10 best membership platforms for solopreneurs and creators

Finding the right membership platform isn’t just about features — it’s about choosing a tool that helps you grow a sustainable business. Many membership site comparisons focus on fancy features and technical capabilities but miss the bigger picture: How well does your platform support your membership’s long-term success?

A membership platform shouldn’t just help you manage members. It should simplify your entire business, from growing your audience to building out different revenue streams, without adding extra costs or complexity.

In this article, we’ll cover:

• Why focusing only on membership features can limit your growth

• What features you really need to support your membership business

• A breakdown of the top membership platforms to help you find the best fit for you

By the end, you’ll know how to choose a membership platform with all the tools you need to grow your subscribers, engage your audience, and scale your business with ease — so you can focus on doing what you love.

Focusing on memberships alone can hold you back. Here’s what you need instead.

Memberships are a powerful way to build community, gate premium content, connect with customers, and generate that oh-so-enticing recurring revenue. But they can also turn into a never-ending content treadmill, where you constantly have to create new material to keep members engaged. Even if you love making content, relying on it as your only revenue stream can add unnecessary stress.

Plus, if your platform only supports memberships and lacks the tools you need to grow, you’re limiting your business potential. Your audience might be eager to buy courses, coaching, or digital products, but you miss out on those opportunities if your platform doesn’t support them. That’s why it’s important to look for software that powers your entire business, not just one part of it.

A great membership platform should help you engage your audience, deliver value, generate recurring revenue, and grow your offers without technical headaches.

You need to be able to:

• Sell memberships and build an interactive community

• Offer other digital products like courses, downloads, webinars, and coaching

• Use email marketing to connect with your audience via newsletters and automations

• Set up flexible payment options and plans for your members

Some platforms provide everything in one place, while others require third-party integrations. (We’ll explore both types in this article.)

The key is finding a system that not only supports your membership but also helps you attract new customers and diversify your revenue — so your business can thrive today and every day after.

Top membership platforms for building a business

With that in mind, take a look at these popular tools for running your membership business:

• Podia — Best all-in-one platform for running a membership and the rest of your online business

• Kajabi — All-in-one option with courses, products, and memberships

• Mighty Networks — Community-focused platform with option to sell courses

• MemberPress — WordPress membership plugin with paywalls and subscriptions

• Circle — Community-focused platform with the option to make a branded app

• Squarespace — Website builder with memberships and paywall features

• Patreon — Platform for fan memberships and support communities

• Thinkific — Course platform with membership capabilities

• Membership.io — A searchable content library that can be sold as a membership

• BuddyBoss — WordPress-based social-media-style plugin

Read on to find the best fit for your business goals.

Podia — best all-in-one membership & online business platform

Podia is an all-in-one platform that allows creators to build and manage their entire online business. You can sell courses, digital downloads, communities, coaching offers, webinars, and pretty much any other kind of product you like. And you can market everything you make to your audience with built-in landing pages and your own website.

On top of that, Podia provides tools to attract an audience (blogging, lead magnets, email sign-up forms), nurture those leads (newsletters, email automations), and keep an eye on your audience data, all from one easy-to-use dashboard.

You can:

• Sell unlimited memberships, digital products, coaching, and courses — Your memberships can seamlessly include online courses, live sessions, and digital downloads, as well as discussion areas and community forums where members can collaborate.

• Nurture your audience with built-in email marketing — Stay connected with members using broadcasts and automated sequences directly from Podia. No need to wire up a bunch of tags and rules with a third-party email provider.

• Create a beautiful website and blog — Every Podia plan includes unlimited landing pages, blogging, and an easy-to-use website builder, giving you multiple ways to bring people into your business.

• Scale your revenue as your business grows — You can offer tiered pricing, payment plans, upsells, coupons, and product bundles to give your customers whatever checkout experience you want.

• Eliminate third-party tools — With website hosting, payment processing, and audience management included, you can run your entire membership business without juggling multiple platforms. (Plus, no more surprise bills!)

Podia also offers a full-featured email marketing tool with automations, sales funnels, analytics, and newsletters, helping you stay in touch with your audience. Podia Email is an optional add-on. It’s free for your first 100 subscribers and after that plans start at $7/month.

How can it help me build a business?

Podia is designed for creators who want to build a complete online business, not just a membership site. With built-in tools for website creation, email marketing, digital products, and automation, you can grow an engaged audience while selling memberships, courses, products, coaching, and more. All without needing additional software.

Podia pricing

• Mover Plan ($39/month or $33/month billed annually): Includes your website, online store, blogging, landing pages, and unlimited products (courses, downloads, coaching, memberships, webinars, and community plans). 5% transaction fees.

• Shaker Plan ($89/month or $75/month billed annually): Offers all features in the Mover Plan plus affiliate marketing. No transaction fees.

Both plans come with a 30-day free trial and include access to Podia’s email platform for up to 100 subscribers, with additional subscribers available for a fee. Podia also provides free migrations for users moving from other platforms.

Pros: One of Podia’s biggest advantages is that you can build and sell digital products in addition to running your membership community. Many customers find that having their products, community, and marketing tools under one roof saves them time and simplifies their workflow. And because your website is included, you can go from total newbie to real business owner in an afternoon.

As classical piano instructor Joseph D’Amico puts it, “I believe that Podia is the best option for most people, especially those who do not already have a website and those who anticipate selling products online. You can start small by building a beautiful website and eventually grow into something much more significant.”

Cons: Podia may not be the best fit for creators who need code-level customization or prefer to build their own tech stack with third-party integrations.

Kajabi — all-in-one with memberships and products

Kajabi is another all-in-one option for creators who want to sell online courses, digital downloads, podcasts, coaching, memberships, communities, and newsletters — all while managing everything in the same place. Kajabi has your website, blog, and landing pages, making it easy to promote your offerings.

You can make a membership in Kajabi by setting up a subscription payment option with weekly, monthly, or yearly billing for your products. You can make all your membership content available right away or drip it out over time to encourage members to stick around longer. You can also set up a membership using Kajabi’s community feature, using different Access Groups to control what specific members can see.

While there are a lot of features that can help grow your business, it’s important to note that Kajabi has product and contact limits on all plans, which could restrict your growth over time.

For example, Kajabi’s Basic plan ($149/month or $119/month billed annually) includes just three products and 10,000 contacts. If you sold one download, one coaching session, and a single online course, you would already be at your limit and would need to upgrade to the Growth Plan to add anything else.

At Podia, our users build an average of 11.6 courses, and we love seeing creators experiment with different products as they grow.

This is much harder to do when you’re capped at a very low number of products, and if you wanted to make 11.6 products on Kajabi, you’d need the Grow plan ($199/month or $159/month billed annually) to make it happen.

(For comparison purposes, all Podia plans come with unlimited courses and products so building 11.6 courses would only cost $39/month or $33/month paid annually.)

How can it help me build a business?

Kajabi is a solid choice for creators who want a membership that connects to their website, products, and courses. You can set up recurring payments for ongoing membership access, and Kajabi does not charge transaction fees on any plans.

Kajabi pricing

• Kickstarter Plan ($89/month or $71/month billed annually): Includes 1 website, 1 product, 1 community, 250 contacts, 7,500 marketing emails, and 0% transaction fees.

• Basic Plan ($149/month or $119/month billed annually): Offers 1 website, 3 products, 10,000 contacts, unlimited marketing emails, and third-party integrations. 0% transaction fees.

• Growth Plan ($199/month or $159/month billed annually): Provides 1 website, 15 products, 25,000 contacts, unlimited marketing emails, and affiliate programs. 0% transaction fees.

• Pro Plan ($399/month or $319/month billed annually): Features 3 websites, 100 products, 100,000 contacts, unlimited marketing emails, and a custom code editor. 0% transaction fees.

Pros: Kajabi’s biggest advantage is that it’s an all-in-one platform, allowing you to build and manage a membership that’s automatically integrated with your website, digital products, and email. You can set up your membership as a subscription to certain products or as a community with member interaction, depending on what your business needs.

Cons: Kajabi is one of the more expensive all-in-one platforms, and every plan has product and contact limits. You’ll pay well over $100 a month if you want to make more than one product, which could be prohibitive when you’re first starting out.

Mighty Networks — community-based membership platform

Mighty Networks is designed for people who want to build engaged membership communities and offer interactive experiences for their members. Every plan includes unlimited members, spaces, and moderators, allowing you to structure your community however you like.

Mighty Networks comes with built-in live events, member profiles, personalized feeds, and gamification features. The platform also includes live streaming and chat functionality for real-time interactions. On higher-tiered plans, you can unlock courses, challenges, and resource libraries to add more value to your membership.

If you want to monetize your community membership, you can set up multiple pricing tiers and payment plans, as well as one-time and monthly/annual recurring subscriptions.

That said, Mighty Networks focuses primarily on community engagement rather than business growth tools. There’s no built-in email marketing, blogging, or website feature, so you’ll need additional software to generate leads, build sales funnels, and grow your audience.

On top of that, all plans include transaction fees, which can impact your earnings as your membership grows. There are also storage and live streaming hour limits on all plans.

How can it help me build a business?

Mighty Networks is best for creating an interactive community with built-in engagement tools like live events, chat, and gamification. On higher plans, you can add courses and additional content to give your membership more value, and you can also set up a referral program to encourage your members to invite their friends.

Mighty Networks pricing

• Community Plan ($49/month or $41/month billed annually): Unlimited members, spaces, hosts, and admins. 250GB total storage and 5 streaming hours per month. 3% transaction fee.

• Courses Plan ($119/month or $99/month billed annually): Unlimited courses, challenges, course automations, and resource libraries. 1TB storage and 20 streaming hours per month. 2% transaction fee.

• Business Plan ($219/month or $179/month billed annually): Integrations with other tools, enhanced live streaming, and white-labeling. 2TB of storage and 30 streaming hours per month. 2% transaction fee.

• Path-to-Pro Plan ($360/month billed annually): Advanced automated workflows, and additional white-labeling. 3TB of storage and 40 streaming hours per month. 1% transaction fee.

Pros: Every plan includes unlimited members, spaces, hosts, and admins, making it easy to scale your community. There are also gamification tools like questions, polls, streaks, and top contributor highlights to encourage engagement. Mighty Networks also includes courses and resource libraries, making it a flexible option for creators who want to offer education alongside their memberships.

Cons: You’ll need separate tools for your website, blog, and email marketing. There are transaction fees on all plans, which can cut into your earnings as your program grows. There are also storage and streaming limits on all plans. Member data export is only available on the Courses plan and higher, making it harder to migrate your community if needed.

MemberPress — membership and paywall plugin for WordPress

MemberPress is a WordPress plugin that lets you add a membership area to your WordPress website. The plugin allows you to add unlimited memberships with as many members as you like, and you can set up subscription plans, discount codes, free trials, gated membership areas, and dripped content. Higher-tiered plans also come with membership gifting and order bumps for more flexibility.

In addition to memberships, MemberPress has a tool for creating online courses. All courses can have unlimited lessons, and higher-tier plans also come with quizzes, assessments, and course certificates.

While MemberPress itself doesn’t come with a website or blogging feature, it works on top of WordPress which allows you to do these things. There’s no email marketing built in, but you can integrate with ESPs like Mailchimp, ConvertKit, and ActiveCampaign.

How can it help me build a business?

MemberPress is a good option if you already use and like WordPress. If you’ve already got a site, this tool can help you add membership features and a paywall. Courses are built in, and you can pay for optional add-ons like affiliates and coaching.

MemberPress pricing

• Basic Plan ($359/year): Unlimited members, courses, content dripping, subscriptions, and integrations with email marketing tools.

• Plus Plan ($599/year): Unlimited quizzes and certificates, advanced marketing integrations, Zapier support, podcast memberships, and forums.

• Pro Plan ($799/year): Corporate accounts, gifted memberships, order bumps, tax integrations, and advanced customization options.

Pros: MemberPress works with your existing WordPress setup and lets you add a paywall, membership area, and private areas to your site. Some optional add-ons make it closer to an “all-in-one”, like a coaching add-on and an affiliate add-on.

Cons: MemberPress must be used with WordPress. If you don’t like working in WordPress, this won’t be a good option for you. Email marketing isn’t built in, so you’ll need an integration for that, but the Basic plan only includes some email marketing integrations with other tools gated to the Plus plan. You’ll need to make sure your preferred ESP is included on the plan you want.

Circle — community-first memberships

Circle is designed specifically for building online communities. It offers strong community engagement features, making it a good choice for creators who already have an engaged audience and want to monetize through memberships.

Circle lets members set up rich profiles, have discussions, send DMs, and participate in community events. It provides options for gating content, setting up different payment tiers, and offering upsells to increase order value. If your membership grows significantly, you can even launch a branded mobile app on iOS and Android for a custom experience, though this comes at an additional cost.

Because Circle is primarily community-focused, it may not be the best choice if you want to create a product-focused membership. The platform also lacks built-in tools for audience growth, such as a website builder, blogging, or lead magnets, which means you’ll likely need to integrate additional tools to build your business.

How can it help me build a business?

Circle allows you to monetize your community by offering gated spaces, interactive courses, installment plans, one-time payments, and recurring memberships. You can engage your members with live events and streams, DMs and messages, and gamification. Circle also has a branded mobile app add-on you can use to build a custom app for your membership (for an additional fee).

Circle pricing

• Professional Plan ($99/month or $89/month billed annually): Unlimited members, 3 admins, and 10 moderators. 20 spaces, 100GB attachment storage, courses, live streams, and custom branding. 2% transaction fee.

• Business Plan ($219/month or $199/month billed annually): Unlimited members, 5 admins, and 15 moderators. 30 spaces, 250GB attachment storage, workflows, custom profile fields, and API access. 1% transaction fee.

• Enterprise Plan ($399/month or $360/month billed annually): Unlimited members, 10 admins, and 100 moderators. 100 spaces, 1TB attachment storage, unlimited workflows, custom single sign-on (SSO), and priority support. 0.5% transaction fee.

• Plus Branded App (Custom pricing): Includes all Enterprise features plus a dedicated launch team and a fully branded iOS and Android app with higher limits.

Circle also has a Marketing Hub add-on for email marketing, which is free for up to 100 subscribers. Beyond that, it costs an additional $19/month for up to 1,000 subscribers and $29/month for up to 1,500 subscribers.

(For comparison, Podia’s email marketing add-on is $9/month ($7/month annually) for up to 500 subscribers and $17/month ($13/month annually) for up to 1,500 subscribers.)

Pros: One of Circle’s biggest strengths is community. You can create highly interactive spaces with discussion threads, live streams, events, and courses designed for community engagement. You can also transform your community into a paid membership by charging for access and adding different payment tiers.

Cons: Circle is more expensive than many other community membership platforms, and all plans include space and storage limits, as well as transaction fees. Additionally, Circle lacks audience-building tools like blogging, lead magnets, and a website builder, which means creators will likely need to integrate additional tools to attract new members. While the Marketing Hub add-on provides email marketing, its cost scales quickly as your subscriber count grows.

Squarespace — website platform with memberships

Squarespace is a website platform that also has tools for building your own membership. Squarespace memberships let you gate content like virtual classes, workshops, and newsletters behind a paywall. You can also sell courses and community access, and all products can have a one-time or recurring fee.

In addition to selling memberships and content, Squarespace has built-in tools for your website, blog, and landing pages. Squarespace is known for having a large selection of templates, and there are membership website templates to help you get started fast.

I’ve used Squarespace to build client websites in the past, and here’s one note worth mentioning: Squarespace’s templates look nice, but they weren’t as easy to customize as I would have liked.

It’s no problem to change the colors, images, etc., but if you want to go further by adjusting layouts and design elements, it isn’t always intuitive.

Of course, this isn’t an issue if you love a template out of the box and just want to customize the surface-level changes, but anything beyond that was tricky and might require bringing in a Squarespace designer for extra help.

Beyond your website, Squarespace also has features for selling physical products. You can use the platform for an ecommerce site and connect shipping and print-on-demand tools to give you more product options.

Even though Squarespace is an all-in-one website tool, a lot of the “all-in-one” features are paid add-ons. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing since you don’t need to pay for features you don’t need, but as your business grows, you might need to pay more to unlock more Squarespace functionality.

How can it help me build a business?

Squarespace has your website, blog, and online store features in one place so you can market your membership. It’s possible to sell your memberships and content on all paid plans, and you can sell physical ecommerce products on the Business plan and up. As your business grows, there are tools you can use to add more functionality to your site for an additional fee.

Squarespace pricing

• Personal Plan ($16/month or $12/month billed annually): Free custom domain, SSL security, SEO features, and 24/7 customer support.

• Business Plan ($26/month or $18/month billed annually): All Personal Plan features plus advanced website analytics, promotional pop-ups and banners, and integrated e-commerce with a 3% transaction fee.​

• Basic Commerce Plan ($30/month or $26/month billed annually): All Business Plan features, removes transaction fees, adds customer accounts, and enables merchandising tools.​

• Advanced Commerce Plan ($46/month or $40/month billed annually): All Basic Commerce Plan features plus advanced shipping, advanced discounts, and abandoned cart recovery.

The ability to sell memberships comes with all plans, but Squarespace charges a 9% transaction fee on any digital sales if you don’t have the digital products add-on.

There are three digital product add-on plans, and each one comes with diminishing transaction fees and more video storage. These must be purchased in addition to one of the base plans above.

• Starter ($10/month): 7% transaction fees, 10 hours of video storage

• Core ($24/month): 3% transaction fees, 50 hours of video storage

• Pro ($48/month): 0% transaction fees, unlimited video storage

Pros: Squarespace can do a lot, and there are templates to help you make your site, courses, and memberships look nice. You can accept donations, set up recurring payments, and charge one-off fees for your content. You can also sell physical products.

Cons: A lot of features are paid add-ons, and the pricing can be complex with multiple plans and prices for each feature set they offer. (For example, there are scheduling add-ons, email marketing add-ons, and digital product add-ons that all have multiple tiers to choose from.)

If you just use a base plan for your membership, you’ll be stuck paying 9% transaction fees on all sales, which could limit you as you grow. Also, their templates look nice but aren’t super easy to customize, so this won’t be best if you want lots of customization options.

Patreon — fan support platform with recurring subscriptions

Patreon is a fan support platform where people who enjoy your work can subscribe in exchange for exclusive content. This is common for YouTubers, podcasters, musicians, and artists who mostly produce free content and need a way to keep making work their followers love.

Patreon lets you set up multiple membership tiers and gate different rewards, content, and merch at each level. People can sign up monthly or annually, and you can share updates and content right on the Patreon platform. There are also community tools for connecting with followers, like DMs, chats, and commenting.

Patreon works well for building a fan community around your work, but it’s not the best if your membership focuses on educational content like courses or coaching programs.

You’ll need other tools to set up digital products and sell one-off offers, and there aren’t many customization options for your Patreon home page. All creator pages pretty much have the same layout and look, so if you want to design your own custom landing page and membership area, you’ll need another tool.

How can it help me build a business?

If you already have a following from your content (like your podcast, social media, or YouTube channel), Patreon is a way to let them support your work. You can simply accept donations or give members exclusive content and other behind-the-scenes perks in exchange for their subscription.

Patreon pricing

It’s free to set up a Patreon, but you’ll pay transaction fees on all your platform earnings.

• Pro (8% of your Patreon earnings): Monthly and annual subscriptions, membership tiers, free trials and special offers, and engagement tools.

• Premium (12% of your Patreon earnings): Everything in Pro plus team accounts and merch for membership.

Pros: Patreon is well known for being a fan support tool so it’s likely your audience has already heard of it and knows how it works. This works well for people who mainly create free content and just need some support beyond ads and brand deals. It’s free to set up - all you need to do is add your information, set your pricing tiers, and publish.

Cons: It’s hard to grow a Patreon if you don’t have an existing audience. There’s no option to get rid of transaction fees as you grow, which could eat into your earnings significantly. (Other membership platforms let you upgrade to remove fees, but with Patreon, you upgrade to… pay more fees?!?)

Patreon also isn’t the best fit if you want to sell a membership with courses, digital downloads, and other educational content. It’s more suited for fan communities.

Thinkific — course platform with memberships

Thinkific is mainly an online course platform, but it also has tools for selling communities, downloads, coaching, webinars, and memberships. You can charge a one-off fee or add recurring payments and set up a landing page and website for promoting your membership.

Thinkifc also has an app store where you can find and connect other tools that work with the platform. Some of these are free and some are paid, but it can be a nice option to add on more as your business grows.

That said, Thinkific’s membership feature is gated on the Start plan ($99/month or $74/month billed annually), which could be a bit steep if you’re just starting out.

How can it help me build a business?

Thinkific supports unlimited products and memberships on the Start plan and above so you can make as many things as you like. There’s a free plan so you can test out the platform before committing, and Thinkific has an app store with other tools (some free, some paid) so you can add more features to your business if needed.

Thinkific pricing

• Free Plan ($0/month): Includes 1 course, 1 community with 2 spaces, and unlimited students. No transaction fees.

• Basic Plan ($49/month or $36/month billed annually): Includes unlimited courses, 5 digital downloads, 5 coaching sessions, 1 community with 5 spaces, and unlimited students. No transaction fees.

• Start Plan ($99/month or $74/month billed annually): Includes memberships, unlimited courses, 1 community with 10 spaces, unlimited digital downloads, unlimited coaching, and unlimited students. No transaction fees.

• Grow Plan ($199/month or $149/month billed annually): Includes unlimited courses, 3 communities with 20 spaces each, and unlimited students. No transaction fees.

Note: The free plan isn’t mentioned on Thinkific’s pricing page, but it’s still referenced in their help center. According to other users online, it’s still possible to get a free plan by signing up for a free trial and downgrading to free in your account settings.

Pros: Thinkific has lots of features for building your business all in one place, and you can have as many students as you want on all plans. It works well for setting up an educational membership with courses, products, and content, and you can promote your membership with a built-in website and landing pages.

Cons: In order to unlock memberships and unlimited products, you’ll need the Start plan ($99/month or $74/month billed annually) or above. You’ll also need this plan to offer bundles and upsell offers. While Thinkific does have websites and landing pages, there’s no blogging feature, so you’ll need a separate tool if you plan to grow your business that way.

Membership.io — searchable content library membership tool

Membership.io takes a different approach to memberships by letting you set up a searchable content library for everything you make. This is a good option if you have lots and lots of content that you want to consolidate in one place.

With the library feature, you can upload all your video, audio, and text files (like PDFs, docs, etc.). There’s a search feature built in so members can browse through your files, and the amount of storage you have varies based on the plan.

Then you can use the hub feature to package your content and offer it to customers as a membership, course, coaching program, or other product type. There’s also a community feature with member profiles, a member directory, guided onboarding, and gamification features.

One thing to pay attention to — while the library feature is included on all paid plans, you only get the hub tool on the Start plan ($49/month or $41/month paid annually) and above. The Start plan lets you make one hub (so one course, membership, or coaching program) but to make anything else, you’ll need to upgrade.

The highest-tiered plan comes with 10 membership hubs, which could still feel limiting if you have lots of different programs you want to create.

How can it help me build a business?

Membership.io can help you grow your business by organizing all your content into one library. You can sell access to the information in that library, and customers can find what they’re looking for with AI search tools. If you use the hub feature to sell courses or memberships, you won’t pay any transaction fees, and you can add as many students as you like.

Membership.io pricing

• Creator Plan ($8/month or $7/month billed annually): AI-powered content library, advanced search capabilities, and 50+ hours of uploads.​

• Start Plan ($49/month or $41/month billed annually): All Creator Plan features plus community, no transaction fees, unlimited members, and 1 membership hub.​

• Grow Plan ($119/month or $99/month billed annually): All Start Plan features plus personalized content recommendations, tailored learning paths, gamification, custom branding, 250+ hours of uploads, 3 membership hubs, and 5 team members.​

• Scale Plan ($183/month or $153/month billed annually): All Grow Plan features plus a dedicated customer success manager, webhooks for integrations, 500+ hours of uploads, 10 membership hubs, and 10 team members.

The website references a free plan, but I wasn’t able to find any information about what it includes.

Pros: It’s good for building a content-heavy membership, and you get decent storage on all plans with the option to upgrade as you need more. If your content is currently spread across tons of sources (Drive, DropBox, etc.), this could make everything feel more cohesive.

Cons: In order to create products like courses, membership programs, and coaching offers, you need to set up a membership hub. You only get one hub on the Start plan, three hubs on the Grow plan, and 10 hubs on the Scale plan.

This tool only really makes sense if you have a few offers with lots of content inside each one. There’s no way to sell one-off digital downloads or smaller products, and you’ll need another tool for your website, blog, and email marketing.

BuddyBoss — social media-style membership community

BuddyBoss platform is a WordPress plugin that lets you turn your website into a social-media-style community. You can use BuddyBoss with any WordPress theme, but it works best if you pair it with their recommended BuddyBoss theme.

Within your BuddyBoss community, you can have unlimited members, groups, events, and admins. You can enable forum discussions and activity feeds and let your members set up profiles in your space. You can also allow private messaging and enable features so your members can invite new members to your community via email.

To turn your community into a traditional membership area with paid access, you’ll need to integrate with a WordPress plugin like MemberPress, WishList Member, or WooCommerce Memberships. This tool will handle your payment processing and membership management.

You can also use BuddyBoss to manage your online courses, but you must integrate it with another tool like LifterLMS, LearnDash, or TutorLMS to unlock eLearning features. This is a bit confusing on the BuddyBoss website since it looks like courses are built in, but in the fine print, it says you need to use one of these other course tools (paid separately) to get that functionality.

BuddyBoss also has an option to set up your own mobile app. This comes with an extra setup fee and recurring monthly or annual fee, but if you need a full-featured course and community app for your business, this could be a good option.

How can it help me build a business?

If you’re already using WordPress for your business, BuddyBoss can help you add a social-media-style community with membership access to your site. It also gives you the option to set up your own app for your membership community.

BuddyBoss pricing:

All BuddyBoss plans include the BuddyBoss theme, the BuddyBoss premium plugin, and a year of updates and support. The only difference is how many sites you can use it on.

• 1 site ($399/year)

• 5 sites ($465/year)

• 10 sites ($599/year)

Here’s the pricing if you’d like to use BuddyBoss to build an Android/iOS app:

• Lite edition ($99/month or $79/month paid yearly + $349 onboarding and publishing fee): Course features and in-app purchases, supports MemberPress, LearnDash, or TutorLMS

• Full edition ($219/month or $179/month paid yearly + $349 onboarding and publishing fee): The same course features as Lite plus community features like member profiles, groups, forums, and messaging.

Pros: If you use WordPress, BuddyBoss gives you a social media community right on your page, and it integrates well with membership and online course plugins for added functionality. It also has an app tool available for an extra fee.

Cons: While BuddyBoss does have strong integrations with course plugins, you’ll still need to sign up for and pay for extra tools to get course functionality. Same goes for traditional membership features, like content gating and subscription payments. But if you need a social-media-style community, this is a good option.

Which membership site platform is best for my business?

When choosing a membership platform, you’re really looking for a tool to build your business. In addition to membership features, like recurring subscriptions and a place to share content, you should also be able to:

• Sell memberships and build an interactive community

• Offer other digital products like courses, downloads, webinars, and coaching

• Use email marketing for newsletters and automations

• Set up flexible payment options and subscriptions

With Podia, solo business owners can sell memberships alongside courses and digital downloads, engage their audience with built-in email marketing, and create an engaging online community — all without juggling multiple tools.

You can also set up a website, blog, and unlimited landing pages to promote your work, and everything is connected out of the box. If you’re looking for a membership tool that lets you build a business as well as a recurring income stream, start your 30-day free trial today. We can’t wait to see what you make.