Glue Up vs Wild Apricot: What’s the Best Alternative to Membership Management?

A membership management software is essential to create all-in-one access to your organization and save time on administrative processes.

Do you want to create a unified system that meets your organization's administrative requirements and the needs of your members? Then using a membership management software is a great decision you could make.

However, choosing the best platform can be challenging when you see plenty of options in the market. So to help you decide, we will compare two membership management software: Glue Up vs Wild Apricot.

We will highlight their important features and discuss their pros and cons. In the end, you will understand each platform more and select which one might suit you the best.

Source: Capterra

Source: GetApp

Glue Up

Managing memberships doesn’t have to be complicated–Glue Up is a testament to that. As an all-in-one software, it helps you build, manage, and engage every member of your community with its Events, Memberships, CRM, Email Marketing, and Finance solutions.

What’s more, it comes with a website builder with customizable templates that lets you create a professional website for your organization.

Its easy-to-use interface has a premium front-end experience designed to give the best solution for your community.

You can build custom online application forms and create different membership types to quickly bring prospective members in the door to gain new members effortlessly. All information is automatically synchronized across the platform once the application starts.

Additionally, it’s a good tool for improving membership retention. For instance, its key automation features drive revenue with membership renewal workflows ideal for boosting productivity.

You can even remind members about their membership renewals through automated emails and push notifications with recurring payments for members.

On the other hand, if you want to plan and launch successful events, its event management feature can help you create unique event pages that you can optimize along with organization branding.

There’s even an option to offer different event ticket types to prospects that can help drive registrations and sell your events.

With Glue Up, streamlining your email marketing strategy is easy in just a few clicks. With a drag and drop editor, you can effortlessly create and deliver newsletter templates, branded event invitations, campaigns, and targeted messages to boost your organization’s member engagement.

Pros and Cons of Glue Up

Here are the advantages of using Glue Up:

1. Ease of use. Glue Up is excellent when it comes to ease of use. The interface is intuitive enough for members to navigate through without relying on an information manual. On top of that, it offers plenty of control to personalize the templates.
2. Automatic event reminders. You can easily find outstanding payments, send renewal reminders through automated emails and push notifications.
3. Analytics. You can add contact information, check engagement history, and monitor membership status and renewals to make smarter decisions.
4. Email marketing solution. Streamline your event marketing and send newsletters, branded invitations, and other emails to your target audience using automated notifications.
5. Ease of setup. You can easily create a member database and store data in one place.
6. Customer support. A customer representative is accessible 24/7. You also have access to it through email, FAQs, knowledge base, phone, or live chat.
7. Excellent website builder. It comes with an intuitive drag-and-drop website builder with unique templates to choose from.
8. Multilingual software. Not limited to English, but also supports Spanish, Korean, Russian, Chinese, and Portuguese languages.
9. My Glue. It comes with My Glue–an all-in-one app available on all devices that allow you to monitor operations from anywhere.

On the flip side, Glue Up's drawback is there’s no free version that lets you use its basic features for managing members.

Wild Apricot

Wild Apricot's membership management software can help you automate the membership application process to standardize the process and minimize errors.

Meanwhile, an online member database can be accessed by everyone online. Member records and other data are always updated in real time. For this reason, automating your member renewals is easy without sacrificing a lot of time through automated renewal reminders and invoices.

What's more, you can allow your members to easily connect with each other by using its online membership directory with multiple member directories that are always up to date.

Pros and Cons of Wild Apricot

Here are the benefits of using this software for managing memberships:

1. Free Version. The free version lets you manage memberships and store up to 50 contacts.
2. Software installation. It gives users a seamless and easy installation experience.
3. Product enhancement. It performs product enhancement once in a while.

Below are the disadvantages of using Wild Apricot:

1. Steep learning curve and bad UX. Non-tech-savvy may have a hard time navigating through the platform.
2. Outdated user interface. The confusing interface can frustrate customers.
3. Unresponsive member directory. Member directory may take a while to get updated and could require rebuilding. (Software Advice)
4. Complicated email editor. Creating new email templates is hard. (G2)
5. Unintuitive website builder. Site building is a bit complicated and often leaves users clueless on what to do next. (GetApp)
6. Too many administrative emails. Email is sent each time a member performs an action. (Capterra)
7. Limited customer support. Since it claims that it’s a self-service platform, you can expect limited support with no 24/7 customer representative.
8. Training. No in-person or live online training.
9. Non-multi-language software. English is the only language it supports.

The Best Value for Money

Now it’s time to take a look at the pricing plans of the two membership management software above to help you choose the one that provides the best value.

The Total Cost to Manage Memberships With Glue Up

You don’t have to spend a lot to begin managing memberships using Glue Up. Price starts at $125/month and that makes it afforadable but enough when you’re just starting out.

However, Glue Up also provides scalable options billed yearly to meet growing demands, thus giving more allowance for new members, virtual events, or speed networking sessions. Onboarding process with Glue Up is personalized to suit every member-based organization’s unique needs.

Glue Up’s pricing is value-based and customizable because every organization has unique requirements. But small to medium-sized associations with around 1,000 members usually pay around $1500-$2500/year for the all-in-one Membership Management Software that comes with two free mobile apps.

The Total Cost to Manage Memberships With Wild Apricot

Wild Apricot offers a free plan that lets you store 50 contacts. If you need more, you can upgrade to one of its premium options with a 10%discount for yearly plans.

Plans are billed monthly and the cheapest option is priced at $48/month ($576/year), but can only store 50 contacts.

If you’re a medium-sized organization, it would be better to go for the Professional ($110/month or $1320/year) plan, offering you 500 contacts.

Overall, if you want to get the most out of Wild Apricot, you need to spend at least $190/month or $2280/year, which can be a bit expensive.

Which One Do You Choose to Manage Memberships?

You need to assess your requirements and preferences before making that final choice. Evaluating all the pros and cons of membership management software is essential before making the final decision.

If you don't mind paying extra for greater customization options, Wild Apricot might be your best choice. On the other hand, if you're looking for excellent features and value for the price, you should go for Glue Up. Do you want to automate membership management processes, increase retention, and engage your members? Learn more about Glue Up's Membership Management software and create long-lasting business relationships.