9 Best Online Membership Platforms (Free and Paid Ranked)

1. Podia (Editor’s Pick)

Best All-In-One Membership Builder For Beginners

Podia is a cloud-based learning management platform that offers an all-in-one solution to create professional membership site for eLearning, coaching, or simply to build a paid community. As a membership site, Podia offers all advance features you’ll need for a paid membership site, from creating communities, value delivery to payment processing.

Created for non-techies, Podia is the simple platform for beginners to get started, and experienced professionals to explore all the other feature that it can offer for your membership site.

Pros and Cons

PROS

• Free account for user to create your membership site, although limited features, it let you get everything prepared and ready to receive paid members before you upgrade to any of their paid plans.
• Unlimited members for your membership site, which is essential for your growing for your membership site.
• Membership levels allow you to create different membership package with gated contents for different members.
• Unlimited digital downloads making Podia one of the few platforms that offers this, which can be valuable feature for a membership site that sells any forms of digital products.
• Offers advance features that let you create unlimited online courses, coaching sessions to your members.
• Advance integration capabilities that helps automates most of the processes.
• Advance embedding features which helps to make your membership site even more engaging and keep your members stick to your site longer.
• Affiliated marketing program which lets your paying members to helps you get more members on your platform, while offering them the option to earn a commission when they do.

CONS

• One of the best customer support (very responsive), but the service only offers from 9am-6pm (Mon to Fri) and 9am-5pm (Sat to Sun) ET.

Key Features

• Unlimited Free trial.
• Complete membership site builder without coding required.
• Unlimited digital downloads
• Unlimited coaching sessions
• Unlimited courses offerings
• Unlimited members
• Unlimited membership levels
• Community building features such as Chat and direct messaging
• Full white labeling of your platform including self-branded certificates
• 3rd-Party integration
• Embed available
• Affiliate marketing program

Pricing Plan

PRICE

Podia offers free forever account trial, but it is the paid plans where it actually shines, and if you are looking to start earning money by creating a membership platform, their shaker plan is probably your best option. Currently podia offers 4 different plans:

• Free Plan for $0 per month: Free plan is perfect for those who are just trying out, or beginners who are not sure is Podia is right for you. Although features are limited, the platform still offers a lot of features and is a great way to start creating your membership site, once you are ready, just upgrade to the next plan.
• Mover Plan for $33 per month: Highly recommended for beginner online business owner who are looking to create a fully featured membership site that is designed to scale. It offers your members different payment plans which gives you the opportunity to create a modern paid membership site that basically pays for itself.
• Shaker Plan for $75 per month: Recommended for serious online business owners or site owners who migrate from other membership platform looking to expand their business. Shaker plans don’t only offers the tools required to make your membership site successful, it offers the tools required to grow your site, tools such as Affiliate marketing program can offer your paying members an opportunity to earn money when they share your membership site to others.
• Earthquaker Plan for $166 per month: Recommended for business owners and companies that operates at scale. If you are no longer a solopreneur, Earthquaker plans is the plan that can help you succeed. With the option to add 5 team members (worth $100) for free, you can let your employees do all the work while you focus on growing your business.

PS. As of today, Earthquaker Plan is no longer found in the Podia’s website, but if you are still looking for this plan, you can contact their sales team and check with them on the pricing.

WHY I LIKE IT

Personally, I’ve tried Podia’s platform and I am pleasantly surprised with all the different features it offers. The dashboard is initiative, with ample guides and resources available to help me along the way when I am trying out all the features that it offers.

Podia is so much more than a simple membership site it offers:

• Free and paid membership tiers
• Payment processing right from your Podia platform
• Sell unlimited products to unlimited customers
• Personal branded membership site for free.
• Powerful marketing tools to help automate your growth

Within an hour of trying the platform out I’ve create a full website with a community with their professional looking templates. I believe any beginners even without any website creation experience or coding knowledge will find using Podia to create their membership site pretty easy.

Overall, I think Podia is the best membership platform for both beginner and experienced membership site owners. It have one of the best support that helps membership site creators to easily create their own branded platform that have all the features required to scale and grow a professional membership site. Read Full Podia’s Review.

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2. Passion.io

Best Easy-To-Use Membership Community App

Passion.io is the fastest growing mobile App development platform for anyone to create a branded membership App for selling online course, digital products, or offering coaching services through a simple drag-and-drop builder with no coding knowledge. The easiest personal App builder that gives you all the tools and features you’ll need to create and launch your App on Google Play, or Apple Store.

Designed for ease of use, Passion.io comes with a library of pre-build templates, designed by top marketers to help you convert App users into paying customers, helping you get your first sales creating a profitable online business.

Pros and Cons

PROS

• Fully white-labeled apps for web and mobile to create a strong following of fans that uses your own branded App.
• Offline sync that give your App users to use your App anywhere even without an internet access.
• Automatic challenges and leaderboard building to let your members get engages in group-based activities and build a strong community.
• Perfect for health, coaching, or finance related App with ability to create tools such customized calculators, such as Calories calculator, exercise calculators, or even personal spending trackers.
• Goal tracking to help your App users meeting their predetermined goals.
• Unlimited push notification for sending reminders or notification to 100% of your App users, which increase of return users of the App.
• Unlimited membership and subscribers for scalability and unlimited growth potential.
• Unlimited videos and digital downloads that enables you to build a library of digital products.
• Audio feature that allows users to multitask with the screen off such as listing to Audio training from the App while driving, jogging or doing workouts.
• Full customization of your App with no coding with drag-and-drop builder.
• Easy App setup with professionally made App templates designed for selling high ticket and low ticket product and services by top marketing professionals from the Passion.io team.

CONS

• Unlimited membership only available with their Ultimate plan, otherwise it is limited to 100 subscribers. (With our exclusive deal, you’ll get Ultimate plan with 70% OFF)
• 0% platform fees with external checkouts only available with their Ultimate plan, otherwise, it will be 3.9% platform fees on passion payments.

Key Features

• Own personal branded white-labeled App
• Drag and drop app builder with no coding required
• Easy Payment with Passion Payment or External Checkout
• Live streaming or set App to audio options
• Drip content and goal tracking
• Automated challenges and leaderboards
• Scheduling calls, meetups and events
• Offline sync & viewing for downable contents
• Interactive activities (Quizzes, worksheets, calculators)
• Community building with unlimited members
• Unlimited push notifications and direct messaging

Pricing Plan

PRICE

Passion.io is a premium App development platform that offers three different pricing plans anyone to create their own App without a single line of code. Offering a 30-days free trial using our link, you can create an working App before deciding if you want to subscribe to their paid plans.

• Free Trial for 30-days (only through this link): Best way to try out Passion.io to see if it is something that will help you in building your online community. Featuring all the tools you’ll need to make an successful membership App, it is perfect for anyone who just want to try out their platform.
• Pro Plan for $97 per month $79 per month (20% discount): Recommended for new creators and coaches looking to create a paid membership App that your members can bring around with them anywhere and get access to your membership App anytime right in their pockets. Offering features such as push notification, gamification through leaderboards this paid plan make it highly effective in selling medium (~$20 to $200) and high ticket (>$200) product and services.
• Ultimate Plan for $297 per month $239 per month (20% discount): Recommended for users looking to create an scalable custom branded free or paid membership App equip with automation features. With unlimited members, videos, push notification, and the ability to provide drip content, you can create an App that rivals even YouTube, FaceBook, Instagram, Pinterest, Discord or eLearning school such as Udemy or SkillShare.
• UltimatePLUS to Contact Sales: Recommended for business owner and enterprise who wants everything done for you by Passion.io’s professional App development team.

PS. For Ultimate Plan, use our link for an exclusive discount.

WHY I LIKE IT

Spending hundreds of hours trying out on different membership platforms, Passion.io is probably one of the best membership App development platform that can help you create a professional looking membership App through their library of templates designed to convert users into paying members of the App.

• Create a free or paid community where your users can direct message with each other, promoting group communication and competitions.
• Create a branded Apps with computation capabilities with calculators and quizzes and able to operate online and offline.
• Gamify the community and the App user experience by creating leaderboard where your users compete with each other through virtual events such as; virtual challenges, virtual gathering, virtual concerts etc.
• Direct messaging (Live Chat) that let you connect with your audience directly.
• Pop-up notification that let you connect with 100% of your App users making your audience truly yours.
• Your branded membership App is downloadable and listed on popular App store such as Google Play and Apply Store.
• Sell your product or service directly to your members right through heir phones

Overall, I personally think Passion.io have much to offer as an App that lets you create your own brand away from noises, building your own community, courses and fans without a single line of code.

Membership App have much to offer compared to just a simple membership site, but App develop are often expensive costing up to $150,000 not including periodic updates and security patches which can cost approx. $500 per month.

Passion.io on the other hand, lets you create your own App at as low as $79 per month, including all the technical updates and maintenance of your App free of charge.

Passion.io Membership App is perfect for:

• Entrepreneurs looking for an affordable solution to create a branded Membership App
• Business owners who have no coding knowledge but will like to have their own App.
• Content creator who will like to build their own audience on their own branded platform.
• Coaches and consultants offering paid service or products.
• Influencers and authors expanding their influence.
• Solopreneurs and edupreneurs looking to sell online course or products to a community that they can grow and connect, not relying on algorithms owned by other platforms such as Google and Facebook.
• Community builders and creators looking to create a branded App just like Discord.

Create your professional branded App with Passion.io below! Full Passion.io Review.

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3. Mighty Networks

Best Community Builder For Influencers & Entrepreneurs

Mighty Networks is the leading community builder to build any types of membership site that you can used as an mobile app or on the desktop. Designed as the best premium membership App, it helps creators, influencers, coaches and business owners to build an engaging community under your own branded app that can be listed on the App store.

Focused on community building over everything else, you can create a membership site that helps your members to build strong connections with each other, so that they will stick to your membership platform.

Pros and Cons

PROS

• Personals branded Apps and website community that is like owning Facebook, Pinterest and Udemy in the same place, that offers high level of customization and personalization to your taste.
• Listing your own App on App Store such as Google Play and Apple Store which let you become the next multimillion dollar social media platform without the development cost.
• Simple setup process with readily made templates, with no coding required.
• Livestreaming, course and membership platform that offers capabilities that far exceed any membership site platforms.
• No maintenance of your App required as all updates and security patches are being handled by the platform.
• Mobile notification pop-up features which ensure 100% read rate for all your fans.
• High level of integration capabilities with existing online business.
• Affordable platform charges.
• Unlimited members that allows unlimited scalability of your membership platform.
• Unlimited space creation for your members to join and start engaging with each other.

CONS

• Community plan is pretty amazing to create a simple paid membership App, but it is the business plan where Mighty Networks shines best where it offers advice features to grow your business through automation options.

Key Features

• Unlimited members
• Unlimited spaces (Groups)
• Community building tools
• Native livestreaming
• Native events hosting
• Unlimited course hosting
• Chat and direct messaging
• Branded community App and website
• Personal profiles, activities and schedules
• Automate email & CRM integrations

Pricing Plan

PRICE

Mighty Networks offers three plans to create your own membership App, together with a 14-Days Free Trial, if you signup for their annual plans, you will get your first 2 months free of charge.

• Community Plan for $33 per month: Perfect for beginner community creators looking to create a membership platform that offers livestreaming, videos, events & zoom integration as well as direct chat and messaging capabilities. Basically all the capabilities offered by some of the most popular social media platforms, but with you as the owner of the App and the capability to offer paid membership.
• Business Plan for $99 per month: Recommended for experienced business startup who are looking to an online community that offers paid online course like Udemy, with you getting access to all member data. With this, you can even create an automated workflow that automates your membership site business.
• Mighty Pro to Contact Sales: Recommended for establish business to expand their brand awareness and future prove their business, or entrepreneurs looking to create their own version of Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter or Instagram.

WHY I LIKE IT

Personally, I am mind-blown by what you can do with Mighty Networks, not only you can gather all your followers into one powerful platform under your own App, you can do much more than just building a community.

• Unlimited members on your platform where each can have a space of their own for groups of members to better connect with each other.
• Create an App that appeals to an international audience that helps you to grow your influence worldwide.
• Create your personal App that rivals Facebook, Discord, Instagram, Twitter and Udemy combines without the need to adding any code yourself.

Overall, with Mighty Networks, I personally think it will be a game-changer where you will grow your followers faster, while keeping them highly engaged with all the features which Mighty Networks can offer.

Starting your own App is hard and can be very expensive, according to data collected this year:

• Simple App Development cost: $40,000 to $60,000
• Average App Development cost: $60,000 to $150,000
• Complex App Development cost: More than $300,000

With Mighty Networks it only cost you a small fraction of the cost with as low as $33 per month.

What’s more, you do not need to pay for maintaining the App, upgrading, or providing security patches. All of these are handled by the Mighty Networks team, making your cost of launching your personal App very low.

If you are serious about owning your own membership community App, starting your 14-days trial with Mighty Networks will probably the best thing you do today. Full Mighty Networks Review

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4. Skool

Best Easy To Use Community Builder That Pays For Itself

Skool is a membership site builder that combines the best features of a Facebook group and premium membership platform creators like Mighty Networks to create a minimalistic but powerful membership site platform that basically pays for itself.

Focus on user-generated content. Skool is the easiest way for anyone to create a membership site that offers high level of engagement and build a strong relationship with your members.

WHY I LIKE IT

Personally, I prefer simple stuff and always wanted to avoid all the complicated stuff. And with Skool it offers just that. Skool basically simplified everything you use everyday and combines them all into one place, making your life simpler.

• No more annoying multiple passwords for different platforms such as your community, courses and events, giving you all the control you’ll need to know what’s going on next.
• Gamify everything to make learning and engaging with different members fun and enjoyable.
• A place where you gather your most loyal fans and offer them courses that will benefit them.

Overall, I think Skool is a pretty unique platform, if you are looking for a simple way to create your own membership site, Skool will be the perfect fit for you.

With just one simple pricing plans, you can create a membership site that offers everything you’ll need, and nothing you don’t.

Not sure if Skool is right for you? Just start your 14-days free trial with Skool using the link below, and if you don’t like it, just cancel it anytime!

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Starting at $99 per Month

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