MemberVault Review – What You Need to Know & the Best Alternatives

Are you interested in hosting courses on a platform but aren’t sure which one to choose?

A good membership platform must be used if you want your business to succeed. There are so many possible choices, and MemberVault is one of them. But is it the best option you could go for?

This MemberVault review will give you insight into its features, as well as reasons why you should opt for some better alternatives.

What Is MemberVault?

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MemberVault is a platform where you can host content and sell online courses and other digital products. It’s a “binge & buy marketplace” where you can put your courses, offers, PDFs, and different membership programs, and it can replace your website.

You can use MemberVault to host group classes, one-on-one sessions, or free challenges and other similar happenings.

However, none of these things make it stand out in the space of membership-based platforms. Most people found MemberVault to only have essential features, and you’ll see why they’re not the best in the next part of the article.

MemberVault has a good marketing system, with one feature that shows you warm and hot leads through audience insights. These are the users that engage with your content more, and they’re more likely to purchase a different product from you. MemberVault shows you who they are, so you can target them through the email service provider and sell products to them. This creates a supportive buying experience and can increase your revenue stream through conversational marketing.

But first, let’s talk about the feature that differentiates MemberVault. They don’t have new features, but they incorporated a method that will help you get your clients interested in products. This method is called gamification.

Gamification

People naturally like games and rewards, which is where gamification comes in handy for marketing purposes. Adding game elements to non-game activities can drive the members’ motivation.

It’s usually done through little quizzes and mini-games that lead to hidden rewards and bonuses for members. This makes them more engaged in your content and can increase conversions and sales. MemberVault is an innovative membership platform incorporating this method.

Gamification is a suitable method you can incorporate into your business as social proof of members’ success. MemberVault does this through little quizzes and assignments. Each member can get points for finished tasks, which puts them higher on the public Leaderboard. That being said, this learning style doesn’t suit everyone, but if it’s for you, you’ll love MemberVault.

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Why MemberVault Isn’t the Best Option for Your Online Business

MemberVault is mostly a basic membership-based platform, with only one thing that makes it stand out from the rest. And still, that thing might not be suitable for everyone.

Not everyone’s learning or teaching style relates well to turning everything into a game and creating competition. If you’re one of the people who prefer a calmer but transformative learning environment, you should look into MemberVault alternatives.

But first, let’s see why MemberVault might not be the right platform for you.

It Only Has the Most Basic Features.

Aside from gamification, MemberVault doesn’t have anything that makes it stand out from the rest of the membership platforms. All the features are functional, but they don’t come with an outstanding level of detail to them.

If you’re looking for a simple base for your online business, it can work for you. But you shouldn’t expect any wild growth or a sense of a developing community.

Compared to other industry leaders on the market, MemberVault lacks thoroughness that could make it everyone’s first choice. Some examples include an affiliate program that, even though it exists, isn’t as sophisticated as the same feature on other platforms. And when you run a business, you need that sophistication.

Additionally, customizing sales pages and module options is very surface level. You can add pages and host content in a couple of different formats, but it’s nothing more than that. Also, if you’re interested in launching a successful online course, MemberVault might not be the place for you since it’s not very course-oriented.

Whether you want to host a free challenge or just put your small business on this membership site is up to you, but first consider whether other hosting platforms are a better choice.

And even though it’s so simplified, it’s still hard to learn how to use all of its features. This leads us to the next point.

Not the Best UX Design

Another thing that could turn you away from MemberVault is UX design, which isn’t as well-developed as other similar websites. The UX design, also known as User Experience design, is connected to design, usability and function.

You’d want to host your business on a platform that’s simple to use and won’t create any problems, especially if you’re not tech-savvy. It’s essential to look at this problem from two points of view.

First, how does the platform work for you as an administrator? Is it easy to use? Is the design satisfying to look at? Can you handle all of the features easily? In the case of MemberVault, it seems simple, but some of the features are hard to get to and understand how to use.

Second, you should try to look at it from the member’s point of view. Is it easy for them to use this platform as a place for learning and maybe even communicating with other members? Does it create a suitable environment for learning? MemberVault seems a bit dated in this area as well.

It Doesn’t Help You Build a Community.

Building a community from your members is most important when creating an online business focused on learning.

MemberVault doesn’t have an integrated feature where you can start conversations or discussions with members, which is a significant disadvantage. It’s just not a relationship marketing platform. Just because you’re hosting an online course business doesn’t mean that your involvement as the course-maker should stop at posting the content.

By creating a community where members can interact, you’re not only building your brand and customer satisfaction, but you’re also creating a support system. You should have a place where members can ask questions about the course or start discussions on their own to try and handle any doubts and questions. It keeps your business feeling personal.

When we learn in a community, we can ask questions and learn from each other, creating a transformative learning experience. Additionally, by joining discussions and asking questions, members are more likely to retain information from the course. Sure, quizzes help retain information, but not as much as discussions.

You can only create a community on a third-party tool, like through a Facebook group, and not on your own website. Speaking of communities, as an administrator you won’t have access to customer support if you’re on the free plan. Those who don’t use the paid plan can find solutions only through the official Facebook group for MemberVault.

Subsequently, this leads us to consider whether gamification is the proper method for everyone.

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Not Everyone Likes Gamification.

As we mentioned, gamification isn’t the right learning tool for everyone. Some people don’t find motivation or satisfaction from being put on a public leaderboard, even when only the top 10 spots are shown.

MemberVault is the only membership platform with gamification, its key method. It’s shown through stuff like points and the Leaderboard. Every member can get engagement points for different actions, like completing a lesson or a module, doing well on a quiz, and other similar activities. This can put them on the Leaderboard, which shows only the top 10 students.

Creating a competition-based learning environment seems OK initially, but it’s less effective than community building, which we just talked about. When you make a competition, people tend to try for a while, but they won’t keep trying if they don’t see the results. Also, there’s no proof that gamified learning experience will improve material retention better than some other options.

You can improve this method by offering free stuff to the top members, but it’s still less effective than creating a place where people can learn, discuss and leave satisfied, knowing they learned something.

Lacks Deep Integrations

When you use a platform to host your business, you need options. Sure, an all-in-one platform seems great, but what if you’re more satisfied with how your third-party email marketing tool works? An excellent business hosting platform should have deep integrations available.

MemberVault lacks some key integrations with popular third-party tools. In addition, it’s not even an all-in-one solution, so it lacks in this area. For example, you can directly integrate MemberVault with ClickFunnles, but you can use Zapier to create this link. However, many possible integrations are available with most email autoresponders.

Email marketing is a very important aspect of running a business online, and membership sites should always have a functional feature for it. You can use email marketing to send a welcome email to new users and inform members about new paid offers. They can even get immediate access to their account through the one-click link, which automatically logs people. They just need to join and this step is automated moving forward.

Not Very Affordable

Last but not least, MemberVault pricing isn’t the most affordable, especially considering the disadvantages it comes with.

Of course, you can test it out first through the free plan, but some of the features of the free MemberVault account are limited, and you can only have up to 100 members. You get all of the features on the free version of your MV account, like your own marketplace with shopping cart service, where you can host free and paid offerings.

If you want to run a business on a bigger scale, you need to test out a platform that shows you what’s it like when you have a lot of members to track. Even the gamification doesn’t justify the MemberVault cost, you’ll still be pleasantly surprised by the number of features you get from the free plan.

The good news is that, since the free plan is capped at 100 people, you might be able to host your small business on it. The free version means that you’ll have to resort to Facebook lives for help, but you can still access some of the features like hot leads, so it’s not a big deal.

Also, even the paid plan is too much for a platform that can’t compare to other industry leaders you can find today. It’s just not that well-developed to match them.

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The Top 3 MemberVault Alternatives

Unfortunately, using MemberVault has some limitations, depending on how you work. But, lucky for you, the market is filled with similar platforms you can use to host your courses and digital products on.

Here are some of the best alternatives for MemberVault on the market.

GroupApp

MemberVault and GroupApp are similar. Each is a membership site with product-hosting for your business. However, GroupApp comes with built-in communities, which is essential if you want your business to grow.

GroupApp focuses on creating, hosting, and selling courses, from the course outline to different publishing methods, so it’s built to deliver the best online course experience. You can sell memberships and host courses on GroupApp.

They both have a single library where you can host all of your products, like videos, PDFs, worksheets, and audio files. Also, they both have the one-click login option.

Both MemberVault and GroupApp are platforms where you can post unlimited courses, and they both come with great customization and modification options. They both let you drip content and track students’ progress, and GroupApp also lets you create cohort-based courses for a group of people.

GroupApp doesn’t gamify, but it has something better – the focus on community building. On GroupApp, all members can communicate in different group discussions, channels, and direct messages.

This also makes it easier for them to contact the lecturer if they don’t get something. Also, you can sort them into different channels based on their membership tiers and groups. Membership tiers can have separate payments and levels, from a free tier to a high-paying one.

Creating a community for your online courses creates a transformative learning experience, which is extremely helpful for students. Here, members become a part of a supportive environment that will improve their learning and make them more satisfied with the course.

People often forget how important and beneficial it is to have a proper learning environment where you can freely ask questions, even in a course. This way, you can also create accountability for the students.

You can make upcoming events and live lessons on the calendar for the whole community to see and engage with, and you can create and schedule community posts and emails. It also lets you simply make quiz questions and assignments.

Simple customization and various module options let you create a well-defined online course business. You can publish all of your courses at once, or you can set dripped content. Proper analytics is also a must for any business, and GroupApp supplies you with that.

GroupApp is more affordable and has better integration options than MemberVault, with more integrations through Zapier, and you can integrate your API if you have coding knowledge. You can even try it through the free plan. It’s also available for Android or iOS.

Thinkific

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Thinkific is an online platform for creating, selling, and delivering online courses. It’s pretty famous, and you have probably already heard of it.

It comes with a simple drag-and-drop builder you can use to create your pages, and you can use various file formats. The courses are made with the help of a couple of templates, which doesn’t give you complete customization, but it helps get the job done.

Besides that, it comes with all of the essential features a course-hosting website should have. You can customize modules, drip content, publish it all at once, and create quizzes and assignments for the members.

It’s mainly a better-developed version of MemberVault. The features are the same, just more detailed, and the only difference is that MemberVault incorporates the gamification method.

Neither Thinkific nor MemberVault has an integrated space for building communities and starting discussions and conversations with the members. If you’re interested in learning more, check our Comprehensive Thinkific review – (Must Read Before Buying).

Teachable

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Teachable is one of the more famous platforms you can use to offer courses and unlimited products. It’s primarily used as a place for online courses, where you can create and publish them.

There aren’t a lot of differences between Teachable and MemberVault. They both have the essential features that any similar platform has, but Teachable, arguably, does it better than MemberVault. As mentioned before, MemberVault features just aren’t as detailed as they should be.

The only easily identifiable difference between the two is gamification, which helps people be more engaged. However, as we said before, this isn’t the proper method for everyone. Another thing that Teachable and MemberVault have in common is that they lack integrated space for community building and discussions.

Teachable is a better option, but you’ll have to pay up if you want to try it out in full. The free plan is capped at only ten members and doesn’t include some of the key features, like dripped content and third-party integrations. Also, you’ll have to pay transaction fees, which isn’t the case with MemberVault.

You can read our Thinkific vs Teachable – A Comprehensive Review to learn more about these platforms.

TL;DR They’re not worth it.

Our Verdict

So, should you use MemberVault? Its gamification and conversion tools make an excellent platform to host your business. But it lacks communities, integrations, and affordability for the paid plans.

If you want to find a platform to sell online courses, it’s better to choose one focused on that niche, like GroupApp. GroupApp helps you sell classes and memberships and create communities, and it’s an excellent MemberVault alternative. Sign up for GroupApp today to try it out and start selling courses to make more money!