MembershipWorks

Why MembershipWorks is a Better Join It Alternative

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MembershipWorks vs. Join It

MembershipWorks icon JoinIt logo

Looking for a Join It Alternative?

MembershipWorks stacks up favorably against Join It when compared on both price and features. One of the most important differences between these membership management platforms is that Join It charges an additional transaction fee for every online purchase made through its system.

How MembershipWorks is better than Join It

  1. No added transaction fees. With Join It, not only will you pay a transaction fee to your payment gateway, but Join It will also charge you added transaction fees on top of gateway fees. These additional transaction fees start at 1.5% and go up to 3% depending upon the pricing plan. When Join It’s fees are combined with Stripe’s gateway fees, you could be looking at losing up to 5.9% for each online purchase. MembershipWorks charges no additional transaction fees beyond what your payment gateway charges.
  2. More payment gateway choices. Join It limits your payment gateway choice to Stripe. MembershipWorks customers can choose from Stripe, Authorize.net, PayPal Pro, or PayPal Checkout.
  3. All paid plans can access all features. MembershipWorks enables smaller organizations on paid plans to access all of the same features that larger groups can access. With Join It, features such as the member directory are not available at the entry-level plan.
  4. Seamless website integration. Organizations on Join It’s lower pricing tiers are not able to integrate their website with Join It. Instead, members have to conduct their transactions on a separate website. This is not great for brand consistency and can also make some members have less trust in the transaction process. With MembershipWorks, its features are integrated directly into your website, creating a seamless experience that helps members feel secure about their transactions. MembershipWorks integrates with popular website platforms.
  5. Built in Event Registration, Shopping Cart, Classified Ads, Job Board and Announcement Board. MembershipWorks customers can easily add these features to their website and may opt to generate non-dues revenue through them. At a minimum, they increase member value even if they are not monetized. Member activity such as event ticket purchases, placing board listings or purchasing items through the shopping cart is also tracked in the system. Having this functionality built into your membership software helps your organization have a more complete picture of member engagement from an individual member perspective and the membership as a whole. Join It does not offer these features.
  6. Member only content. All MembershipWorks customers can create password-protected pages on their website that logged in members can access. Member only content increases the value of membership and can aid in member retention. With Join It, this feature is not possible for plans under $99/month.
  7. Add admins at no extra cost. With Join It, the number of administrators is limited according to which pricing plan you have chosen. On the other hand, a MembershipWorks primary admin on any paid plan can add secondary admins without added cost.
  8. Free phone support and free one-on-one screen share training. Talking on the phone or through a screen sharing session can help you get your questions answered more quickly than email and chat support. Even those on the 50 free plan may access MembershipWorks’ free support. See rave reviews on MembershipWorks support: Capterra, G2, Reviews.io, and the WordPress repository.

 

MembershipWorks vs. Join It Comparison Chart
MembershipWorks JoinIt
Price per month starts at $0; paid plans start at $35 starts at $29
Setup Fee $0 $0
Additional per-transaction charges (beyond payment gateway fees) $0 3% *
Member Only Content Yes Higher plans only **
Directory Yes Higher plans only **
Event Calendar / Registration Yes Via Eventbrite
Classifieds Yes No
Job Board Yes No
Announcement Board or Forum Yes No
Donations Yes Yes
Shopping Cart Yes No
CMS compatibility WordPress, Weebly, Squarespace, Wix, Duda, WithoutCode, Drupal, Joomla, Spacecraft, HTML5 sites WordPress, Squarespace, Wix and others **
Key Integrations MailChimp, Quickbooks Online and Desktop, Xero Eventbrite, Emma, MailChimp, Hubspot, Quickbooks
Payment Gateways Stripe, Authorize.net, PayPal Stripe
Support Phone, email, live screen share training Chat, email
Admin seats on paid plans Unlimited 1 admin seat at their lowest price

Key Setup Differences

Admin Roles – MembershipWorks allows flexible permission settings for secondary admins. For example, you can give an admin permission to only be able to edit or view members in particular folders. In Join It, there are 4 basic roles that can be selected for admins and the permissions for those roles cannot be edited. So if you give an admin access to edit member accounts, you cannot specify which accounts they can edit.

Calendar Registration –  In MembershipWorks, both members and non-members can register for events. The system calendar in Join-it does not have an option for non-members to register for events. You would have to integrate with Event Brite to add calendars that allow non-members to register.

Fixed-anniversary date membership billing – MembershipWorks provides an option to pro-rate or schedule discounts for members who sign up for a membership with a fixed anniversary date in the middle of a membership period. In Join It, members who join in the middle of a billing cycle are always charged the full amount of dues. This means that admins would need to refund them as needed in order to provide a discount.

Increase Membership Dues – When increasing membership dues in MembershipWorks, our system will attempt to migrate all members on automatic recurring billing to the new pricing. In Join It, members on auto-recurring billing will not be migrated to the new pricing.

Member Directory Integration – You can seamlessly add multiple member directories to pages on your website with MembershipWorks. The Join It member directory can only add one directory to your website and it is embedded into an iframe, so it does not look seamless. 


* The additional per-transaction fee (beyond what payment gateway charges) is 3% with the lowest priced plan on JoinIt.
** CMS integration is only available at higher price levels on JoinIt. Other features such as the member directory and the ability to have member only content are not available on lower-priced plans.

Updated 2026 – Note that pricing and features may change from the information we have gathered here. Providers regularly evolve their product offerings and prices.

Note that pricing and features may change from the information we have gathered here. Providers regularly evolve their product offerings and price points.

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