Membership Website Lab Done For Your Membership Websites
Membership sites can truly transform your business, allowing you to help more people, stabilise your cashflow with recurring payments and free up your time.
As the membership model for business has fast gained in popularity, a number of “ready to go” membership template solutions have surfaced, offering you a membership site for as little as $100 per month.
While this sounds like an enticing offer, these “cookie-cutter” sites have a darker side too. For many businesses, what looks like a cost-effective solution can actually end up costing you both time and money in the long run.
1: A Membership Website Is For Life, Not Just For Launch
When you’re first moving into memberships it can be tempting to think that you’ll just set up a cheapy site now, then migrate to a more comprehensive solution as the business grows.
This is a big mistake. You see, even the simplest of “one size fits all” membership templates still take hours to set up. The time, thought and implementation that goes into getting your site live is substantial – and if you later realise that the template you’ve chosen doesn’t meet your needs, all that time is wasted as you have to start again from scratch with a new, more adaptable solution.
When you’re choosing your membership site software or solution, you have to keep thinking long term. Where do you want to take your business in one year, two years or even five years? Thinking ahead and choosing a flexible membership site solution that can grow and adapt with your business can save you time, money and serious stress in the long run.
2: Built For The Masses Not For You
There’s nothing more frustrating than being contained by the limitations of your software. Template “cookie-cutter” softwares have their place, but many people struggle to make them work for all their ideas, programmes and courses.
While you can brand elements of most template sites, the actual structure and delivery of your content is always restricted – you don’t have ultimate editing capabilities.
If you’re serious about delivering excellence to your customers and maximising the potential of your business then you’ve got to go bespoke.
A custom build membership site gives you the ultimate in flexibility. You can tailor it suit your own unique needs – adding automations, functions and features that work for you and your members.
Want to create a step by step video course? Done. Need to deliver live lessons? No problem. Want to gamify your teaching and incorporate certificates and quizzes? You got it. Want to offer a unique combination of all of the above? Absolutely.
A custom-built membership site is the only option that gives you complete control over your membership delivery and the ability to adapt your site as your business grows and develops.
3: Short Term Gain For Long Term Pain
It’s true, the “one size fits all” membership sites do offer you the opportunity to create a simple membership with low up front cost. But what’s the long term investment and opportunity cost from the time spent on these DIY solutions?
Templated membership software pricing costs between $50-£399 per month – with averages of around $100-$150 per month. That’s $1200-$1800 per year.
The thing is, once you’re in – you’re a little bit stuck. Once your membership is live and your customers subscribed, moving membership sites becomes incredibly tricky. This means that you’ve got to keep paying that $150 per month every single month – for the next year, five years or even ten years!
The cost soon adds up!
Over the course of five years, your cheap membership solution will cost you around $6000-$9000 – or more if your members exceed a certain number.
Then there’s your time investment. “Cookie cutter” solutions are DIY. That means they provide the structure, but you have to upload all the content and implement the setup.
How long does it take? Well, that depends on your membership content, but it’s never a quick job. Realistically you’re looking at at least 10 hours – maybe 20-30 if you want to do a good job. Multiply that by your hourly rate (let’s say $30) and you’ve got a whopping time cost of $300-$900 on top of your software fees.
Here at Memberlab, our custom membership sites start from $4975, payable in instalments if you wish. But once you’ve made that payment, the site is yours. So not only does it give you the opportunity to create a fully bespoke membership site that perfectly suits your needs, but it’s a more affordable solution too.
Want To Learn More About Custom Build Membership Sites?
Custom build membership sites give you a totally bespoke, personalized and flexible solution. But they’re not for everyone – to find out more about Memberlab and see if it’s the right solution for you click here to book a demo call…
