Membership Software Pricing Compared: What Small Clubs Actually Pay

Your PTA treasurer just spent three hours on pricing pages. Eight browser tabs. A scratch pad covered in percentages and asterisks. And she still can’t answer the board’s question: “How much will this actually cost us?”

That’s because membership software pricing is designed to look simple and be anything but. One tool charges by contacts (not members). Another is free but asks your members to tip. A third advertises $29/month but buries a 3% service fee that doubles the real cost.

We ran the numbers so your treasurer doesn’t have to. Eight tools. Three real scenarios. Every fee included, down to the last thirty cents.

The Eight Tools

We compared Wild Apricot, Zeffy, Join It, Raklet, MembershipWorks, CheddarUp, TidyHQ, and Somiti. These are the tools that consistently show up when volunteer-run organizations go shopping for membership software. If you want the full feature-by-feature review, our hands-on test of all eight tools covers setup time, ease of use, and support quality. This post is purely about the money.

How We Calculated

Every comparison uses the same formula: annual subscription cost, plus the tool’s own service fee on each payment, plus Stripe’s standard 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. Where a tool uses a different payment processor (like Wild Apricot’s Personify Payments, powered by AffiniPay), we used their published rates.

Three scenarios, chosen because they match real clubs we’ve talked to:

• Scenario A: 100 members paying $50/year in dues ($5,000 collected)
• Scenario B: 250 members paying $75/year in dues ($18,750 collected)
• Scenario C: 500 members paying $100/year in dues ($50,000 collected)

We used monthly billing prices. Annual billing discounts are mentioned where they make a meaningful difference. For a broader look at how these costs fit into your club’s overall budget, our definitive guide to collecting membership dues covers the payment mechanics in detail.

The Sticker Prices (What They Want You to See)

Here’s what each tool’s pricing page shows you, before you do any math on fees.

Wild Apricot charges by contacts, not active members. The Personal plan (100 contacts) runs $60/month ($720/year). The Group plan (250 contacts) costs $75/month ($900/year). And the Community plan (500 contacts) hits $140/month ($1,680/year). Annual billing knocks about 10% off those numbers.

Zeffy charges nothing. No subscription. No fees. Not a cent.

Join It offers a free tier for up to 100 members. The Starter plan runs $29/month for up to 1,000 members. The Growth plan is $49/month for up to 2,500 members. Nonprofit and annual billing discounts stack.

Raklet’s free tier covers a limited number of contacts (Raklet’s help center says 100, though third-party sources sometimes list 50). Essentials starts at $49/month for 500 contacts. Professional is $119/month for up to 2,000 contacts. Annual billing saves roughly 20%.

MembershipWorks starts free for 50 accounts. The first paid tier is $35/month for up to 300 accounts. Pricing scales with member count, reaching $59/month for 600 accounts and $95/month for 1,200.

CheddarUp’s free plan works for basic collection. Pro runs $15/month ($10/month billed annually). Team is $36/month ($30/month billed annually).

TidyHQ Pro costs AU$79/month (roughly $50 USD), or AU$890/year (about $570 USD). Flat pricing regardless of member count.

Somiti’s free plan covers 50 members. Pro is $29/month ($290/year) for up to 500 members.

Looks manageable, right? Now add the fees.

The Transaction Fees (What They Hope You Won’t Calculate)

The real cost lives here. Every time a member pays dues online, fees come off the top. Some tools charge their own service fee on top of the payment processor. Others don’t. The difference adds up fast.

Wild Apricot uses Personify Payments (powered by AffiniPay) at 2.9% + $0.30. No additional service fee if you use their built-in processor. Want to use Stripe or PayPal instead? Wild Apricot adds a 20% surcharge on your entire subscription price. Not 20% on transactions. Twenty percent on what you’re already paying them every month. For a club on the 500-contact tier, that’s an extra $336/year just for choosing your own payment processor.

Zeffy absorbs all processing fees through voluntary contributions from payers. When a member pays dues, Zeffy shows a tip screen with a default suggestion (often 17% for smaller amounts). About two-thirds of people contribute. Your organization keeps everything. Your members get asked for extra money. Tradeoff.

Join It charges a 3% service fee on Starter (on top of Stripe’s 2.9% + $0.30). That’s 5.9% + $0.30 total per transaction. On a $50 payment, $3.25 disappears to fees. On a $100 payment, $6.20. The fee drops to 2.5% on Growth ($49/month), 2% on Total ($99/month), and 1.5% on Extra ($249/month).

Raklet’s free tier charges 4% + $0.60 per transaction, on top of Stripe. That’s roughly 6.9% + $0.90 per payment. On small dues amounts, those fixed cents add up fast. Essentials drops the Raklet portion to 2% + $0.60.

MembershipWorks charges zero service fee. You pay Stripe’s 2.9% + $0.30 and nothing else. Cleanest fee structure on the list.

CheddarUp handles processing directly at 3.95% + $0.95 per transaction on all plans. On a $50 payment, that’s $2.93. No separate Stripe fee, but the per-transaction fixed cost is more than triple Stripe’s $0.30.

TidyHQ charges 1% + A$0.20 (roughly $0.13 USD) on top of Stripe. Moderate. The TidyHQ fee is lower than most competitors, but the subscription itself is higher.

Somiti charges 2% on the free plan, 1% on Pro, on top of Stripe’s 2.9% + $0.30. Cash and check payments carry zero fees on any plan.

Scenario A: 100 Members, $50/Year Dues ($5,000 Collected)

This is your neighborhood garden club, your small cultural association, your scout troop parent group. Modest budget. Every dollar matters.

Notes: Stripe fees calculated at 2.9% + $0.30 per $50 transaction = $1.75 each, 100 members = $175. CheddarUp’s $293 reflects their all-in 3.95% + $0.95 rate ($2.93 per transaction x 100, no separate Stripe fee). Join It Free tier assumes no service fee. Wild Apricot uses Personify Payments at 2.9% + $0.30.

The spread? From $0 (Zeffy) to $895 (Wild Apricot). Nearly nine hundred dollars difference for the exact same job: collecting $50 from 100 people. That’s nearly 18% of the total dues collected, gone before you buy a single craft supply or book a meeting room.

Scenario B: 250 Members, $75/Year Dues ($18,750 Collected)

A mid-size cultural club, a larger PTA or PTO, a community sports league. More money flowing through. Fee percentages start to sting.

Notes: Stripe at 2.9% + $0.30 per $75 = $2.48 each, 250 members = $619. CheddarUp Pro ($15/month, $180/year) with all-in fees: 3.95% + $0.95 per $75 = $3.91 x 250 = $978 (covers processing; no separate Stripe fee). Wild Apricot on the Group plan (250 contacts, $75/month). MembershipWorks on the $35/month tier (under 300 accounts). Raklet Essentials at $49/month with 2% + $0.60 service fee.

At this size, MembershipWorks’ zero-service-fee advantage really shows. It’s the cheapest paid option by a clear margin. Wild Apricot’s subscription alone ($900) exceeds the total cost of several other options.

Why would a 250-member club pay $1,519 a year when it could pay $1,039? That $480 difference funds a holiday party or covers half the cost of your biggest annual event.

Scenario C: 500 Members, $100/Year Dues ($50,000 Collected)

A large cultural organization, a regional sports association, a well-established community group. Real money. Fees measured in thousands.

Notes: Stripe at 2.9% + $0.30 per $100 = $3.20 each, 500 members = $1,600. CheddarUp Team ($36/month, $432/year) at 3.95% + $0.95 = $4.90 x 500 = $2,450. Wild Apricot + Stripe row shows the 20% PSSF surcharge ($336/year added to $1,680 base). MembershipWorks estimated at ~$59/month for 600 accounts. Join It Growth at $49/month with 2.5% service fee. Raklet Professional at $119/month with 1.5% + $0.60 service fee.

The Wild Apricot row with Stripe is the one that should make treasurers flinch. Want Stripe instead of Personify Payments? That preference costs $336 extra per year. Not because Stripe costs more to process. Because Wild Apricot charges you a penalty for not using their preferred processor.

At 500 members collecting $100 each, the gap between cheapest paid option and the most expensive is $1,770 per year. That’s a scholarship fund. That’s new team uniforms. That’s the entire budget for your organization’s biggest annual event.

The Hidden Fee Everyone Misses

Wild Apricot’s 20% Payment System Servicing Fee (PSSF) deserves its own section because it’s the single most expensive hidden cost in this comparison.

If you use Wild Apricot’s built-in processor (Personify Payments, powered by AffiniPay), you pay their standard subscription. Fine. But if you prefer Stripe or PayPal (maybe your organization already has a Stripe account, maybe your treasurer is comfortable with it), Wild Apricot adds 20% to your monthly bill. This fee only applies to US and Canadian accounts.

Not 20% on the transactions. Twenty percent on the subscription itself.

At 100 contacts ($60/month), that’s $12/month extra, or $144/year. At 500 contacts ($140/month), it’s $28/month, or $336/year.

No other tool on this list charges you extra for choosing Stripe. Zero. Somiti, Join It, MembershipWorks, CheddarUp, TidyHQ, and Raklet all use Stripe as their default processor or let you connect it with no surcharge.

For the full breakdown of Wild Apricot’s cost trajectory since the Personify acquisition, see Wild Apricot Is Getting Too Expensive.

The Contact vs. Member Trap

Pricing “per contact” and pricing “per member” sound similar. They aren’t.

Wild Apricot charges by contacts. That means every email in your database counts toward your tier. Current members, lapsed members, event attendees who came to one picnic three years ago, a board member’s spouse who never paid dues. All contacts. All counted.

A 200-member organization can easily accumulate 450 contacts over two or three years. Suddenly you’re in the 500-contact tier, paying $140/month for a group with 200 active members. If this sounds familiar, our guide to choosing membership management software covers how to evaluate these pricing structures before you sign up.

Somiti and Join It charge by active members. If someone’s membership lapses, they don’t count toward your limit. CheddarUp doesn’t count members at all (flat plan pricing). MembershipWorks calls them “accounts,” which functions more like contacts.

Ask yourself: will your database grow faster than your membership? If yes (and it almost always does), contact-based pricing will cost you more every year even if your active member count stays flat. That’s one of the most common reasons clubs lose members at renewal: the tool gets more expensive but the membership roster doesn’t grow to match.

What About Zeffy? Is Free Really Free?

Zeffy deserves a separate note because $0 is a number that warps every comparison.

Zeffy is genuinely free for registered nonprofits. No subscription, no processing fees, no service fees. Your 501(c)(3) keeps every dollar. Over 100,000 nonprofits have collectively processed more than $2 billion through the tool.

The catch isn’t financial. It’s experiential. When your members pay dues through Zeffy, they see a screen asking them to leave a voluntary contribution to the company. The default suggestion can be as high as 17% for smaller payments. About two out of three payers contribute something. Your organization doesn’t pay that; your members do. Voluntarily.

Some clubs are totally fine with this. Others find it awkward, especially when members ask “why is this website asking me for extra money after I just paid my dues?”

And Zeffy requires nonprofit status. No casual social clubs. No hobby groups. No informal neighborhood associations without 501(c)(3) registration. That eliminates a lot of small clubs. (If you’re unsure whether your group qualifies, our guide to running community organizations by type covers the distinctions.)

If you qualify and the tip prompt doesn’t bother your group, Zeffy saves you more money than any other option on this list. Not close.

The Real Question: What’s Your Total Annual Cost?

Forget monthly subscription prices. They’re designed to feel small. Here’s the number that matters: total dollars leaving your organization per year, from every source, to run your membership software.

For a 250-member club collecting $75/year in dues:

• Zeffy: $0
• MembershipWorks (paid): $1,039
• Somiti Pro: $1,155
• CheddarUp Pro: $1,158
• TidyHQ Pro: $1,410
• Wild Apricot (250 contacts): $1,519
• Join It Starter: $1,530

The cheapest non-Zeffy option costs $480 less per year than Wild Apricot. Over three years, that’s $1,440. Over five years? $2,400. For a volunteer club collecting $18,750 in annual dues, that’s not rounding error. If your organization is still managing members in a spreadsheet because software seems too expensive, the options under $1,200/year might change that calculation.

How to Pick the Right One

The membership management software guide covers the full decision process beyond pricing. But if cost is your primary concern (and for most volunteer-run clubs, it’s the biggest one), here’s the short version.

If you’re a registered nonprofit and comfortable with the tip prompt: Zeffy. Nothing else comes close on price.

If you want no service fees and your club has under 300 members: MembershipWorks. The $35/month subscription is offset by zero extra charges on every transaction.

If you want a tool built for volunteer clubs at a reasonable total cost: Somiti Pro. The 1% service fee plus $29/month subscription lands in the middle of the pack on total cost, with features designed for how PTAs, cultural clubs, and sports leagues actually run.

If you want the simplest possible setup: CheddarUp. The transaction fees are higher, but the interface is the easiest on this list. Great for parent groups that just need to collect money by Friday.

If your club already has a WordPress or Squarespace site: MembershipWorks. The embedding integration alone might justify the price.

If you have 500+ members and want flat-rate pricing: TidyHQ. The AU$79/month stays the same whether you have 200 members or 2,000. At scale, that’s a bargain.

Run Your Own Numbers

Your club isn’t a scenario in a blog post. Maybe you have 175 members paying $35. Maybe you collect $200/year from 80 families. The math changes.

The formula: (monthly subscription x 12) + (service fee % x total dues collected) + (processor fee per transaction x number of members) = total annual cost.

Subtract that from your total dues collected. The number left is what your organization actually keeps. Do the math for two or three tools. It takes ten minutes. And it might save your club hundreds of dollars a year, every year, until someone on the board brings this up again.

For help running the numbers for your specific club, start with Somiti’s free plan and see what the real cost looks like with your actual member count and dues amount. No sales call. No commitment. Just math.