Choose Membership Software Part 2

By now you’ve compared several membership software solutions and hopefully are now deciding which to use.

Before we do, you also probably know that different ones have different benefits – there’s no perfect software.

Generally there’s a tradeoff between easy to use and customizable.

Easy to use and options.

And I’m going to be really careful as I make recommendations.

These are ONLY to keep you from delaying by days and weeks or months in trying to decide on your own.

So before I give you my “short list,” please know this: if you already have a favorite – that’s probably your best choice.

The one you’ve researched and does exactly what you want – that’s the one you want to use.

Before I rank a few membership softwares, let’s talk just a bit about what you could want out of software:

Ease of use

Which payment processors does it easily integrate with (note: easily, not some hope-it-works plugin integration, so something it’s designed out of the box to work with)

So . . . if you only use paypal, your membership software should work with paypal, period.

If you use square, or a merchant account, or any other payment solution, this should be one of your top considerations.

And I’m not going to list all of them here – just use the post in part 1, read each review, and note which will work for you. That makes your short list. Then go back and sort for ease of use.

Then there’s 3 things you want to be aware of:

1) does it drip? meaning, can you set it up to open up content in intervals based on time?

2) can someone have concurrent accounts?

3) can someone upgrade/downgrade easily

If you get one that does EVERYTHING – it’s likely going to be harder to use, and of course more expensive.

And a word about cost: you don’t need expensive, but if you don’t pay for it, you probably won’t get support (aka help) when you are stuck (and you will get stuck)

So . . . do you want to offer drip content, or just add content live each month and have “archives”?

Do you want someone to be able to have 2 memberships at one time – like a gold and a silver – or does gold “include silver” – meaning that if someone goes to gold they “upgrade”

You don’t have to make all these decisions now, but once you install and use your software, your membership will probably confine itself to the constraints of the membership software you use.

So . . . you don’t need all the answers now. Just make a list of what you think might be important to you.