Best Membership Site Platforms For Coaches

Looking to launch a successful membership site that propels your coaching business to seven figures?

You need to pick the right platform first.

The platform you choose for your membership site will dictate the experience you provide for your customers and influence the type of content you create. Choose the wrong platform and you could end up with a migraine down the road trying to switch your content and customers to something else.

In this post, I’ll show you how to select the right membership site platform and share the best membership site platforms to pick from.

Table of Contents

Why Coaches Should Create a Membership Site

What to Look for in a Membership Site Platform

The 10 Best Membership Site Platforms

Membership Forum Options

Why Coaches Should Create a Membership Site

If you’re already offering coaching or consulting services, is a membership site worth adding to the mix?

You bet.

Membership sites are fantastic products for coaches to offer, here’s why:

Membership sites provide coaches and consultants with a reliable, recurring revenue stream
They allow you to leverage your time and expertise to serve more clients
Membership sites enable you to build a loyal community around your coaching
You can deliver your coaching in a more scalable way through a membership model

Instead of trading time for money with 1-to-1 clients, a membership site lets you package your knowledge into an offer that can scale 24/7.

Plus it allows you to build up recurring revenue, which can smooth out the peaks and valleys that come with individual client work.

What to Look for in a Membership Site Platform

Picking a membership site platform is like choosing any other software for your business: you need to pick one with the right features, ease of use, and scalability. It all depends on what suits your needs and the needs of your customers.

No matter which platform you go with, I recommend you look for one with the following features:

User-friendly features: Look for a platform that is intuitive and easy to navigate. The last thing you need is to spend hours trying to figure out the software you buy.
Customization options: Choose a platform that allows you to customize your membership site's design, branding, and layout to match your unique style.
Payment support: It will be simplest for you to have a built-in payment flow or one that integrates with payment platforms like PayPal or Stripe. This makes it easy for you to accept new payments (cha-ching!) and makes it straightforward for your customers to buy. A confusing checkout = people clicking away.
Content dripping features: I recommend looking for a platform that supports content dripping, allowing you to release content gradually over time. This steady flow of content will keep your members coming back for more. If you’re pressed for time, learn how to use PLR to fill your membership site with content.
Member management tools: A good membership site platform should provide member management tools, like profile creation tools and chat tools as well as ways to track engagement.

Prioritize these and you can’t go wrong.

Now that you know what to look for in a membership site platform let’s walk through my favorite platforms available on the web.

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Want a handy checklist for all the steps for how to create a membership site?

The 10 Best Membership Site Platforms

Open up Google and ask for a membership site platform and you’ll be greeted with thousands of search results vying for your attention.

You don’t have time to sift through that. So here are the 10 best membership site platforms I’ve found on the web. Browse through the list and remember the advice from above: pick the platform that meets your needs, style, and budget.

Circle

Circle is a popular all-in-one membership site platform that supports member signups, custom branding, live streams, courses, and more. Circle starts at $49/month for their basic tier and scales up to $360 in their enterprise tier.

Squarespace

Though Squarespace is best known for its website design tools, they’ve added other marketing and online selling tools for digital products, courses, and membership sites. Squarespace offers functionality to create, design, and launch a membership site along with community-building tools. Squarespace is probably the least specialized of the platforms on our list, but if you already have your website on their platform, it could be a great add-on.

Thinkific

Thinkific is a popular course creation platform that also offers membership features to coaches. Bundled under “learning communities”, these features allow you to build and engage with an audience of learners. Thinkific starts at $49/month and scales up to $199/month for their highest tier.

Kajabi

Kajabi is one of the heavyweights on this list as they offer an all-in-one coaching and marketing platform. You can sell coaching sessions, build a website, and manage a membership site all in one platform. With many features comes a higher cost - Kajabi starts at $69/month and scales up to $399/month in their highest tier.

Searchie

Searchie is one of the better platforms for smaller budgets as their plans start at $7/month. Searchie is an all-in-one platform to offer coaching services and build a membership site complete with tools for uploading content, designing your site, collecting payments, and more.

Mighty Networks

Mighty Networks is one of the most robust platforms on our list as it offers comprehensive tools to build a site, market to new members, chat with your customers, and more. They also offer additional services to help manage and scale your membership site. Mighty Networks starts at $119/month and scales up to $360/month in their highest tier.

Kartra

Kartra offers a robust solution for coaches to host courses, run email sequences, manage members, and have up to 2,500 contacts in their basic tier. You can start with a template or design from scratch with a drag-and-drop website builder to give your membership site a custom feel. Kartra starts at $89/month and scales up to $429/month.

Podia

Podia is one of the simpler platforms on this list (and the cheapest, they offer a free tier and top out at $89/month) but it’s still a solid all-in-one platform for coaches. You can build a website, create courses, manage your email marketing, and sell courses, webinars, and memberships to your content.

Member Vault

Membervault is a fantastic platform for coaches looking to build and manage their courses and membership content all in one place. Membervault allows you to gate content and engage members through a branded website complete with content, comments, and rewards for members. Membervault starts at $19/month and caps out at $99/month in their highest tier.

New Zenler

New Zenler is one of my favorite course platforms for coaches as it provides you with all the features you’ll need to create courses, market and sell your courses, and build a community. Zenler’s community features include live chat, as well as live and scheduled webinars to engage your members and provide them with content regularly. Zenler offers two pricing options, their Pro tier at $67/month and their Premium tier at $197/month.

Membership Forum Options

All of the platforms I just shared with you support the ability to gate content for your members and charge for access, but not all of them support member chat or community engagement features.

A membership site to host content is fine on its own, but if you want to allow members to interact or ask questions you may need a membership forum platform to add to your offer.

If you select a platform that doesn’t support this out of the box, here are my favorite membership forums to choose from:

Facebook groups: Facebook groups are a great way to build a community on top of an existing platform. Depending on your niche, your target audience may be on Facebook, which makes it a great marketing tool as well. You don’t ‘own’ the platform, but a lot of people prefer to not have to login to a separate location for their community.
Slack: Slack is a popular chat/instant messaging app that has grown to support multiple channels for conversations, audio and video calls, and integrations with popular apps for even more interactive content for your members.
Discord: Like Slack, Discord is a popular online chat platform that allows you to instant message your audience.

Need Content for Your Membership Site? Try PLR to Speed Things Up!

Want to get off to a fast start with your membership site?

After you pick your platform, it’s time to spend hours creating the content to fill it. If that makes you pause and wonder if this was a good idea, let me stop you. The answer is PLR.

PLR (private label rights) content is content that you can rebrand and sell as your own.

When you purchase a license to any of our ready-to-go course kits, you get the rights to edit it any way you want (or leave it as-is) and add your own name and branding.

Click the button below to download my free checklist for creating a membership site with PLR. Launch your next membership site fast and watch your revenue soar!