Are you still using a spreadsheet to manage members in your organization, association, or group? Do you send emails to your current and future members one-by-one and not through an efficient, automated system? What about handling membership dues or keeping track of event registration? The amount of time you could be saving by implementing the right membership management software would surprise you.
Membership management software is used to help administrators communicate with their constituents, share valuable resources, promote events, and collect membership dues, just to name a few of the features. A variety of organizations use membership management programs, including:
- Associations
- Non-profits
- Health Clubs
- Community Groups
- And more
Capterra conducted research to find out which membership management software options are the most popular, and we’ve published them in a new infographic: The Top 20 Most Popular Membership Management Software Solutions.
Keep in mind, every organization’s software needs are different, and your perfect match may very well not be on this list. This should be a jumping off point for you to begin researching membership management solutions and give you a framework for determining the best software for your organization. The infographic simply showcases the top 20 most popular membership management systems in terms of their total number of customers, total number of members managed, and overall web presence.
For all the nitty gritty details on how we implement this popularity index, read more about our research process.
The Data
In the software industry, there are countless applications that span across a number of industries, and the same is true within the realm of membership management. While some membership management software providers target niche groups (associations, health clubs, etc.), for the purpose of this ranking, we focused specifically on solutions that include membership management as their core function. For example, Capterra’s previous Church Management infographic included many software vendors capable of membership management– but only those that were focused specifically on the church industry. Thus, those solutions were not included in this more general “Membership Management” list.
Below you’ll find a table that highlights the data we used to come up with the popularity index for the Membership Management software solutions featured in the top 20:
The Debate
What really makes one membership management more popular than another? And what is “membership management” anyway? The answers to these questions are not black and white, which leaves some room for disagreement as to who should be included in this infographic.
Our data team debated these questions thoroughly, and we ultimately arrived at the following definition for membership management software.
Membership Management Software must include:
- a membership database,
- the ability to process payments/dues/renewals,
- event and calendar management,
- communication tools including email/newsletters/etc.
By our definition, applicable membership management companies should also cater to professional associations, trade associations, or national organizations and institutions. We decided not to include membership management solutions mainly used by hobby groups, personal groups, clubs, and the like.
Our team came across two possible vendors, Big Tent and GroupSpaces, that brought up even more conversation as to who should be included in the infographic. In the case of both of these software solutions, we found that their functionality fit the definition, but neither seemed to have a majority target audience that fit the bill.
We want to hear from you – do you think BigTent or GroupSpaces should have been included in our research and/or the infographic?
Final Note
Just to reiterate, many of the customer and member numbers are estimates from the vendors themselves. While nothing else like this is published online, we want to make it even better. We’d love your help! If you have any suggestions, question any of the solutions listed, are unsure about the data, wonder how other vendors didn’t make the cut, or even catch an error, please let us know!