5 best membership site platforms (I’ve tested them all)

This is the most updated review and guide to the best membership site platforms.

Over the past 2 months, I’ve tested 16 top-rated platforms to see how they perform in key areas, including:

• Payment processing and member management: How easily can you set up subscriptions, handle renewals, manage access levels, and automate billing.
• Engagement tools: Features that help you keep members active, such as discussions, events, gamification, or messaging.
• Value for money: Whether the platform’s pricing fairly matches its capabilities and scalability.
• Marketing and sales features: Tools for building funnels, running email campaigns, tracking conversions, and boosting sales.
• Branding and customization: How much control you have over design, white labeling, and overall brand presentation.
• Integrations and scalability: How well the platform connects with other tools and supports growth as your membership base expands.

But not all platforms made the cut.

After extensive testing, here are my top 5 picks:

• Circle: best for building community memberships.
• Kajabi: best all-in-one digital business platform for knowledge entrepreneurs, coaches and creators.
• Systeme.io: best balance of cost and functionality.
• Kartra: best for advanced marketing needs.
• Podia: ideal for simple & affordable setups.

So let’s dive right in.

Best membership platforms: a quick comparison summary

My detailed review of the best membership site platforms

After testing dozens of membership platforms, I found big differences in how they handle setup, sales, and member experience.

In this section, I’ll share my experience using them especially when it comes to:

• Member management 
• Engagement tools 
• Payment processing
• Content protection
• Pricing structure
• Sales & marketing features
• Analytics and reporting

Starting with…

#1: Circle.so

Best for building paid online communities.

Communities are becoming the go to model for many membership businesses, especially those selling education products. 

Why? People are no longer paying for content access but also for shared learning experience and real connection. 

And when it comes to building thriving community memberships, no platform does it better than Circle.

Circle lets you build separate spaces for live discussions, group chats, courses, events and media libraries. 

Each Space can be public, private, or secret (invitation only) and you can manage access to them individually or using Access Groups. 

Access Groups simplify permission management by letting you bundle multiple spaces like courses, discussions and events. When you add a member into an Access Group, they automatically gain access to everything included in that group. This makes it easy to manage permissions at scale and build clear, tiered access levels across your community.

Unlike many community platforms that I’ve used before (like Podia, Skool and Mighty), Circle has advanced member management tools. You can build searchable member directories, tags, dynamic segments, custom fields and AI agents.

Tags help you label members by role, interest, or stage. For example, you can tag members in your VIP tier as “VIP”. 

Segments on the other hand are automatic groups based on filters. For example, you can automatically group members based on conditional filters like location, space access, role, e.t.c

You can use both Tags and Segments as conditional filters in your workflows, to send targeted email campaigns, and push notifications. 

For example, you can create a conditional filter using Segments in your workflows to send an email or mobile push notification to a specific group of members in your community. 

Meanwhile, Circle’s AI agents help you simplify community operations. You can train them using your own content (course modules, FAQs, member discussions) or custom documents. Once trained, they can function as conversational support assistants and knowledge engines: able to answer questions, point members to relevant resources, and escalate issues when needed.

Key features

• Flexible spaces and structure: Circle lets you organize your community using modular spaces for discussions, events, courses, or multimedia. Each Space serves a distinct purpose, which keeps your structure clean but also makes the structure rigid. For example you can’t combine features like courses, events, and a feed into a single Space (as you can in Mighty Networks). You can manage access to individual spaces or use Access Groups, which let you grant or restrict entry to multiple Spaces at once.
• Native livestreaming and events: You can host live sessions like Q&As, workshops, or coaching calls—directly in Circle without relying on Zoom. Members can RSVP, add events to their calendars, and get automated reminders via email or in-app notifications.
• AI agents: You can train AI agents on your own content to answer questions, guide new members, and reduce repetitive support tasks.
• Custom profiles and directories: Members can create detailed profiles that include bios, skills, locations, and links. This transforms your community from a flat feed into a searchable network, making networking, and personalized recommendations easier.
• Email marketing and workflows: Circle includes a native email and automation builder so you can handle campaigns without tools like Kit or MailerLite. You can create forms, send broadcasts, and build if–then automations (e.g., when someone joins, they’re auto-tagged, added to Spaces, and sent a welcome sequence). However, the ability to send emails isn’t included in Circle’s base plans, so you’ll need to purchase the addon.
• Paywalls and monetization: Circle integrates directly with Stripe, letting you sell memberships as one-time purchases or recurring subscriptions and manage payments from a unified dashboard. However, it doesn’t natively support other gateways like PayPal, Paystack, or Xendit. You’ll need to integrate them via Zapier which can get messy and daunting especially if you’re a non-tech savvy user.
• Page builder: You get access to eight templates and over ten prebuilt sections for quick customization. You can embed videos, forms, and use custom code to create professional pages such as landing pages, sales pages, or onboarding hubs.
• White-label and mobile apps: The platform lets you host your community under your own domain, with your logo and themes.You can also launch your own branded mobile apps with custom payment flows and push notifications, allowing a cohesive brand experience for members.
• Integrations and API: Circle connects with 39 external tools including Zapier, ThriveCart, and Stripe. For deeper control, you can use its Headless API, embedding Circle components like feeds, posts, or events directly into your website or custom app. This is ideal for creators or companies that want Circle’s backend power while maintaining a unified brand experience on their own frontend.
• Gamification and engagement tools: Use badges, points, and leaderboards to motivate participation and reward active members.

Circle pricing

Circle has 3 standard plans including

• Professional: $89/month 
• Business: $199/month
• Enterprise: $419/month

It also offer offer a custom plan that also includes branded mobile apps for your online community.

Circle Pros & Cons

Bottom line: Circle is the best solution for building community memberships like masterminds, group coaching programs, or learning communities. It offers some of the best community-building and branding tools you’ll find on the market today. It also includes a decent page builder for creating professional-looking landing pages, member logins, checkout flows, and sales pages. Choose Circle if your goal is to build an engaging, branded community experience as the core of your membership business.

• Read more about Circle’s features and pricing
• Or visit their website right-way

#2: Kajabi

Hybrid course + membership + marketing automation

Kajabi is the ideal membership platform if you want to run your entire digital business under one roof. You can build products like courses, coaching, communities, podcasts, newsletters, and downloads.

And also get access to tools to grow your business including funnels, website builder, email marketing and payment processing. 

This eliminiates the hassle of juggling multiple thirdparty tools to fill the functionality gap.

But, due to its all-in-one approach Kajabi is more expensive than standard membership software. Its cheapest plan starts at $89 per month and limits you to 1 digital product and a community forum.

Key features

• Multiple digital products: Kajabi lets you sell far more than pre-recorded courses or downloadable files. You can build and sell communities, cohort-based courses, newsletters, coaching programs, and premium podcast content. This flexibility makes it easy to expand your membership offer mix without managing multiple tools. However, Kajabi limits the number of products you can create per plan, which can be restrictive if you plan to offer several membership tiers or bundles.
• Events and webinars: You can host live sessions like, Q&As, workshops, and coaching calls natively for upto 200 participants. Events can be one-time or recurring and include automated email reminders. Kajabi also supports live webinars, allowing you to integrate your digital offers into your webinar funnels for seamless promotion and sales.
• Website and page builder: Kajabi’s features a no-code website builder that lets you create full websites and high-converting landing pages using customizable templates. You can design sales pages, checkout flows, and member dashboards without needing dedicated page builders like Leadpages or website builders like Webflow.
• Email marketing and CRM: You can segment your contacts, send campaigns, and trigger automated sequences based on user behavior, such as, signing up for a webinar or purchasing a product.
• Marketing funnels: Kajabi offers prebuilt funnel templates called Blueprints for launches, lead magnets, and webinars. Each Blueprint combines landing pages, emails, and offers into a single flow, making setup fast and consistent. For example, you can select the “Webinar Blueprint” to automatically generate a registration page, confirmation sequence, reminder emails, and post-webinar sales page all linked together.
• Kajabi Payments: The platform has built-in payment processing features, powered by Stripe, which let you manage one-time sales, subscriptions, and refunds directly inside the dashboard. It supports major payment methods like credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and flexible options such as Klarna and Afterpay where available.

Kajabi Pricing

Kajabi offers four paid plans each depending on the number of products you can create, contact limits, and websites. High end plans unlock more advanced tools like cohort courses, API access, custom code editor and branded mobile apps.

• Kickstarter: $89 per month ( 1 product + community, 250 contacts)
• Basic: $179 per month (upto 5 products, 2500 contacts)
• Growth: $249 per month ( upto 50 products and 25k contacts
• Pro: $499 per month ( unlimited products and upto 100k contacts)

Kajabi pros & cons

Bottom line: Kajabi is the best all-in-one membership site platform for creators and coaches who want to manage every part of their business in one place. It combines product creation, community building, email marketing, sales funnels, and payments under a single system, eliminating the need for multiple tools.

• Get a 30-day Kajabi free trial
• Also read top Kajabi alternatives

#3: Systeme.io

Best value for money

All-in-one membership platforms like Kajabi and Kartra are powerful but expensive. For example Kajabi’s entry plan costs $89/month and limits you to one course and one community per membership site. 

Meanwhile, Systeme’s highest-tier plan costs $97/month with generous resource limits. You can have unlimited contacts, sales funnels, automation rules, file storage and events. That said, Systeme is the best membership site builder if you’re looking for a platform that offers a good balance of functionality and affordability.

With Systeme, you build courses, host webinars, sell coaching and build community forums. Though I found its building community tool fairly basic. You can host events and allow members to RSVP, but unlike platforms like Circle and Kartra, you’ll need to use third party web conferencing tools like Zoom. Systeme also lets you sell physical products with shipping and inventory management supported. 

Another thing I liked about Systeme is its diverse payments integrations. Many platforms rely solely on Stripe, forcing workarounds for creators outside supported regions. On the other hand, Systeme integrates with eight payment processors, including Stripe, PayPal, Paystack, Flutterwave, Razorpay, Xendit, e.t.c making it easy to receive payments for your membership subscriptions.

Key features

• Drag & drop page builder: You can structure your designsusing a column layout with sections, rows, and blocks. And then drag in individual elements like videos, carousels, forms, and raw HTML. Coming from WordPress’ Block Editor I found the interface clean and easy to use. Systeme also offers 20+ page templates and 10+ pre-built sections which you can quickly customize to meet your design needs.
• Sales funnels: Systeme lets you build comprehensive marketing funnels, from opt-in to checkout, without external tools. You can A/B test different funnel steps, attach upsells or downsells, and trigger automations like tagging leads. Unlike Kajabi which offers guided funnel “blueprints,” Systeme doesn’t offer any funnel templates, so you’ll have to design everything from scratch.
• Automations: Systeme offers both rule-based triggers and a visual workflow builder, so you can see every branch of your automation logic. Its workflow builder also supports conditional split logic letting you build sophisticated automations.
• Webinars and bookings: The platform supports evergreen webinars and live event funnels. While you’ll still need to integrate Zoom or Google Meet for web conferencing, Systeme handles registration, reminders, and replay delivery. You can also integrate calendars for booking calls, which is ideal if you’re offering 1-on-1 coaching or consulting sessions.
• Email marketing and CRM: Systeme includes a full email marketing suite with tagging, segmentation, automation, and lead pipelines. You can send broadcasts, create drip sequences, or build pipelines showing where each lead is in your conversion funnel. It has a drag-and-drop  email builder, though the templates feel fairly outdated.
• Online courses: The course builder is minimal but functional. You can organize lessons, upload videos, add downloadable resources, and gate access by pricing plan. You can also assess your learners using quizzes and issue a certificate of completion.
• Affiliate management: Every Systeme.io account includes an affiliate program builder, letting you create custom commission rates, affiliate links, and payout tracking. Many competitors like Kajabi only offer this feature on their high-end plans.

Systeme pricing

Systeme blows away many membership site software out the waters because it’s surprisingly affordable without sacrifing tools functionality. Even on its free plan you can have upto 2000 contacts, 3 sales funnels, unlimited file storage space, and upto 1 course. Paid plans cost as follows:

• Startup: $17/mon for upto 5 courses, 5000 contacts and 10 email campaigns
• Webinar: $47/mon for upto 20 courses, 10,000 contacts and 100 email campaigns
• Unlimited: $97/mon for unlimted courses, contacts, and email campaigns

The platform also doesn’t have transactional fees across all its plans.

Systeme pros & cons

Bottom line: Systeme.io is the best membership platform for creators, coaches, and consultants who want a cost-effective all-in-one solution to launch and scale their digital offers. What makes Systeme.io impressive isn’t just how affordable it is but also the balance. It’s lightweight enough for beginners, yet powerful enough for small teams managing multiple offers. You can build and sell courses, host evergreen webinars, or set up full client pipelines using the same system.

#4: Kartra

Comprehensive membership site builder with strong marketing and automation tools.

Kartra is the best membership site platform if you want strong marketing, webinar hosting, and video management features. You can build full membership sites with a resource library, multiple tiers, and multi-site portals. You can also launch end-to-end automations to manage your membership business and create email campaigns to nurture your leads.

Unlike Kajabi, which focuses on courses, or Circle, which centers on community, Kartra is built around memberships and marketing. Membership is its core structure, supported by marketing automation, funnels, webinars, and events.

You can build multiple membership levels, then grant or restrict access to content using a simple toggle.

On each of your tiers you can choose to unlock access:

• immediately when members buy your subscription,
• after a set number of days, 
• or on a specific date. 

You can also choose flexible payment options like one-time, recurring, installments, or recurring installments.

When it comes to media hosting, Kartra lets you upload nearly any digital product inside your memberships. Be it videos, audio, downloadable files, or images. 

Its media library is clean and searchable, with filters by file type (video, audio, image, document) and format (e.g., doc, txt, mp3). You can also track your video performance to see how members are interacting with your content.

Marketing is another area where Kartra excels. Having used tools like Kit, Clickfunnels, and ActiveCampaign, I can say Kartra’s marketing stack is among the best for membership-driven businesses. You can build and launch complete marketing funnels, design high-converting pages, automate entire workflows, and run targeted email campaigns. You can also schedule and host webinars directly within the platform.

Kartra supports full sales functionality including checkout building, payment processing (through PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.net, Braintree, and Square), affiliate programs, and sales tax management.

Below some of the outstanding Kartra features:

Key features:

• Intuitive page and website: Kartra includes a drag-and-drop builder with over 200 predesigned templates. You can customize page layouts using sections and elements or drop in prebuilt templates to speed up design. All pages are mobile-responsive, and you can A/B test different versions to see which converts better. 
• Extensive funnel builder: Kartra’s funnel builder gives you a visual canvas where you can map every page, step, and condition in your customer journey. It supports branching paths, allowing you to direct traffic from different sources ( e.g Google, Facebook, email, or affiliate links) to specific pages. You can even simulate your funnels before launch to project conversions and revenue, helping you identify bottlenecks before sending traffic.
• Native calendar system with multiple scheduling models: Kartra includes a built-in calendar system for managing coaching calls, workshops, and group sessions. It supports four scheduling models including the →
  • Consultant Model for one-on-one sessions,
  • Gym Model for group classes where multiple people can book the same slot, 
  • Live Event Model for webinars or workshops with specific start times, 
  • Recurring Class Model for sessions that repeat weekly or monthly.
• You can sync your calendar with Google and Zoom, send automated reminders, and charge for appointments.
• Full-featured email marketing and automation: You can build lead capture forms, design emails using over 10 templates, and A/B test subject lines and designs. You can also segment your list by tags, custom fields, engagement level, or lead source. You can also set conditional if-then automations for precise targeting and follow-ups.
• Webinar hosting: Kartra goes beyond basic video sessions by offering a full webinar system. You can host live, automated, or evergreen webinars, create registration and thank-you pages, send automated reminders, and record replays for later access. Inside the live environment, you can run polls, Q&A sessions, share slides, allow attendees to request the floor, or deliver downloadable handouts. Afterward, you can analyze attendance, engagement duration, and conversion metrics.
• Survey and quizzes: the platform includes a built-in survey and quiz builder that helps you collect insights and segment your audience directly inside your funnel or membership area. You can create traditional surveys, scored quizzes, or personality tests, then automatically tag respondents or trigger follow-up automations based on their answers. Quiz results can also determine what content members see next, allowing for personalized course progression or lead nurturing paths.
• Advanced checkout builder: Kartra’s checkout builder gives you full control over both the design and flow of your checkout process. You can choose from three checkout formats: Kartra Hosted, Popup, and Embedded Checkout. The Hosted option works within Kartra-built pages, while Popup displays your checkout as a modal window, and Embedded Checkout lets you place order forms directly on external sites. You can personalize colors, fonts, and logos, decide which form fields appear, and arrange the checkout steps to match your funnel logic. Beyond design, Kartra includes advanced sales features such as order bumps, upsells, and downsells, along with express checkout and cart abandonment tagging to recover lost sales. While Kartra doesn’t operate its own payment gateway, it integrates smoothly with Stripe, PayPal, Braintree, Authorize.net, and Square. When using Stripe, you can unlock extra payment options like Google Pay, Apple Pay, and Klarna, which can improve conversion rates for mobile and international customers.

Kartra pricing

Apart from the Essentials plan, Kartra offers unlimited memberships, courses, and pages. Here’s a quick Kartra price breakdown.

• Essentials: $59/month + (5% transaction fees) up to 1 product, 5 pages, 500 contacts. 
• Starter plan: $119/month up to 2,500 contacts & 5 team members
• Growth: $229/month up to 12,500 contacts & 10 team members
• Professional: $549/month upto 25,000 contacts & 5 custom domains 

Katra pros & cons

Bottom line: Kartra is ideal membership site software for creators, coaches, and info businesses that want every system—sales funnels, checkouts, email marketing, and automation—under one roof. It excels in structured membership delivery, robust automation, and high-converting funnel design. If your priority is running a marketing-driven digital business rather than just hosting courses or building communities, Kartra offers the depth and control you need.

• Get a 30-day free trial
• Also compare Kartra vs Kajabi

#5. Podia

Best for simplicity and affordability.

Podia is a lightweight digital business platform that’s ideal for starting creators and coaches. It’s affordable, easy to set up, and supports multiple product types including courses, coaching, webinars, digital downloads, and memberships.

Surprisingly, Podia’s course building tools are pretty decent. You can natively host your video lessons or embed from third party platforms, add quizzes and drip feed your course materials and issue course certifcates. 

You can also build landing pages though its builder feels limited, with few layout elements and plain templates. Its email marketing tools are also basic. You can segment with tags, create simple opt-ins, and automate basic workflows, but it lacks advanced functions like lead scoring, A/B testing, or in-depth analytics.

Key features

• Online Store: Podia gives you a clean digital storefront where you can sell nearly various product types including — memberships, courses, coaching, webinars, and file downloads such as eBooks or templates.The checkout system includes solid revenue-boosting options like coupons, upsells, product bundles, and waitlists. You can also create flexible payment plans, collect tax automatically, and accept payments in over 20 global currencies.
• Online courses: Its course builder is intuitive and fast to use. You can drip lessons, embed videos, add quizzes, and issue completion certificates. You can also limit seats for exclusivity or cohort-style programs. While not as advanced as Thinkific or Teachable, it’s enough for creators who want to launch structured learning products without a technical setup.
• Community builder: Podia supports basic community features such as topic threads and discussions to complement your courses or memberships. However, compared to dedicated community platforms like Circle or Mighty Networks, its tools are limited. There’s no modular space layout, deep moderation system, gamification, or advanced analytics. It’s suitable for light forum-like engagement but not for running large or interactive communities.
• Webinars: You can host and sell webinars with custom registration pages and paid entry. Podia integrates easily with Zoom and YouTube Live for streaming. Afterward, you can store and sell replays as evergreen webinar products or bundle them into memberships. It’s a simple yet effective setup for coaches or educators who run live sessions.
• Coaching: Podia lets you sell one-on-one or group coaching sessions. You can package them as stand-alone offers or bundle them inside memberships. However, Podia lacks built-in scheduling so you’ll need external tools like Calendly or SavvyCal to manage appointments. This makes it workable for low-volume coaching but less efficient for heavy client workloads.
• Website and landing page builder: Podia’s page builder is easy to use and minimal. You can drag and drop sections for CTAs, email opt-ins, featured products, or embedded videos, and customize colors and fonts. This simplicity helps creators move fast, though designs can look repetitive since templates are limited.
• Email marketing: Podia’s built-in email tools cover the essentials; broadcast campaigns, automated sequences, and conditional triggers. You can set rules like “if someone joins a waitlist, start a pre-launch sequence” and “if they purchase, exit the workflow.” While it lacks advanced functions like lead scoring, A/B testing, or CRM-level analytics, it’s perfect for lean creators who want to automate engagement without integrating separate tools.

Podia pricing

Podia is simple and affordable. It has two paid plans including:

• Mover: $39/month + 5% transactional fees
• Shaker: $89/month

Pondia pros & cons

Bottom line: Podia is ideal for creators who want a low-friction, cost-efficient membership platform. Sure, it lacks advanced bells and whistles, but it’s simple and easy to use. You can launch courses, sell coaching or downloads, run webinars, and bundle memberships.

Explore  Podia.com

Final thoughts

After testing multiple membership platforms, one thing became clear: no single tool does everything well.

Each platform thrives  in certain areas and falls short in others.

The real question isn’t which one is best, but which one fits the way you want to run your membership business.

For example, if your membership revolves around community, your priorities will differ from someone selling structured courses or digital assets. If you need granular control, you’ll tolerate complexity. If you value speed and ease, you’ll trade a bit of flexibility.

The goal of this review wasn’t to crown winners but to clarify what actually matters when you’re choosing your ideal membership solution.

Here’s a quick recap of where each platform stands out:

• Circle: best for all-in-one community software.
• Kajabi: strongest all-in-one solution for knowledge businesses. 
• Systeme.io: ideal for creators seeking an affordable, all-in-one setup
• Kartra: best suited for marketers who need advanced funnels & automation depth.
• Teachable: best for building online learning programs
• Podia: ideal for simple & affordable setups.
• Membership.io: best for selling (Netflix-style) content memberships
• Join It: best for associations, nonprofits, and professional groups.

Interesting readings:

• Best platforms for building and selling courses
• Best online community building platforms
• Best community platforms for businesses and enterprises (Advanced branding & Integration)