This is my honest and sincere review of Membergate and Amember.. As I write this review my intent is to draw upon my experience and make it informative enough for you to make a better choice. I have lately seen this question being repeatedly asked “Amember or Membergate” in many of the forums where I contribute and seek help. So I took a stab at it.
There are certainly pros and cons around both and I will get to the bottom of it..before I start.
Why I am qualified enough to write this review?
- Exploring membership sites since 2003 in different niches
- Currently have 2 membership sites on membergate and one on Amember. A few more in the trenches..
- Made every known mistake on earth starting and running a membership site and continue to do so :)-
- Started a site on Amember and migrated to Membergate.
My quest with membership sites started in 2003. Soon I discovered SWEPA and became a member of it. In my opinion it was one of the best membership sites ever created on “how to start a profitable membership site” before it was closed, Tim Kerber came and filled this void.
Currently I have two sites running on membergate (http://www.investorfortune.com and soon to be launched http://www.successEngineer.com)
I have one site running on amember(http://www.lineofcreditworkshop.com)
Easy to user, easy to buy(cheap), installation comes free, Open platform integrates with 40 different applications, Integration with Drupal, Joomla etc All that is good.
There are a couple of hosting providers they recommend, I am yet to understand why?. If the application works on linux? I can use it on any kernel of Linux. I am yet to test amember on a host that I like.
Why I recommend Amember after all?
The ability to customize everything is something I like about it. Moreover the application has the blessing of thousands of developers worldwide. It??™s constantly evolving and will on day become the grand daddy of subscription sites. I like the strong integration it has with 1shoppingcart. The customer support is also excellent. A great tool to explore and test drive the market.
Membergate is the google of membership sites( in its price category) there are more expensive solutions in the market. The software is written with Coldfusion and is extremely SEO friendly (I have not lost page rank despite of not updating content for months). The support is excellent. Tim and Valerie are great. Bill Myers the founder is a master himself.
While Membergate is extremely customizable, it comes at price point that most people just shy away from. Tim Kerber told me an amazing thing… if you are having trouble imagining paying $40 towards hosting or $4K for a good platform, then you will quit the business sooner or later as you will have a hard time keeping up with operational demand of the site. I am yet to understand why/how people pay thousands for traffic and list building without questioning much while they negotiate every bit when paying a designer for a good design? After all a good design equally plays an important role in a site’s success.
The Arguments in Member gate??™s Favor
- Has been around for a longtime.
- Has excellent support.
- Ease of use.
- Many star marketers use it.
- Highly Customizable
- $5K is tip in the bucket given the cost
- Price includes a stunning design.
- Ability to detect multiple signons with same user id and locking it.
- Why not start the right way and get a good platform in the first place.
While every argument you see here makes sense to some extent, be informed that Membergate is not the ultimate recipe for success. It’s easy but you have to invest time to learn it. A little bit of knowledge in cold fusion will help but not required, again you can take the help of support if you lack any. You can certainly start with a custom script or amember and move to membergate as you go along. I have done it and it??™s Ok. Agreed it??™s a hassle but If need be? You can ask your subscribers to re-subscribe (many marketers scare you away form this) but listen, if you have a good relationship with your list, this is not an issue and credit cards do expire and you have to contact these subscribers anyway regardless of the platform.
People who drop out. you don’t want them in the first place. Trust me its better not to have them rather than deal with support calls for $19 refunds.
Just because some marketers use it, doesn??™t mean I have to be blind. So do your own due diligence.
Longevity of an application and acceptance in the marketplace are not as important to me as the functionality and ease of use. If this would have been true people would not have tried the iPOD in the first place.
Why I recommend membergate after all?
When I start a business I am in it for a long haul despite of the immediate outcomes. I also believe. if you pay $5K for a software the chances of you staying in the game for a long run are higher. You pay $200 you will give up quick! I am not saying you have to buy the expensive software to stay in the game but the point is… you are more motivated as too much is at stake. If you have to be in the game any way? Why not get in with completeness. I believe member-gate is a complete solution. With some needed enhancements
The admin section of membergate is very inviting. Once you learn it? It??™s very easy to use and make changes. If you have plans to distribute content in series of small articles, audios or videos and with strong security, user management & design in place you should consider it.
- Allow data conversion between from VBulletin and PhpBB, and other commonly used forums into Membergate and vice versa
- More customizable dynamic reports with drill downs. Currently the reports are static.
- Compliance with Web 2.0
- Ability to users to create their own blogs and secure them with their own subscription model( membergate within membergate)
- Change the look and feel of forums to the PhpBB or VBulletin and
- Stronger integration with Aweber and 1Shoppingcart.
Always think one membership site ahead. Don’t spend $5K on one site with just a $5K budget. Start with a $10K budget. This holds true even if you go with a less expensive amember installation. Trust me, one way or the other you will need a lot of money to drive traffic. So if it costs you $5k to buy or build a site then get ready to spend $5k or more on traffic.
Membership sites are not an easy business. Many successful membership site marketers know that creating value just with content is not enough, so they do many things in the back( such as Monthly CD’s, special reports, live workshops) and constantly upsell.
Good content without attention grabbing copy is useless. Bad content with great copy is useless too. You have to become a good marketer (takes time) or associate yourself with someone who is good (hard to find or win over) to become successful.
Get ready to accept failure with a pinch of salt, at least 3 times (my personal experience) before you get the first one right. You can hit a jackpot with the first one like that top 1% if you plan well or just simply get lucky.
If you think the only thing that is stopping you from getting the success you deserve with your membership site is content. Think hard! Apparently Jay Abraham, Tony Robbins poured hundred of thousands of dollars and never got success with the membership sites. They are epicenter of content and marketing.
If you fail quickly…re-assess, re-strategize, and re-position yourself. Don’t give up! If this involves paying for a re-design, re-writing the content, changing the message? go for it.
Some concepts naturally align well with memberships (don’t get intimidated by others success)..You launch it today you will have 100 paid subscribers by end of the week. Some niches you have to educate people the hard way before asking for money. They will pay but it will take a lot of time. Most internet marketers behave as if there is no tomorrow.
In Conclusion
I think I pretty much covered everything I thought off… But before I close. With the new internet revolution happening with Web2.0 and Social Media Marketing taking the prominence…I personally do not know how paid subscription sites will fair in the long run. I am experimenting with “Social Media Traffic” and will post my thoughts here soon…
Would love to hear your thoughts on this post. Please post your comments here and let me know if this was helpful.
Wishing you an abundance of success with your membership sites!
Srini Saripalli
6 thoughts on “Membership Site: Which Membership Platform ..Membergate, Amember or something else?”
Have you heard of Sheri McConnell ? She sells a membership toolkit on here one of her membership sites. She has several sites.
Could you provide a link to this MemberGate website?
Thanks for your comments on which platform works best for you. I am looking at different possibilities right now.
Before reading your post, I sent Tim Kerber a message asking we meet for coffee (we live only 10 miles apart).
My membership site is fairly basic and I don’t think I need all that MemberGate offers?
Someone mentioned that I use a password Blog for my needs. In my membership I am offeringa few things:
– one interview a month (based on 12 principles)
– Once a month group call to discuss interview
– Forum type
– and maybe other things…
I am going to be the supplier of a membership site for many Internet Marketers (whom I’ve spoken to). They’ll be able to add this membership site to their list of customers.
I would really like to find someone to run this service, or at least work with me to set it up.
Any idea’s or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Bill Covert
Dover, NH
billcovert@comcast.net
I am a virtual assistant for several membership based sites and I have to say hands down MEMBERGATE IS THE BEST!!! Great to use, and great customer support!!
Thanks. I attended UG5 in February. That’s where I learned about Membergate. However, Yanik Silver recommends that when you start a new venture, invest the least amount of money you can. If it proves to be viable you can always spend more. On this basis, I am considering starting with ning.com. Once a lot of user-generated content has built up, is it possible to import the forum content into Amember or membergate?
Having used the likes of MemberGate, Memberstar and a variety of WordPress plugins over the last couple of years, i’ve found the hands down winner to be SubHub (http://www.subhub.com)
They run a managed membership site platform, which includes an affiliate system and a store. Not only is it slick and easy to use – it’s pretty much bug free and costs much much less than MemberGate at $97 month, including the hosting and future upgrades.
I think they now have a free trial as well.
Jason