Membership businesses are one of the most scalable business models available to modern creators and brands; they combine low overhead with recurring revenue.

But not all platforms are built the same. Some optimize for courses, some for communities, some for advanced marketing funnels. The right choice depends on what you’re building.

In this article, we’ll talk about the platforms that can build great memberships. These membership site platforms have different strengths and weaknesses, but there’s something here for every type of creator and entrepreneur.

We’ll help you pick the right platform for your needs, comparing use-cases, features, and access (e.g. apps).

We evaluated each platform on the same criteria:

• Community and engagement features: whether the platform supports discussions, chat, member profiles, and tools for connecting members to each other, or just delivers content one-way.

• Course capabilities: support for live or pre-recorded courses, quizzes and assessments, drip content, and how well courses integrate with the rest of the platform.

• Monetization: what you can actually sell (memberships, courses, events, digital downloads, coaching), how flexible the pricing and bundling options are, and how the platform charges.

• Branding and customization: how much control you have over the look and feel of your site, and whether a white-label or branded app option exists.

• Mobile apps: what the platform gives you for native apps and/or branded apps.

• AI and automation: what tools exist for content creation, member engagement, or admin work, and how developed they are.

We also assess who each platform is actually built for, since no platform does everything well.

Best for membership communities

• At a glance: Top-ranked on G2, all-in-one community platform, AI features, built-in events, livestreaming, courses, and branded apps

• Price: From $79/month

• Who it’s for: Creators monetizing with a membership community at any level, from small groups to branded apps.

Mighty Networks is an all-in-one community and membership site built to connect members to each other, with a mixture of native features and an AI community engine to help boost member engagement.

Core engagement tools include:

• Discussions, live streaming, events, courses, chat, and more. You can toggle features on or off as needed.

• Smart member profiles (with AI writing assistant), “Show Similarities” tool, and an automatic conversation starter. It can surface members with similar interests, the top members, or members near you.

• Gamification with leaderboards, triggers, habit trackers, new member journeys, and auto-unlock rewards (e.g. secret courses, challenges, resources or 1:1 calls).

• Sell access to live or pre-recorded courses, livestreaming, virtual events, masterminds, coaching, and more.

• Monetize these with memberships and bundles, in 135 different currencies.

• Get business intelligence with data on earning, retention, engagement, and even one-click member re-engagement.

• Built-in Kit (formerly ConvertKit) and Zoom integrations and over 2,000 software embeds (e.g. Calendly, Drive, Notion, and Loom)

Mighty can build a membership business under your brand identity, with light & dark mode, colors & imagery, customization, & custom URLs. It comes with native Mighty Networks apps, or you can opt for a premium branded app with Mighty Pro.

Pros

• Customizable Spaces with livestreaming, events (+RSVP), live and pre-recorded courses, discussion forums, chat & messaging, etc.

• Sell memberships, events, courses, private groups, or bundle any of these together

• AI engagement tools: automatically generate discussions and course outlines, spark writing, help with profiles, and introduce members to each other

• Brand your network or get a premium branded app

• Advanced community analytics & reporting

Cons

• No website-building features

• Missing advanced marketing tools and funnels

• Branded apps are a premium offer

Best for async courses + marketing platform

• At a glance: Asynchronous courses, course marketing funnels, email integration

• Price: From $143/month

• Who it’s for: Creators building async, course-first businesses with sales funnels.

Kajabi is a membership site builder that specializes in pre-recorded online courses. It’s well-designed for driving potential buyers through funnels, so its users can market, sell, and deliver their online courses with features like email campaigns, landing pages, triggers, up and downsells, and more.

Kajabi’s funnel templates are easy to use and connect well to emails and landing pages. And the courses are polished and professional, with useful features like dripping content and quizzes. Kajabi has also integrated a native payment engine, which can mean lower transaction fees and faster payouts.

Kajabi is strongest for async courses and marketing funnels, while its community features are less central to the member experience. Its Community 2.0 offers forums, livestreaming, and events, which is a good thing to have–but the UI is awkward. Kajabi added this platform by buying another company, so it’s not fully integrated into courses.

Kajabi's focus is primarily asynchronous content. It does really well with pre-recorded courses, and is best for someone who wants to sell an async course with some minimal member engagement.

Pros

• Powerful marketing engine built-in with emails, campaigns, landing pages, and up- and down-sells

• Connect it to emails and customized landing pages

• Solid LMS for asynchronous (pre-recorded) courses

• AI features for marketing materials and course creation

• Good mobile apps for every device and basic branded apps as add-ons

Cons

• Kajabi’s starting price point is one of the more expensive options on this list

• Weak on community and interactive tools

• Managing your business on mobile requires a separate app

Best for simple, space-based communities with website and email

• At a glance: Discussion boards, chat, event hosting, and course features for creators

• Price: $89/month

• Who it’s for: Community creators who want simple, space-based communities.

Circle is another membership platform that can be used to build communities, run courses, and host virtual events. Circle’s communities are made up of Spaces, and these can divide up your content. Spaces come with access gating, and you can control which members can access which spaces. And Circle has gamification features like leaderboards and points.

The design is clean and simple to use. Circle has added basic website designs, which can be a good option for creators who want a website with community built in. It also has an email marketing tool built-in, with a pay-as-you-go pricing per contact And Circle adds branded apps with Circle Plus.

There are a few important limitations of Circle. It only allows one feature per space; for example, a course and community are in separate Spaces. Circle’s AI tools are also focused on admin tools, with agents that come on Circle Plus; it’s missing the advanced, built-in engagement of competitors.

Circle has some additional fees for extra admins, moderators, spaces, and members once you go above plan limits.

Nevertheless, Circle is a strong, well-designed community platform that gives creators a good set of tools for monetizing communities.

Pros

• Easy to use membership platform with spaces for courses, community, or events

• Integrated website building and basic email

• AI Agents (on the top-tier plan)

• Sell or bundle courses, community, and/or events with paywalls

• Clean, basic design that’s easy to navigate

Cons

• Spaces have 1 feature each

• Additional fees for more admins, moderators, members, and spaces.

• No advanced member engagement tools

Best for asynchronous course sales + AI evaluations

• At a glance: Asynchronous courses, AI quiz builder, custom page options

• Price: $29/mo + 7.5% transaction fee (100 student limit)

• Who it’s for: Course creators with async memberships

Teachable has gained a reputation as a membership site platform for creators and entrepreneurs to run pre-recorded courses. Teachable has an emphasis on multimedia-based content. And with its membership site platform, users can create multimedia lectures, video lessons, offer online coaching sessions, and more.

Teachable’s AI tools are genuinely innovative, with course outline generator, instant quiz building, and multi-language AI translation. Like Kajabi, it has features for order bumps, upsells, abandoned cart recovery, and Buy Now Pay Later. And it has a built-in affiliate program for getting others to sell for you.

Teachable has a lot of integrations on its platform, and that also means they have a wide variety of currencies that they support. It also has a low starting price of $29/mo, although this comes with a 7.5% transaction fee.

As a membership platform, Teachable is best for pre-set, static memberships without regular member interactions or events. It's missing the depth of features to run live courses, and it can't be used for a robust membership community. It’s an excellent async course platform with basic memberships.

Pros

• Good asynchronous LMS with solid content options + AI quiz creator

• Landing page builder that’s easy to use + templates

• Good marketing options with landing pages, coupons, and affiliate programs

• Flexible monetization options

Cons

• Limited community functions (basically a forum)

• Doesn't work well for a cohort course or live experiences.

• No native livestreaming

Best for structured course delivery and advanced assessments

At a glance: Strong LMS and community integration with custom websites Price: $74/mo (for a plan that includes memberships) Who it’s for: Course creators and web-first community building

Thinkific is a course builder with membership capabilities. It’s strongest as an async LMS with some great website functionality, and the added community platform makes it a true all-in-one. For the course platform, it comes with drip content, SCORM compliance, and a quiz-builder that can generate with AI.

The built-in e-commerce tools are strong, with email automation, product bundles, and site building (on the medium-tier plans). And the UX allows for courses and community mostly together, which is clean and intuitive. The customizable landing pages with web templates are great.

A couple of weaknesses to note. Thinkific has no built-in livestreaming, and the community features are basic. It’s essentially a forum, and note that the membership features don’t come on the basic plan.

Also, Thinkific’s apps are poorly-rated, with widespread reports of glitches, bad UX, and poor functionality.

Pros

• Strong LMS with AI quizzes and flexible delivery options.

• Solid website building with some email tools

• Good ecommerce tools with a native payment processor (lowers transaction fees)

• SCORM compliance on the Plus tier

Cons

• Limited community with few real engagement features (missing livestreaming, member matching, and gamification)

• Poorly-rated mobile apps, iOS sits at 1.9 stars on the App Store with widespread reports of glitches and broken functionality

Best for complex website building with simple memberships

• At a glance: Course-focused, simple setup, course website builder

• Price: $39/mo + 5% fees; $89/mo with no fees

• Who it’s for: Website builders with integrated memberships

Podia is a website builder first, with drag-and-drop creation, lots of templates to pick from, and real website functionality. Unlike most website-based options on this list, Podia builds real, multifunctional websites. And it integrates with a lot of great marketing and email tools–the email includes segmentation by products and revenue.

As part of its offer, Podia allows users to create and sell online courses, digital downloads, and memberships. It comes built with some basic features such as webinar and community functions, plus the option to link a community to a course specifically.

The rest of Podia is easy to use. But the membership and digital product features are the weakness offerings, making it a strong website builder with fairly basic membership features. It’s also important to note that Podia has no apps.

Pros

• Drag and drop website builder with templates and design options

• Sell online courses, digital downloads, and memberships

• Integrated email with automations

• Simple way to add a discussion forum to a website

Cons

• No mobile apps

• Limited membership features

Best membership site platform for nonprofits

• At a glance: Full-featured nonprofit websites with forums and event management

• Price: Not publicly available

• Who it's for: Member-driven nonprofits, alumni networks, and/or associations

Wild Apricot is a membership site platform that caters to membership-based non-profits. If you’re someone who is running a nonprofit organization or a national association, Wild Apricot has developed drag-and-drop tools for creating a website, database management for membership data, and integrated email. Users can also integrate payments and manage virtual events.

Wild Apricot easily integrates with pre-existing systems at your company or nonprofit. It comes with a robust emailing system that can link with your contact list and send out auto-confirmation emails, as well as reminders to your members. On top of that, it has advanced database search capabilities, target emailing campaign functionality, and the ability to track the analytics of your emailing campaigns.

The platform is missing advanced, dedicated community spaces where members can connect and collaborate, as well as features like online courses, livestreaming, and AI options. They do have a CommUnity solution though, which can be added on for an additional price.

Wild Apricot is best for nonprofit organizations, and it offers a 60-day free trial which is far above average.

Pros

• Good member management & database features to keep track of people

• Integrated email, payments, and automated renewals that make admin easier

• Website builder with members-only pages and local chapter sites for national organizations

• Comprehensive event management with registration, payments, and QR check-in

• 60-day free trial

Cons

• No courses, livestreaming, or AI; it’s membership only.

• Outdated UX and design

• Advanced community features require a paid add-on

Best for building a group of supporting fans

• At a glance: Well-known platform, support tiers, simple rewards

• Price: 10% fees

• Who it’s for: Creators who want fan-supported income without building a structured product or community

While it takes a different approach to building a membership business, Patreon is a sort of a membership site too. Although fairly limited in features like community options, creating courses, etc., it can be a good place to help members of your audience support you if you’re a creator.

It’s simple to use and easy to get started.

Patreon has simple-to-use tier creation for different levels of support. It has chat, posting, and you can create premium content for different tiers. It has very basic analytics too, so you can see where your growth comes from.

For potential Patreon users, it’s important to understand the revenue structure.

It works on a percentage-based fee. The platform will take 10% of revenue. For example if you have $5,000 in monthly memberships, Patreon would take $500. It's important to be aware of how the fees work.

Patreon is a good membership site platform if you're a creator looking to raise support from your biggest fans.

Pros

• Easily sell memberships to your fans

• Patreon is well-known and easy-to-use

• Great for a patronage monetary model

• People can discover you through the platform.

Cons

• Limited features for building a real membership business

• Often requires integrations with other platforms

• Expensive transaction fees

Best for membership-model newsletters

• At a glance: Newsletters with discovery and social media built-in

• Price: Substack takes 10%

• Who it’s for: Writers, thinkers, and journalists to monetize ideas or podcasts

Substack is a little different from the other membership site platforms on this list. It offers a different type of membership: subscriptions for newsletters.

A creator, often a writer, will create a subscription newsletter that members can subscribe to and receive value in their inbox. As traditional journalism has contracted, Substack has been a really important option for freelance journalists to build and monetize their audience for their work.

Substack is constantly adding features like podcast monetization, chat, and notes. You can add voiceovers for audio-book style experiences. And it comes with street cred–especially for journalists and writers.

Substack is strange because it's a decent membership site platform, but a mediocre email platform. It's missing features that MailChimp or Kit have when it comes to segmenting your audience. And with these two adding monetization options, Substack's place as the newsletter boss might be limited.

But for now, it's a great place to create a paid newsletter, share it with the world, and collect payments. And it looks and feels great for quality reading experiences.

Pros

• Great for monetizing a newsletter with a built-in subscriber base and payment tools

• Substack's recommendation network and Notes feature give genuine organic discoverability

• Simple, focused writing experience with no technical setup

Cons

• 10% cut on all payments, costs grow as you do

• Weak email tools compared to dedicated platforms like Kit or Mailchimp, with limited segmentation and automation

• No real community features, comments and chat exist but don’t do much.

Best for advanced course creators needing interactive video and assessment tools

• At a glance: Great LMS & website builder with membership features

• Price: $79/mo for the memberships plan + $149-$299 for a mobile app

• Who it’s for: Advanced course creators who want a strong LMS and have the budget for additional membership features

LearnWorlds is an excellent course platform. It comes with a powerful LMS with flexible content delivery options and support for live or pre-recorded courses. And it has interactive video tools to add transcripts, viewer interactions, and tagging to its course videos.

LearnWorlds comes with an easy-to-use drag-and-drop website builder that gives you 400+ templates for building course websites. And its built-in marketing tools let you add affiliate programs and sell your courses with sales funnels.

However, LearnWorlds isn’t as strong with membership features. You can organize conversations with private and public spaces, and it has upvotes. But it doesn’t have native video, live events, or native livestreaming.

LearnWorlds also doesn’t have an app included. The only way to get a LearnWorlds app is to pay for their branded app.

LearnWorlds is an advanced product that usually works for institutional clients, but can work for advanced course creators. But its limited membership power is worth knowing about.

Pros

• Excellent LMS with interactive videos, 16 assessment types, AI course builder, and SCORM compliance

• Strong website builder with 400+ templates, unlimited landing pages, and built-in sales funnels

Cons

• The membership site side of LearnWorlds isn’t strong, very limited content options and no native video, livestreaming, or events

• No built-in email marketing — requires third-party integrations unlike Kajabi or Podia

• Mobile apps are an expensive add-on ($149–$299/month extra) on top of an already premium plan

Best no-frills platform for testing membership ideas

• At a glance: Simple forums with community discovery features

• Price: From $9/mo + 10% fee

Rounding out this list is Skool. Skool has gained a lot of visibility thanks to its high-profile ad campaigns featuring internet personalities like Sam Ovens and Alex Hormozi. In terms of the UX, Skool feels like a message board circa the early 2000s. It’s like a running post list and users can comment and like posts. However, you can also add basic courses that are separated by lessons and modules.

Its best features are:

• The “discoverability”--people who land on the homepage can find a Skool community to join.

• And the “gamification” that gives a leaderboard and level-ups for users based on engagement.

Skool has some real limitations in its design and feature set.

• Clunky UX that feels like a simple forum.

• No branding or customization power

Pros

• Simple forum with good discoverability engine & gamification

• Widespread name recognition

• Low-cost for testing communities

Cons

• Bad design and UX

• Not built to run large communities

If you're looking for a membership site platform to bring members together with lots of native features, come build with Mighty. You can mix courses, content, community, and commerce, and it's the only platform that lets you upgrade to a native mobile app as you grow.

You can try it free for 14 days, no credit card required.

A membership site is a website that offers benefits to members–whether paid or free. These benefits often include content, training, experiences, events, and/or premium offers. Creating a membership site can unlock recurring revenue through paid subscriptions or upsells.

Members are special in a way that “customers” or “followers” aren’t. Members don’t just follow or purchase. Members belong.

A membership site lets you deliver high-value content and benefits to people who pay a monthly or annual subscription. It’s a way for creators to work smarter, not harder, and scale their income potential for their digital business.

A membership site platform is the software solution for running a membership site. Most membership businesses run on dedicated applications built by third-party companies (almost nobody builds a membership site from scratch).

Membership site platforms are out-of-the-box solutions that can handle things like member rosters and profiles, discussions and content creation, payment processing and plan creation, etc.

A great membership site platform can bring some amazing benefits to your brand or business, allowing you to:

• Create recurring revenue streams

• Scale with minimal extra work. Serve thousands of people at a time with only a few hours of work per week.

• Connect members with like-minded people & growth opportunities and a focus they can’t find anywhere else.

• Spark user-generated content to put growth on autopilot–use the same principles social media giants do

• Bundle memberships with all sorts of goodies like events, courses, coaching, private groups, premium content, and more.

A good membership platform goes further than a web forum or a Facebook group, giving you the power to own 100% of your digital business. Here's what you should look for:

• A way to bring members together & engage on content

• Flexible content features that match your style, whether a forum, events, courses, livestreaming, chat & messaging, or polls

• A payment gateway that lets you charge in your currency, and options to bundle and sell different kinds of content

• A way to build your membership site and make it reflect your brand

• Native mobile apps for every device & white-label options

• Analytics and moderation features

AI-powered tools: AI is helping membership platforms re-define what’s possible for engagement. It can help with content creation–obviously–but also with automated member management, creating amazing member journeys, and helping connect members to each other. For example, on Mighty Networks you can generate community names, course outlines, and icebreaker questions. But members can also use AI to auto-create their profiles, find people who interest them, and start a conversation.

Gamification and engagement tools: It’s not just AI. Gamification features can help you run challenges, automate rewards and unlocks, and show points and leaderboards. These features boost engagement too, making members more likely to show up and learn.

Content features: Most memberships require some level of content creation. Your platform should support what you love to create. For example, writing, speaking, livestreaming, videos, music, events, courses, or questionnaires.

Analytics: Your platform should give you data about both your business and engagement–helping you understand what’s working and what isn’t.

Mobile and white-label apps: Every membership should have app access. It’s the 2020s. Look for great apps for all devices. And–if branded apps are something you’re interested in–watch for those features too.

Monetization power: The ability to sell anything and everything you imagine, natively on your membership platform. Look for multi-currency support, flexible offers and native payments, and the option to bundle things.

Branding: The tools to get the look and feel you want with a brand identity that’s all your own.

Here are some examples from Mighty Networks’ case studies:

• Founded by Chris Lochhead, Eddie Yoon, and Nicolas Cole, the invite-only Category Design Academycharges $1,000/month for small cohorts to create and dominate new categories.

• Rick Lewis launched this $2,000/year membership for writers who struggle with fear, writer’s block, and imposter syndrome.

• Mike Heroux runs a membership for Canadians ages 50-64 who want to manage their financial planning independently without high advisor fees. It offers financial planning tools, courses, and coaching.

• Guitarist John Browne decided to teach metal guitar online, offering master classes, lessons, 1:1 coaching, and an engaged community that plays and practices together.

Here’s some quick back-of-the-napkin math.

Membership cost of $10-30/month: With 100 members at $20/month, you earn $24,000 annually. Scale to 1,000 members and you're at $240,000/year.

Mid-ticket memberships of 50-100/month: Just 200 members at $75/month generates $180,000 annually.

High-ticket memberships of $200-1,000/month: These memberships, coaching, and mastermind models can earn $120,000-$1.2 million annually with 50 - 100 members.

Several platforms claim to be all-in-one; the key is understanding what's actually integrated versus bolted together. Look for platforms where courses, community, events, and payments share a single login, member profile, and app. Mighty Networks, Circle, and Kajabi all position themselves this way, with different sets of features serving the “all-in-one” label.

It’s night and day. Here are a few of the main distinctions.

Ownership and engagement: You own nothing on social media. If you get hacked or shadow-banned, you can lose it all. And you fight with the algorithms, competing for attention on a platform that doesn’t care if you succeed.

Monetization: Some social media platforms have built-in monetization options, but not all. And when they do, you’re at their whim and really limited. For example, getting monetized on YouTube requires 1,000 subs and 4,000 watch hours. Moving to a membership site gives you complete control over monetization.

Member connections: Social media throws the word “friends” around, but memberships make it real. Gathering real people around shared goals who can talk and work together actually creates lasting connections.

Focus: An online membership removes distractions and lets members zone in on the transformations and relationships that matter to them.

Check for:

Payment processing: Make sure your platform works with an established payment processor like Stripe or PayPal–this is better than platforms that directly store credit card info.

Data encryption: Look for SSL certificates (HTTPS) for all pages and check encryption policies. GDPR and privacy: Make sure your platform complies with major privacy and ad-related legislation globally.

Credentials and moderation: Finally, make sure your platform requires user credentials and verification to reduce spam or scams (potentially with 2fa).. And check for content moderation tools to help members feel safe.

It depends on the platform. But here are some of the options a good platform should give you:

Custom domains: Run your membership under your own domain name. Bonus point if it’s easy to set up!

Branding options: Add your own colors, logo, IP, and style.

UX customization: Customize your Spaces and member experiences.

White-labelling: Offer your membership on an entirely branded platform or mobile app.

There are a few ways to get this done.

Native livestreaming (best option): In this case, livestreaming is built right into the platform, and you can instantly go live to all your members. Watch for multi-speaker views (if important), running chat, how members get notified about livestreams, and other options. By the way, it’s nice to have the option to download recordings! Mighty Networks offers this feature with all of these options.

Integrated livestreaming: Some platforms don’t have quite native livestreaming, but have added work-arounds or options. For example, Kajabi bought a streaming platform and branded it under the name Kajabi Community 2.0. It’s a different platform that requires a different app and log-on, but it technically gives a livestream option for Kajabi.

Zoom integration: Some platforms also have a built-in Zoom integration, for running livestreams and/or live meetings.

Embedded livestream (worst option): Finally, some platforms only offer the option to embed a livestream link from another platform like YouTube. These give the lowest customization and delivery options.

Also, keep in mind that you don’t just need the capacity to livestream. You might also want the option to schedule a livestream with RSVPs or perhaps sell access to a livestream. Check the platform for all the related tools.