Creating memberships for your coaching clients is a great way to keep them engaged and give them additional value — all while earning recurring revenue.
With the help of online membership platforms, you can build and launch your own business coaching membership in a few days. However, not all of these business tools are created equal.
Let’s explore the best membership platforms for coaches and how you can use them to launch and engage communities.
What is a Membership Site?
A membership site is a platform where community managers can share exclusive content with their free or paying members.
You can use paid membership sites to build a community of coaching clients who are going through a similar transformational journey. It’s a great way to support your coaching clients on a one-to-many basis besides your sessions while setting up an additional revenue stream.
You can adapt the structure of your membership to your business model. For example, Laurel Portié runs an ad membership with two live group coaching sessions each month.
She uses her coaching membership site to share the recordings of all past sessions with her clients. She also makes all her past training replays available so her members can study them at their own pace between the live sessions.
That’s just one example, but you can share virtually any type of coaching support and resources on a membership site.
Membership Sites vs. Subscription Sites
Membership sites and subscription sites are similar, but they’re not necessarily the same. To put it this way, all membership sites are subscriptions, but not all subscriptions are memberships.
A subscription has a monthly fee that gives customers access to a product or service for the duration of their billing cycle. Memberships are subscription types that involve becoming a part of a group.
For example, paying for a monthly newsletter is a subscription, not a membership. On the other hand, paying a monthly subscription fee to access an online community with members-only content is a membership.
You can think of subscriptions as a billing model. For example, you can use a subscription model to charge your coaching clients on a recurring basis every month.
Memberships are an online business model. They’re a specific way to provide your coaching services, just like a one-to-one package.
Must-Have Features of Great Membership Platforms
There are dozens of membership platforms that coaches can use to build their own community, but their features largely differ.
While some are easy to use for you and your members, others are clunky and poorly designed. Your must-have features for your ideal membership platform will depend on your needs, but here are some non-negotiables you should look for:
- Ease of use for your clients
- Easy setup for your skill level
- Integration tools that let you connect your membership site with other apps
- Payment processing
- Cloud-based features (so you can access it from anywhere)
Lastly, a great membership platform should be secure, both for you and your clients. You risk leaking your clients’ passwords and payment information without a secure tool.
10 of the Best Membership Platforms for Coaches
Not all of the tools below are specifically designed as membership platforms, but they have the functionality that allows you, as a coach, to use them for your communities and subscriptions.
1. Uscreen
The first on our list is a favorite among video creators and coaches who love to produce videos.
Uscreen lets you create paid memberships easily that include an on-demand video library, live streaming, and a community space for members. It hosts your content, processes your payments, and encourages members to interact with each other.
Pricing: Uscreen starts at $149 per month.
2. Circle
Circle lets you turn your coaching content into an immersive community experience. If you offer a group coaching membership site, you can use Circle to manage various cohorts at the same time.
Circle is a community-driven platform that allows your members to share their experiences through live chat and learn from each other. This peer-to-peer learning aspect can greatly motivate your clients to progress on their journey. They can learn new perspectives and feel a sense of support and community as they go through change. If your community grows, you can bring in co-hosts to help you answer questions or encourage meaningful sharing and conversations.
Pricing: Circle starts at $49 a month with each most basic features, but you need a Professional Plan at $89 per month to provide courses and live streams.
3. Mighty Networks
Mighty Networks is a great alternative to Circle: it’s easy to set up, and it’s centered around community features like discussion forums, live streams, and media sharing.
It’s a white-label platform that lets you build a branded and engaging community experience. You can design various levels of memberships with online courses or other premium content designed for your clients.
Pricing: This tool starts at $33 per month, with online courses and live cohort features available at the $99 monthly tier.
4. Memberful
If you already have an existing WordPress website, you can use Memberful to host your membership on it without setting up a separate membership site. It works as a WordPress plugin that integrates directly with your website.
Setting up a membership site on WordPress will take more work than using a hosting platform already set up for you. However, if you’re tech-savvy, it’s a great way to offer a membership on your own website and avoid paying for hosting it on another site.
Pricing: You can use Memberful for free, but you’ll pay a 10% transaction fee. You can also opt for a pro plan at $25 a month to reduce your transaction fee to 4.9%.
5. Kajabi
If you want to launch a membership site focused on courses and content, Kajabi has every tool you need to make that happen. Not only can you host your digital products and coaching courses on it, but you can also mass email your customers and leads and create complex sales funnels.
Pricing: Kajabi starts at $149 per month (or $119 when billed annually) with up to three products.
6. Kartra
Like the concept of Kajabi, but want to shave off a bit of the platform fees? Kartra is a great Kajabi alternative with membership sites on top of the other Kajabi features. However, it’s probably only worth it if you have a lot of digital products to share and, potentially, multiple client segments.
Pricing: With Kartra, you can create up to two membership sites and 20 products with the $99 per month starter plan.
7. Podia
Podia’s drag-and-drop site builder and other features make setting up your membership super easy. It’s a platform designed to help you scale your membership and draw in a new audience for your coaching business — with no transaction fees. It combines membership features, course hosting, and digital downloads in a single platform.
Pricing: You can get started for free — although you’ll need to upgrade to the Mover Plan at $33 per month to launch courses and sales pages.
8. Social Lair
Social Lair works a bit differently than other membership platforms: it allows you to create your own custom social media network and use it to sell your products.
You can make your network free or paid, encourage conversations, and upsell your coaching programs via ads. You can even sell ad space for products made by third parties that your audience might find helpful.
Pricing: You can get started for $50 per month for your first lair.
9. Hello Audio
Hello Audio turns your recordings into a private coaching podcast you can share with your clients. You can repurpose your webinars, training, or even talks you’ve previously given into audios that your subscribers can binge on the go.
Hello Audio has no community features like other tools in this list. However, you can pair it with a free solution like a Facebook group or a Slack channel to create a simple membership. It’s a great option if you have a ton of past recordings that would make great podcasts.
Pricing: You can start with Hello Audio for as little as $17 per month.
10. Slack
Though Slack is known as an organizational chat app, you can also use it to host memberships. You can set up different channels for different client groups or cohorts and share membership content with them.
It might be tedious to onboard each member on Slack manually, but it’s a great free option.
Pricing: Slack is free to use with its basic features and offers more robust plans for teams from $8.75 per person per month.
Bonus: Voxer
Prefer to offer audio support instead of chat support? Try Voxer instead of Slack. Voxer is a voice chat app to speak to your members one-on-one or in a group setting.
Voxer is free for large group chats of up to 500 people.
Paperbell
What happens if you want to use Slack or Voxer to deliver a simple, seamless experience for your coaching members — but you still want to offer coaching sessions or manage payments?
That’s where Paperbell comes in. With Paperbell, you have everything you need to manage a simple yet profitable coaching business — and nothing you don’t. If you feel the other platforms are too expensive or have too many bells and whistles, Paperbell has got you covered.
It lets you automate subscription payments to help clients pay for their membership. You can even use it to build beautiful landing pages without creating and hosting an entire website!
Once members are in, you can provide one-to-one or group coaching sessions — but you can also pair it with another free tool like Slack or Voxer to nurture a sense of community. Thanks to automation tools like Zapier, you can automatically add new members to these apps.
How to Choose the Best Membership Site Platform for Your Coaching Business
There is a perfect membership tool for every coach. So, how can you choose the platform that provides maximum value to your coaching clients?
First, define the pillars of your coaching membership. What will your clients get out of the experience? What matters most for success?
For example, will your community be a key selling point? Or do you want members to have immediate access to you for quick questions regarding their coaching process?
Your core pillars and priorities will determine what features to look for. But you also need to decide your method of delivery. Are you a writer? A speaker? A video presenter? What’s the best way you can express yourself? For example, if you need visual aids to guide your coaching clients, Hello Audio wouldn’t work for you.
Finally, assess your tech knowledge and your existing online tools. Can your chosen platform easily integrate with your tech stack? If not, can you migrate everything to that new platform? And can you manage this tool without hiring a tech expert?
Answering these questions will help you choose the most suitable platform for your membership model and clientele.
Streamline Your Coaching Business
Memberships can be a great way to attract new potential clients in your funnel or provide additional value to your clients already on board. However, managing them can add to the complexity of your business processes, which makes it especially key for your client admin to run smoothly.
Paperbell makes it easy to keep your coaching business organized on a single platform, including:
- Keeping track of group coaching sessions,
- Sharing educational materials as a part of your packages,
- And collecting subscription payments.
Create your free account today to try out all the features.
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in January 2023 and has since been updated for accuracy.
