Join It Membership Management Software Review: Read Before You Buy

Join It is a membership management software that mainly gives creators and coaches a way to manage and process recurring memberships while keeping records in order.

For some, straightforward administration is exactly what they want.

Others ask a different question: will this kind of tool help me create the membership experience I want for paying members, while also supporting me as I grow, without relying on or paying for multiple tools?

That’s the lens I’ll use in this Join It detailed review. Because when I look at any platform, the real test is whether its design supports the broader picture of running a membership community.

For me, membership goes beyond collecting payments. It’s about creating an experience that keeps people connected and gives them reasons to stay. The software you choose should make that easier, not harder.

In this Join It review, I’ll walk through 14 points I believe are essential for anyone choosing a platform for building a membership business or community:

1. Membership & Monetization
   
2. Community & & Member Management
   
3. Course Creation
   
4. Learning Resources Management
   
5. Events Creation & Management
   
6. Branding and Customisation
   
7. Reporting & Analytics
   
8. Integrations
   
9. Automations
   
10. Marketing
    
11. Mobile Apps
    
12. Customer Support
    
13. User Experience
    
14. Join It Pricing

What is Join It Membership Management Software?

Join It is a cloud-based membership management software built for small and midsize organizations.

It lets you perform the standard functions of membership management. You can create a centralized database of members, set up custom paid membership plans with different benefits and pricing, and manage recurring renewals.

The platform focuses on helping organizations handle the basic mechanics of memberships such as sign-ups, payments, and renewals.

As per Getapp, 91% of Join It users are small businesses/organizations that mostly includes non-profits. That indicates something that as you scale, the platform might now be able to keep it.

Let’s start with the review of the central functionality of Join It: Membership Monetization

Memberships & Monetization

This has been the platform’s focus since it launched in 2016. That focus has kept Join It streamlined: it does memberships, and it does them in a straightforward way.

The tradeoff is that the platform hasn’t evolved much to meet the present or future needs of membership businesses.

Today, better solutions exist that not only manage paid memberships but also layer in features that create more value for members and more growth opportunities for businesses.

To give you a quick idea, consider a platform like GroupApp. In GroupApp, I’ve built memberships at the core but also combined them with courses, community, content, and events (all in equal focus). That creates a full learning community membership platform, a 360° solution without having to rely on or pay for multiple tools.

Now, what does Join It actually offer for membership management?

In a line:

Join It offers staple features that any membership management software should have!

Now, let’s break it all down from the beginning.

When register yourself as a creator or organization, you’re taken through a quick onboarding process that includes two steps:

1. Asks for basic information that includes your currency, language, logo, and estimated membership count.
   
2. Create your first membership type. You’ll be ask to specify information like membership name, registration type, display settings, and price.

Once done, you’ll be taken to an admin dashboard with all the backend membership management options. (I’ll cover the admin dashboard itself in a later section. Do checkout!)

Once you’re in, you’ll be able to see the following features. Let’s review all Join It membership features one by one. You’ll also get to learn how Join It works?

Membership Types

For your clarity, this means adding a new membership plan.

You can set the basics like type (individual or group), membership name, and member status. You can choose to hide or display it. Plus, you need to specify the price.

Here you can also set the price type which either can be fixed or as a Donation Price. I think this feature makes sense since most of the Join It users are non-profit organizations.

Next, you also have the option to specify auto re-billing, expiration, re-billing intervals, and a description for the membership plan.

Once done, you’ll able to configure the following for each membership type:

• List benefits to be displayed.
  
• Get a direct link to this membership plan.
  
• Set up a custom confirmation page.
  
• Set up a confirmation email to be sent.

These are the standard tools you’d expect when building paid plans, whether they’re subscriptions or memberships.

Nothing feels out of place. However, nothing feels forward-looking either.

The setup works if you want the essentials covered, but it stops at that line.

I’ll point out a feature next that does stand out as a smart move by Join It.

Gift Memberships

Now, this is a feature I actually like. Join It makes it easy to purchase a membership as a gift, without forcing the recipient to go through account setup first. The recipient gets a confirmation email, and the giver can add a custom message that’s included in that email.

It’s a simple touch, but it adds flexibility. I think organizations with supporters, alumni, or families who want to share access, gift memberships can be a smart way to drive new sign-ups.

Digital Membership Cards

This feature lets you create a digital card for members that includes all the key membership info. You can customize it with colors, add your logo and enable QR code on it. The sole purpose of this feature is to offer little convenience as one can save these cards to digital wallets like Apple Wallet.

Membership Form Builder

Form builder to collect member data during sign-up. You can toggle default fields like name and email or add custom fields for more detailed information. Custom fields can be reused across membership types and support multiple formats, from text boxes to checkboxes.

Group Memberships

Join It offers group memberships, where multiple people can join under a single plan for one fixed price.

It’s useful for corporate accounts, chambers of commerce, or couples who want one membership to cover several people. Setup is simple, bulk imports are supported, and managing member status across the group doesn’t take much effort.

That said, the feature isn’t as groundbreaking.

Fixed pricing makes sense for predictability, but it limits flexibility compared to platforms that let you scale pricing or build engagement features tailored to groups. Join It keeps administration simple, but it stops there.

Now, let’s discuss the payment management features of Join it.

Payment Setup

Join It handles payments through Stripe, giving organizations a secure way to collect dues and process transactions.

You can accept payments directly from your public profile, through the admin dashboard on behalf of members, or as one-time online payments. Offline methods like cash or check can also be recorded in the system.

It covers the mechanics of processing payments, but it’s all built within Stripe’s framework. That means, you’re still tied to its rules and fees.

Recurring Billing

The platform also offers automated recurring billing, keeping memberships active without extra work.

Members are charged on schedule, reducing missed payments, while organizations benefit from steadier, predictable revenue. It’s a core feature every membership platform needs, and Join It handles it reliably.

Failed Payment Notification

When a payment fails, Join It automatically notifies the member and prompts them to update their details. The system retries charges multiple times by default, helping recover revenue that might otherwise be lost. It’s a simple but necessary safeguard that reduces manual follow-up for organizations.

Renewal Reminders

You can send automated email reminders before a membership expires. Members get prompts to renew on time, and organizations can reduce lapses with these scheduled notices. Even after expiration, Join It delivers a final reminder to give members one more chance to come back.

Community & Member Management

Simply, there’s no community aspect in Join It.

That means, you’ll have to rely and pay for a separate platform to host your communities. Most think of relying on Facebook Groups and end up paying a big cost.

Communities have always been an essential aspect of a membership. In fact, a community aspect is a core thing that differentiates a membership from a subscription.

Now, what about your members? How do they interact with you or your organization through Join It?

To answer these questions, let me introduce you to Member Portals.

Member Portals

Join It Member Portals are a sort of a web page that includes all the information about you or your organization. You can customize it with your logo, hero/banner image, descriptions, social links, and also widgets.

Essentially, these member portals are more of an information wall for your membership.

So, is there a way you can interact with your members? For that, Join It offers a feature for posts.

Post

This feature allows you to post your member portal. You can customize the post with layouts and images. However, only you can create posts, not your members. That’s a big limitation. Your members can only make comments on your posts.

Members Directory

You can choose to display a members directory on your members portal. This feature is a simple, quick, and affordable way to build a Directory that highlights your Active memberships. This can be used to either:

• Offer a benefit to your current Active members, so they can view other Active members within the Organization
  
• Highlight your Active members to the public. This works in cases like Chamber of Commerce, Club Management, Development Associations, etc.

However, I think this feature is useless as your members can only view other members, not connect with them.

Membership ID Assignment

Each Membership can have an associated Membership ID that is either entered by an organization admin or the Join It system can automatically generate sequential Membership IDs.

Course Creation

Join It doesn’t include course creation. If your focus is purely on memberships and payments, that may not feel like a limitation at first.

But for many creators, the real value comes when memberships evolve into structured learning programs, exclusive resources, and an online community space.

In that scenario, relying on third-party course tools means piecing together systems that don’t always work smoothly or scale affordably.

Platforms with integrated course builders create a different experience. In GroupApp, courses live right alongside memberships and community spaces. Members can learn, engage, and progress without leaving the platform.

With the GroupApp Course Builder, you can:

• Design full learning journeys with modules and lessons
  
• Add quizzes and assignments to track progress
  
• Run live cohorts by attaching events to programs
  
• Sell courses as standalone products or bundle them with memberships
  
• Drip lessons on a set schedule and completion basis.
  

Learning Resources Management

Many membership models depend on more than just access. They create value by sharing resources like digital downloads, templates, or guides. And if you think about it, that’s the essence of memberships.

These assets can deepen the member experience and, in some cases, be packaged as standalone products.

Join It doesn’t provide built-in tools to manage or deliver resources. Organizations that want to add this layer need external systems.

Platforms like GroupApp address this gap with a dedicated Resource library.

How it helps:

• Central, searchable hub: Learners can quickly find what they need, when they need it, as per their access levels (managed and controlled by you).
  
• Supports multiple formats: PDFs, videos, templates, and more, so you can deliver resources in the format that works best for the material.
  
• Sell as standalone products: Turn individual resources into digital downloads, opening new revenue streams without building a full course.
  
• Evergreen access: Keep resources available long after a program ends, so learners have a reason to stay engaged and keep returning.
  

Events Creation & Management

Join It also includes event management features through its Eventbrite integration.

You can schedule events with an event banner and description along with the external link.

Members can receive discounts, early access codes, and attendance can be synced directly into the database using the integration. For organizations that rely on events, this is practical and works well.

But here’s the bigger point: if a platform can offer memberships with events, why stop there?

Events are just one piece of the engagement puzzle. Members also look for learning opportunities and community spaces to stay connected between gatherings.

Without courses or resource management, the event function feels isolated. It highlights the gap. Join It manages activities, but doesn’t deliver the full member experience.

Branding & Customization

Branding shapes how members experience your organization, and Join It gives you some flexibility, mostly within the member portal.

You can:

• Put your logo upfront
  
• Add a banner image
  
• Adjust layouts
  
• Embed widgets

You can also customize digital membership cards with your own colors. Custom Domain control is the bigger feature here. On the Extra Package (Join It’s most expensive tier), you can serve the member portal from your own domain or set a branded subdomain under members-portal.com.

That’s how you can white-label your member portal.

These options let you dress the portal in your identity.

But the deeper experience like how members actually learn, connect, or engage remains outside Join It’s control.

Reporting & Analytics

Inside the admin dashboard, Join It’s Insights feature gives a clear view of memberships, payments, total value, and emails sent.

You’re able to generate Membership, Payments, Eventbrite, and Check-in reports with ease, but what I think makes this feature robust are automated reports.

Reports can be set to arrive in your inbox weekly or monthly, which takes the effort out of staying informed. To me, that automation is what turns reporting from a chore into a real advantage.

Integrations

Join It lets you connect your account with popular tools like Zapier, Mailchimp, HubSpot, Eventbrite, Zoho CRM, and Salesforce.

That flexibility is useful, but I think the platform leans too heavily on integrations. Relying on multiple external systems adds both cost and complexity to managing a membership business.

Instead of one streamlined setup, you’re often left stitching together several tools to cover the basics.

Automations

I’m glad Join It automates some membership operations, though the options are narrow and don’t give you much control. Here’s what’s included:

• Renewal reminders: automated notices before memberships expire
  
• Emails: confirmations and updates, though many rely on integrations
  
• Insights reports: scheduled delivery to your inbox
  
• Recurring billing: keeps payments flowing without manual effort

These are helpful, but I think automation should go further.

In GroupApp, we built Workflows that let you create custom automations based on logic, filters, and conditions, giving you flexibility to automate repetitive tasks.

Marketing

Join It doesn’t include built-in marketing tools.

For email campaigns or member outreach, you’ll need to rely on third-party services like HubSpot or Mailchimp.

I think a landing page builder would have been especially useful here as the member portal feels dated, and it doesn’t give you the flexibility to truly market your memberships.

This is where GroupApp provides extra value with its built-in Landing Page Builder that comes at no additional cost as its included in your plan.

GroupApp comes with a full-featured, drag-and-drop landing page builder designed to help you sell, onboard, and showcase your membership value and plans.

In addition to standard content blocks, you can:

• Display course cards, events, pricing plans, and upsell offers
  
• Add CTAs, branded sections, testimonials, images, and videos
  
• Customize layouts deeply with grids, spacing, colors, logos, and footers
  
• Build custom checkout and upsell blocks directly on the page
  
• Add navigation headers and footers to create full membership sites

In practice, you can launch a fully branded landing page in under 30 minutes using GroupApp’s ready-to-use templates.

Mobile Apps

Join It doesn’t provide a mobile app for members or admins. Access is limited to the web portal, which means organizations miss out on the mobile convenience.

Customer Support

The platform keeps support straightforward.

The Support Center offers guides and articles that cover most setup and troubleshooting questions. For direct assistance, there’s also a chat option where you can reach the support team.

User Experience

I appreciate the simplicity of Join It’s admin dashboard. Navigation is straightforward, with a left-side menu that houses most of the key options.

That said, I think some features are harder to find than they should be.

Integrations, for example, sit inside the Automations tab, while membership settings (which is Join It’s core functionality) are tucked under Members.

It’s not complex, but it can be confusing. Add in the lack of mobile apps, and the experience feels functional rather than polished. It’s fine for administration, but not designed with modern flexibility in mind.

Join It LMS Pricing Review

Join It offers three paid plans, each priced for up to 250 members, with a free version available at every tier.

Costs increase as your member count goes up:

• Starter Package @ $29/month – 3.0% service fee for online transactions (plus Stripe fees).
  
• Total Package @ $99/month – 2.0% service fee for online transactions (plus Stripe fees).
  
• Extra Package @ $199/month – 1.5% service fee for online transactions (plus Stripe fees).
  

In addition to Join It’s own service fee, Stripe charges its standard processing fee (2.9% + $0.30 per transaction).

From my perspective, the pricing looks simple but becomes less attractive once you account for service fees, Stripe charges, and the fact that key branding features are reserved for the most expensive plan.

For smaller organizations, Starter or Total may be workable, but growth can quickly push costs higher, especially if you want access to more advanced customization.

Is Join It Enough for Today’s Membership Businesses?

Join It has a clear purpose:

It manages memberships. Plans, renewals, payments, and reports all run smoothly, and for organizations that only need administration, it works as promised.

The question I ask, though, is whether this model still serves membership businesses today.

With Join It, you’re paying service fees while also layering on extra tools for courses, events, resources, marketing, and communication.

Costs add up for you, and the experience gets fragmented for members.

I’ve seen this play out often: leaders spend time stitching systems together while members are constantly running between platforms just to catch the value, which is scattered. That it undercuts retention, because the very convenience members signed up for isn’t there.

This is why I believe the future isn’t about piecing together separate tools. It’s about a platform that connects the core operations with the member experience, giving both sides one place to grow.

So, here’s the best Join It Alternative for You!

GroupApp – The Best Join It Alternative for Membership Management

If Join It covers the basics of administration, GroupApp is built to deliver the full membership experience.

It’s an all-in-one learning community platform designed for creators, coaches, and organizations. With GroupApp, you can manage memberships, teach, engage, and monetize in one connected ecosystem.

Here’s what makes GroupApp a stronger, more complete alternative:

• Free plan available: Start with a free forever plan that costs $0
• Built-in course builder: multimedia lessons, drip content, progress tracking, assignments, and quizzes
• Monetization tools: sell memberships, courses, downloads, and events with 0% transaction fees. Comes with upsells, automated recurring billing, and checkout pages.
• Landing page builder: drag-and-drop pages with upsells, pricing blocks, CTAs, and full site capability
• Mobile apps: iOS and Android apps to keep members engaged anywhere
• Advanced automation: workflows with triggers, filters, and webhooks. Plus, you can automate your onboarding process, email reminders, and community posts.
• Content library: host resources, programs, and community in one place
• Advanced integrations: connect with 20+ tools to save time and increase productivity

With GroupApp, you can sell standalone products or tie them into a connected community, run live events and courses in the same space, onboard members intentionally, and automate the busywork.

Nothing here is an extra paid add-on. Every feature is part of your plan!