Memberful Review: Simplified Membership Management

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by the complexities of managing memberships on your website?

Perhaps you’ve struggled with integrating payment systems or providing adequate support for your members. If so, you’re not alone. Many content creators, business owners, and developers face similar challenges when it comes to building and maintaining a thriving membership community online.

Whether you’re a content creator, a business owner, or a developer, this comprehensive review will help you grasp the essence of Memberful and its potential to enhance your online membership experience. Let’s dive in and explore the capabilities of Memberful together.

What is Memberful

Memberful is a powerful tool designed to simplify the process of creating and managing memberships on your website. It has a membership plugin for WordPress websites that offers a range of features to enhance the online membership experience for content creators, business owners, and developers.

With Memberful, users can easily set up and manage memberships, access control for content, and integrate with Stripe as a payment gateway. It provides a seamless and user-friendly way to monetize content and build a thriving membership community.

Memberful Features

Easy Setup and Use

Setting up membership program with Memberful was a breeze. With their intuitive interface and setup guide, I was able to get everything up and running in no time. It’s clear that Memberful has invested heavily in making the setup process as seamless as possible.

Flexible Integration Options

One of the standout features of Memberful is its flexibility when it comes to integration. Whether you’re launching a new WordPress website or integrating with an existing one, Memberful offers a variety of options to suit your needs. You can easily connect Memberful with fully managed integrations such as Google Analytics Zapier, ConvertKit, Mailchimp, and others.

Customizable Subscription Plans

With Memberful, you can offer either a single plan or subscriptions to perfectly fit the needs of your audience. From monthly and annual billing options to one-time payments and group subscriptions, Memberful offers complete flexibility in plan customization.

Visual Customization Editor

With real-time previews and an array of customization options, you can create a checkout experience that perfectly aligns with your brand identity.

• Website: Tailor Branding and Free registration pages to fit your site’s design and ensure a smooth experience across different the website.
• Checkout: Optimize your checkout process to reflect your brand and boost conversion rates. You can also create up to 5 custom fields to collect more details from your subscribers.
• Communication: Personalize email templates and cancellation surveys with your brand’s tone for a personalized member experience.

Discount and Coupons

From referral incentives to targeted coupons and gift purchases, Memberful allows you to drive revenue and find new members with ease.

• Retention Discounts: You can offer discounts to members who cancel to encourage them to continue their subscription. When enabled, Memberful sends custom retention discount emails to your canceled members, providing them with an incentive to stay subscribed.
• Referrals Program: Reward your members who refer others to join your membership program. Enable the referrals program to generate unique shareable links for each member.
• Coupons: You can utilize coupon codes to incentivize new members to join, retain existing members, and win back canceled members.

International Support

Memberful offers features such as VAT collection, multi-language support, and currency options to help you reach and serve members from all over the world.

Hosted Member Websites

If you don’t have a WordPress website, you can still use Memberful for gated content. Memberful’s member website can be used for everything from members-only emails, exclusive content, and teasers. Customize your branding, create dynamic posts, and design evergreen pages to showcase your unique voice and offerings. This is a great feature that can be used by anyone to sell membership plans without a WordPress site.

Analytics and Insights

With Memberful’s analytics, you’ll get a clear view of how your membership program is performing. Track important metrics like revenue trends, member engagement, and retention rates to make smart decisions and fine-tune your strategy. You can also track overall orders, activity, and cancellations under analytics. The customizable dashboards and seamless integration capabilities ensure that you have everything you need to harness the power of data and propel your membership program forward.

Getting Started

With these easy steps, you’ll be on your way to exploring the full potential of Memberful for managing memberships on your website.

Step 1: Sign Up for Memberful

If you’re new to Memberful, visit the Memberful website, click on the “Sign Up” button, and follow the prompts to create a new account.

Step 2: Create Subscription Plans

Once you have created an account, follow the setup guide to create your membership plan.

• Navigate to the “Plans” section.
• Click on “Create a Plan” or “Add New Plan.”
• Define the details of your subscription plan, including name, pricing, duration, and benefits.
• Save the plan once you’ve configured it according to your preferences.
• Repeat the process to create additional subscription plans if needed.

Step 3: Install the Memberful WordPress Plugin

• Log in to your WordPress website’s admin dashboard.
• Navigate to the “Plugins” section and click on “Add New.”
• Search for “Memberful” in the search bar.
• Once you find the Memberful plugin, click on “Install Now” and then activate the plugin.

• After activation, go to the Memberful settings page within your WordPress dashboard.
• Paste the WordPress registration key from Memberful.com dashboard

Step 4: Add Signup Links to your WordPress Website

• Display a Signup Link as a Call to Action: Insert the signup link using the shortcode provided by the Memberful plugin.
• Create a Landing Page with Subscription Plans: Create a page to promote your subscription plans and add a Memberful purchase link to each button on your site.

Step 5: Set up Stripe for Accepting Payments

• Activate Your Account: When you’re ready to start accepting real payments on your site, navigate to “Account” and select “Activate Account.”
• Connect Your Stripe Account: If you have a Stripe account, click “Connect with Stripe” and select your Stripe account.
• Sign Up for Stripe: If you don’t have a Stripe account, you can sign up directly from Memberful. The signup process is short and simple.
• Start Accepting Live Payments: Once your Memberful monthly plan is active, you’re ready to start accepting live payments, propelling your business forward.

Step 6: Place a Test Order

While your Memberful account is in test mode, you can simulate subscription purchases using Stripe’s test credit cards. You can see how the membership works from your member’s perspective and spot any potential issues before it goes live.

1. Use Stripe’s Test Credit Cards: Utilize Stripe’s test credit card numbers along with any expiration date, name, CVC, and zip/postal code to “purchase” a subscription as a test member. Here are some example card numbers:
   • United States: 4242 4242 4242 4242
   • Canada: 4000 0012 4000 0000
   • United Kingdom: 4000 0082 6000 0000
2. Test Purchase Checkout Process: Proceed through the checkout process using the test credit card information to simulate a member subscription purchase.

Note:

1. Once live, you cannot switch back to test mode. Memberful will turn off test mode, activate real payments, delete all test orders and members, lock your currency, and charge your plan fee.
2. To prevent email conflicts, avoid using an email address matching an existing staff member’s or WordPress administrator’s email. This ensures smooth testing without login issues. If using Gmail, append “+test” to your email (e.g., [email protected]) to create additional test addresses.

Plans and Affordability

Memberful offers a single all-access pricing that gives you access to everything the platform has to offer. And the best part? You can try every feature for free for as long as you like. You will only be charged when you start accepting payments when you go live.

What’s Included:

• A Powerful Suite of Tools: Built for creators who want more control over their memberships.
• Fast and Powerful Checkout: With support for Apple Pay and Google Pay, coupons and discounts, custom fields, and more.
• Global Tax Collection: Ensure compliance with tax regulations in over 15 languages.
• Easy Member Management: Keep track of your members and subscriptions effortlessly.
• Growth Metrics and Reporting: Gain insights into your membership program’s performance with actionable analytics.
• Built-in Referral Program: Incentivize member referrals and drive growth with ease.
• Automated Retention Discounts: Keep your members engaged and satisfied with automatic retention discounts.
• Customizable Transactional Emails: Personalize the emails sent to your members for a unique brand experience.

Support

I am impressed by the wealth of resources available for users start a membership website journey with Memberful. From comprehensive documentation to insightful blog posts and product updates, you have access to the tools and knowledge needed to succeed.

Memberful has a podcast called Creative Independents where you can listen to stories about independent businesses. You can subscribe to their newsletter based on the stage of your membership journey. This newsletter provides access to all the necessary resources you might need.

You can contact the Memberful support team by using the chat feature. They are available from 9am to 8pm Eastern Standard Time Monday through Friday.

Real Customer Feedback

Customers express genuine satisfaction with Memberful, which has received a rating of 4.4 stars on G2 reviews.

Users have consistently praised its outstanding customer support, intuitive user interface, integration capabilities, and reliability. The responsive and helpful nature of the support team has earned accolades, as has the platform’s ease of use, making it accessible even to those without extensive technical knowledge.

However, some users have provided constructive criticism, highlighting areas for improvement such as additional features, enhancements to integrations, and clearer communication/documentation.

Final Thoughts on Memberful

Memberful presents an innovative solution for anyone looking to create and manage memberships on their website. Its intuitive setup process, flexible integration options, and customizable features make it a standout choice.

From easy member management to global tax compliance and built-in referral programs, Memberful covers all bases for a seamless membership experience. While there are areas for improvement, its strong customer support and user-friendly interface make it a compelling option for content creators, business owners, and developers alike.