version of Admidio (3.3.10) comes with added new languages that include; Indonesian, Spanish, Swahili, and Chinese simple.
#2 Wild Apricot
When it comes to membership management, Wild Apricot comes at the top of the list of free and open source membership management software. The software allows you to automate and simplify membership management processes effortlessly using a simple & user-friendly interface. The free version comes with some basic features and allows up to 50 contacts. Premium features are made available for an additional cost.
Modules include: membership management, event registration, payments, email & contact management, database management, and mobile App.
(Image source: Wild Apricot)
Key Features:
- Easily to search and share members database
- Customize membership levels
- Induct and manage membership in real-time
- Automated renewals
- Real-time access
- Members can easily login through the members’ portal and update their info
- Searchable online member directory
- Easy to customize, drag and drop, intuitive dashboard
- Mobile friendly
- Customized report generation
- Event management
- Track and record payments
- Email confirmations and reminders
- Mobile-responsive email design and inbuilt email templates
- Customizable mobile friendly themes
- Automated invoice generation and tracking
- Donation search using date or donor
- Automatically email invoices and receipts
- Data export to Quickbooks and csv format
Your contacts are invaluable. So, to entice them and add value, you need to connect with them and manage their activity without any friction. An efficient membership management software system like Wild Apricot will help you achieve this. This free and open source membership management software is widely used by both big and small associations, non-profit organizations, clubs, and societies.
#3 Pinomembers
Based on Drupal, Pinomembers is another leading free and open source membership management software to easily manage members’ data using a simple user interface. It allows associations, nonprofits, and other membership based organizations to effortlessly add content and documents, send bulk emails and configure members data in a few clicks. This easily extendible solution also comes with fully customizable capabilities that help add the functionalities as per business requirements.
(Image Source: Pinomembers)
Key Features:
- Member management with revisioning support
- Facility to send Emails with advanced filters
- Data customization and custom field creation
- Supports multiple file types
- Secure storage archive
- Data import and export to multiple formats
- Customizable member view with contextual, relationships and exposed filters
- Advanced data sorting function
#4 MemberPlanet
Simplify membership, and all your day-to-day operations with MemberPlanet, a free and open source membership management software system. The software fits organizations of all sizes. With a simplified membership enrollment process where interested members can join the club via email or by just clicking the link shared with them. In addition, this tool also helps clubs in automating renewals, enhance financial reporting, and improve group visibility to grow your group and ensure scalability.
(Image Source: MemberPlanet)
Key Features:
- Easy Onboarding
- Both individual and organizational membership management
- Safe and secure Portal
- Intuitive dashboard
- Automated email reminders
- Multiple payment facilities
- Customized reporting
- Member information management
- An integrated set of tools
- Online payments
- Encrypted data – accessible anytime from anywhere
- Customizable online database
- Member dashboard
- Automated email reminders
- Multi-channel communication
- Mobile app for payments and group text messaging
- Admin role management
- Dynamic distribution lists
The software is widely used by associations, nonprofits, schools, booster clubs, fraternal organizations, PTAs, homeowners associations, educational foundations and so on.
#5 Tendenci
Tendenci is a simple and easy-to-use platform ideal to manage memberships, events, and other daily administrative operations without any friction. This free and open source association management software makes it extremely easy to induct and retain members. Whether your association handles limited members or a huge number of members, Tendenci can fit into any setup and can help you save time and money. The software offers advanced capabilities for donor management, plus MOOC, memberships, etc.
(Image Source: Tendenci)
Key Features:
- Comprehensive membership profile
- Integrated event management
- Customized forms
- Easy online event registration facility
- Web content management
- Safe and secure membership directory
- Integrated email marketing
- Event log summary report
- Unlimited hosting options
- Analytics and custom reports
- Easy payment options
- Responsive design
- Create photo and video galleries
- Feature rich event calendar
- Inbuilt themes and code snippet library
- Newsletter builder with automated pull content
- LMS integration
Tendenci has been in the market for over 20 years now and each year the software strives to do better. It perfectly fulfills the need for an affordable membership management software solution to manage all your day-to-day transactions for membership management, database management, event management, communication management and donations management.
Tendenci is one of the top ranked open source alternatives to proprietary, closed source, or other open source AMS systems.
#6 ClubMaster
ClubMaster is yet another simple and easy-to-use membership management software solution. This free and open source software is written in PHP. It is preferred by the clubs and membership based businesses owing to the robust capabilities to manage online bookings, members, email notifications, facility booking, etc. In addition, it supports a huge number of modules like gift cards, Mailchimp, Google Calendar, Microsoft Dynamics, and many more.
(Image Source: ClubMaster)
Key Features:
- Intuitive yet straightforward admin and user interface
- Total membership management
- Support for a small and large group of members
- Multiple locations
- Interactive admin dashboard
- Integrated event management
- Order management
- Location-based service
- Facility to integrate with other systems
- Auto-renewal
- Easy-to-maintain users’ activity
- Multiple language support
- Appointment overview in calendar
- User management with easy search
- Group management with special rights
- Customize different forms for different events
- Advanced report generation
Whether you are running a human service organization, a healthcare organization, or an education center;
Whether you are a small, mid-size or large enterprise;
Whether you run with a mission-specific goal;
Whether you have members from all geographic regions;
All you need to look for is a compelling membership management software system. Apart from the free and open source membership management software, you can try these affordable top membership management software tools that offer a wide spectrum of features to manage membership life cycle effortlessly.
List of the Top Membership Management Software Commonly Used
Businesses that run on membership based models should opt for only top membership management software that offer robust functionalities to manage members on a day-to-day basis. These membership management software greatly improves the decision making, analytical, payment processing, community engagement and many more capabilities. Take a look at these top software as follows;
MemberClicks
MemberClicks is a top notch membership management software for associations, non profits, chambers of commerce and various other association management companies to build meaningful relationships with their clients. The software comes with a flexible membership database, automatic due reminder, member analytics, easy reporting, centralized activity data, automatic profile creation, access based permissions, automated invoicing, etc., to ease the membership management process. Connect with the company for demo and customized pricing information.
Membershipworks
Membershipworks is an all-in-one software to manage member directory, event calendar & registration, member billing, online payments, donations, shopping carts, job board, etc. Features such as smart member search, automated member mails, daily administrator email reporting, membership forms, membership CRM, etc., makes it unique from its competitors. It is available in free version for upto 50 members and premium pricing starting from $35/month.
Omnify
Omnify is another prominent membership management software for small scale to large scale associations in delivering exceptional membership related services. It is a user-first platform with multiple payment and booking options, seamless scheduling, automated reminders, analytics tracking and many other capabilities. The tool also comes with an all-in-one mobile app to view upcoming and past schedules, send messages, manage client information, track attendance, etc. It is free for upto 2 members and the pricing starts from $79/month, billed annually for more than 2 members.
Industry-Wise List Of Top Membership Management Software
Membership Management Software for the Health and Fitness Industry
In the present era, people are increasingly joining memberships of sports clubs, gyms and other fitness associations to stay fit which often contribute to the increased workload of the staff. To handle such issues, they mainly use a membership management system. It is of utmost importance in ensuring better billing management, payment processing, regulatory compliance, member tracking, resource scheduling, equipment management, etc. The leading membership management software for the health and fitness industry are as follows;
SportMember
SportMember is a great membership management software for the health and fitness businesses to coordinate and communicate with members. Sports clubs use this tool for onboarding and data import assistance, complete club calendar functionality, adding additional fields to members' profiles, central club communication (club news, newsletter, emails), club banner management, facility and equipment booking, managing club departments, etc. It is available in both free and paid versions that starts from $0.19 per member/month.
G-GMS
Another membership management software for the health and fitness industry is G-GMS which is popularly used to add, edit and manage the member’s profile. The tool offers features such as membership management, record-keeping & reports, alerts & notifications, biometrics integration and enquiry CRM. Its personalized diet & exercise plan feature makes it a perfect choice for Gyms. For pricing, connect with the company.
GymMaster
GymMaster is an easy to use membership management system for the health and fitness businesses in efficiently maintaining membership and member’s records. Features such as 24/7 access control, integrated billing, sales dashboard, customizable member profiles, self service portal, ultra configurable memberships, membership management, online booking and signups, etc., makes it a perfect fit for clubs of all sizes. For free trial, customized pricing and other relevant information, contact the vendor.
Membership Management Software for the Event Management Industry
A membership management software for the event management industry offers an easy to use platform with automation capabilities, allowing businesses to ensure successful event execution. A few notable top-rated membership management software for the event management industry includes;;
MemberLeap
MemberLeap is an all-in-one membership management software for the event management firms in managing their members, planning events and engaging with the targeted audiences. It offers robust functionalities to manage member databases, member directory, membership interest form, online membership portal, billing, online payments, assets, etc. The tool also features a website content management portal to manage content, edit pages, build forms, maintain job boards, etc. The premium pricing of this tool starts from $80 with additional costs for initial website setup costs, integration with existing websites and non-profit integrations.
Book-It
Book-It is one of the leading membership tools for event management clubs, societies, business and recreational groups in automating and streamlining their tasks. It comes preloaded with event management related features like facility to import enquiry contacts from the web, upload event write-ups, event availability and current booking details to the web, event cancellation, mail merge, to do/follow-up flagging, supplier account management and many more to simplify the time consuming tasks of event managers.
Memlink
Memlink is a great membership software system for event managers to reduce their administrative workload and increase revenue. Memlink uses a lot of modules and integrations to easily manage memberships, events, donations, online stores, payments, communication, accounting, etc. The tool also offers robust administrator access and security measures to safeguard the data of members and organizations. The domain registration pricing starts from $20 per member that varies depending upon the domain extension.
Membership Management Software for the Non-profits Industry
With a reliable membership management software, non-profits organizations can easily track and manage the data of their members and also benefit by automating the monotonous tasks, analyzing campaigns, personalizing the communication channels and building long term relationships with the members. Here are some of the top membership management software that can help non-profit businesses in streamlining their membership related tasks as follows;
MatrixMaxx
When it comes to reliable membership management software for non profits organizations, MatrixMaxx is a great option to better manage and understand the member’s data. It comes with an user-friendly interface to create member journeys, generate reports, gain critical insights, manage memberships, send emails, etc. This tool greatly reduces the workload of membership management while helping acquire significant information on the membership trends for making the right decisions.
Sumac
Another software that made it to the list of top membership management tools for the non-profits industry is Sumac. It is a standalone tool to track members, donors, volunteers and clients, manage member renewals, process payments, send personalized emails, etc., from a single place. It also comes with inbuilt membership reporting, customizable fields, custom alerts and many more to seamlessly manage membership related tasks. The software also comes with additional modules for streamlining fundraising, case management, specialized webforms, grand management, etc. The price of Sumac starts from $99 per month.
EveryAction
EveryAction is another top membership management software for the non profit firms in managing donation drives, building better relationships and effectively serving the community. It is one of the best tools for guided fundraising, advocacy and case management. EveryAction also offers functions for donor engagement, supporter engagement, advocacy, volunteer coordination, grants management and many more tasks. For pricing and demo related queries, contact the vendor.
Membership Management Software for the Education Industry
Membership management software is a critical component of the educational firms and institutions in delivering the learning materials to students in an engaging and effective manner. In addition, features such as reporting and analytics, ease of use, integration with existing systems, etc., help the instructors streamline administrative tasks. Education institutes with libraries can make utmost use of the top membership management software. Some of the top membership management software for the education industry are as follows;
MC Professional
MC Professional is an automated membership management software for schools, colleges and universities to automate critical membership management operations. The tool offers an easy to use and intuitive platform to assist learners in navigating custom learning pathways. It helps educational institutes monitor members' activity, engage with members, view dues renewal, collect online payments, manage membership databases, track attendance status, get real time data, etc. The pricing information is provided by the company upon consultation.
MightyNetworks
Another tool that made it to the list of top membership management software for the education industry is MightyNetworks. It is widely used by schools, colleges and online instructors in managing course content, course delivery, student engagement and course revenue. The software also offers a huge number of customizations, integrations and gamification features to efficiently maintain members and their data. It comes with a 14 day free trial. The community plan starts from $41 per month, billed annually.
To Conclude
Clubs and membership organizations around the world are doing businesses in the market, attempting to build up their squads. But in order to become successful in their attempts, it is very critical to efficiently manage members and their relevant data.
The list of best free and open source membership management software solutions and all the tips regarding top membership management solutions should help you to manage the process at a greater speed and efficiency.
The blog must help you in learning
- The right balance of membership management process and workflows
- Increase on-time service delivery
- Ensure consistent, high-quality communication and coordination
- Reclaim time for better management, innovation, and creativity
- Help your association put all membership-related workflows into action so you can make sure the rest of the operation is carried out effectively
Membership management software solutions are not a requirement of the future – they already exist, and they are in huge demand these days. The Membership Management Software Market is expected to touch US$ 8.26 billion by 2029. In response, membership management software vendors are gearing up to offer more innovations and possibilities in their offerings. Open source membership management solutions have huge space to undergo constant revamping to make them more useful to the users. So, why wait, pick the right one to grow your audience and get membership sign-ups easily.
If you are still not sure and need more help, you can also leverage our compiled list of Best Membership Management Software Solutions.
If you are already using one, do share your reviews with us.
If you are interested in learning about other Free & Open Source software options, here are a few on the GoodFirms’ blog:
8 Best Free and Open Source Inventory Management Software Systems
Top 7 Free and Open Source Digital Signage Software Tools
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