A Sinking Ship

I have been a long time client of WA (7 years), but we are unlikely to renew. 3 years they ago they had a 40% price increase, but they allowed you to renew for up to 2 years at the previous rate. That increase was somewhat understandable because they had not raised fees for the previous 4 years we were clients. 2 years later they had another 40% increase but did not offer the same renewal. Neither increase coincided with major functional additions other than normal enhancements to existing functions. Today they announced a new 20% penalty if you don't switch to their payment processing system (US/Canada only). We have no intention to switch from PayPal so this was the last straw. We will be looking for an alternate option. They were acquired by a larger company and subsequently and equity firm. These increases are obviously cash grabs from current clients without considering the impact to the organizations. My suspicion is the company has a major cash flow issue and this is a way to get money now. I would be very leary of the stability of the company as they will lose many clients over this. This is really unfortunate because their tool is excellent!

Pros

WA has a great feature set that includes a lot of the functionality we need to completely manage our membership, communication, and payment collection. I especially like that we can have bundle memberships and can create saved searches for email distribution or member management.

Cons

There are occasionally issues with some of the search fields that can only be resolved by logging off and back in. I would like to have group texting capabilities.

Excellent Management System for All My Needs

I began using WA in 2011 for a non-profit managing 90 volunteers and various events and fundraisers. Since then, I have created WA accounts for 3 other non-profits of similar size AND, as of 2017, also created a WA software account to manage my professional association of 1,000 members with great success. I am a huge advocate for Wild Apricot software and how is can effectively manage members/volunteers and manage events/fundraisers/conferences while being a user-friendly, professional platform to market my organizations.

Pros

The simplicity yet robust nature of this software is awesome. The user-friendly setups and ease-of-use make it an effective tool to help manage various facets of the organization. Many screens are at-a-glance summary overviews while others provide sufficient detail to meet a variety of needs. Many of my volunteers are elderly and they can navigate the system just as ease as a techny-teenager. The system is user-friendly enough that, if you are in it every day, it is not cumbersome and, if you are an infrequent user, it is quite intuitive.

Cons

While I like many things about the software, I only wish there was a way to (1) track volunteer hours within member profiles and (2) have the ability to use more than one payment system (I have a 501c3 and 501c4 organization with different financial needs) so I wish I could manage both within the same software system. So, those are big wish list items that I hope come along in the future but so far those are manageable through other less than ideal means. Otherwise, on a daily basis, there is very little I have issue with within the software.

Wild Apricot: A Quick and Efficient Event Software

Our component school district staff members and members of the public who register for programs understand intuitively how to register for our programs. The function most used by staff is the Excel download. Staff are able to easily sort and filter data to invoice schools and other agencies for multiple registrants through our agency finance system as required by law rather than through Wild Apricot's invoicing system. Our Wild Apricot website was once very robust. We have been able to simplify it while using the same template so the site is easier to use and looks much more like our agency site making the flow from one site to another nearly seamless.

Pros

Our agency hosts many repeated events not only multiple times during the school year but that also repeat year after year. The ease with which events can be duplicated and edited for specific dates allows staff to set up a year's worth of events in just a few hours.

Cons

We have many users creating events and Wild Apricot has only one events manager. We do have a very talented group but there is still a bit of nervousness since events are unable to be compartmentalized by a user or a department. PayPal payments are collected into one bank account and have to be parsed out after receipt by registrant as to which account the funds need to be deposited. We would like to have payments tied to department accounts for each event and pass that info through PayPal to our Fiscal Department.

Does the job but feels very outdated

It is functional and works, but has a lot of room for improvement--especially with the increase in cost.

Pros

It was very nice to have a software to organize our membership. The software was built into the website directly, so members can directly renew their membership while browsing the website. You can build different user permissions into different levels.

Cons

The UI of the websites you build with this and the backend feel outdated. I feel like the event tool could be more powerful, especially with how powerful you can easily build websites with Drupal/Wordpress. It would feel more like a membership program if the events could be dynamic with attendees, volunteers, being able to list what is still needed, etc. We found ourselves moving to Facebook or Next Door a lot to interact with our members. Also, in the span of one year, our plan went up by $20/month, which was an extra $240 a year for our small, local advocacy group.

Membership Software

Every support request has been taken care off super-quickly. It has been a pleasure to work with the WA team since 2015.

Pros

it covers all needs: membership database mgmt, event mgmt, communications. All in one place

Cons

a bit constrained when it comes to webpage design, but all the functionality behind (database, calendar, etc), it is OK, it is definitely worse working around it.

You Get What You Put In

The customer service at Wild Apricot is good. If they are busy and request for you to leave a message for a call back. Do it. They will call you back and it's likely the caller will be able to help. Do not give up hope!

Pros

Flexibility; we have an unusual membership structure and Wild Apricot was the only platform at the time, that could help.

Cons

Several "static" pages cannot be customized and are bit baffling to our users. It's pretty minor. We have created workarounds.

Ease of use

Excellent

Pros

I like the membership fields as they are easy to navigate. It makes my job as secretary easy when I can log on and move about the site easily.

Cons

Sometime the emailing system can be a bit difficult.

Wild Apricot is a great site to run your business.

Wild Apricot is amazing if you do not want to go through the hassle of building you r own website from scratch.

Pros

I really enjoy the ease it is to set up stuff like events or to add members/contacts.

Cons

Honestly, there price hike in July has been unsettling. The price to begin was already kind of high and now its 20% higher.

One of the Best

Wild Apricot is a powerful solution for membership management, entry-level web stores and organizational websites. The company provides extensive learning tools and is responsive to requests and questions.

Pros

Wild Apricot is easy to use and includes the powerful features I would expect from much more costly systems.

Cons

I dont like the extra costs charged when using a payment gateway other than the one from Wild Apricot.

Very Satisfied Customer

Pros

The software is very comprehensive, robust, and yet easy to use with many automated procedures.

Cons

I really don't have anything that I dislike.

Integral to the Efficient Running of Our Club

We use Wild Apricot to bring new members on board and to renew annual memberships, both of which are the primary revenue sources for a large non-profit like ours. We operate these processes with two employees who work with Wild Apricot on a part-time basis, and two volunteers who also work on a part-time basis. We studied the software (through "on the job training") and then designed and documented processes around the capabilities of the software.

Pros

Completeness: We use the Contacts, Events, Members, Finances, and Email modules extensively. Functionality for membership renewal and implementing a new member acceptance process are quite complete. The ability to manage hundreds of event registrations across dozens of events saves a huge amount of manual labor. Having a reasonably good member portal allows us to shift the burdens of contact maintenance and event registration to the members. They create their profile when they register to apply for membership and maintain it thereafter. If they want to register for an event or training, they do so online (only). We communicate with over 90% of our members exclusively by email, which is very efficient.

Cons

The enhancement request and fulfillment process could be improved, but that's more of a management than a software issue. It feels like we drop a request into the hopper and never see a connection to a software release, although I'm sure some of them get through. I have no idea where our requests stand, and don't know how to find out.

Wild Apricot has everything a non-profit needs

Pros

I was the Secretary for my Chapters well known organization. The Secretarial duties are vast and important to the life of the organization. Wild Apricot appears to have everything a non-profit organization needs. It allows me to do all of the required things necessary. The membership database allows for custom as well as preset categories with specified access. I can keep track of membership categories, addresses, dues due, and Quick books is a part of the application. Reports can be easily generated using the information entered into the database. My favorites are the communication sections. I can announce events that all members can quickly view, be registered for or wait listed. Reminders can also be sent to all members or those specified. Payments can be taken and recorded, invoices and receipts sent. The confirmation emails are customized and can be personalized. Documents that need to be shared can also be done. I find that Wild Apricot can complete all necessary duties assigned to an organization. While all officers can have premium access to all documents, reports and finances 24/7, it also allows for all shades of transparency to members while keeping confidential information secure. I haven't run across any application as thorough as Wild Apricot. I've only used the application a few days as they allow a 30 day trial to try it out and show off their goods to potential users.

Cons

My only concern is that the way in which things are laid out aren't as intuitive as I would have liked. I would rather have an illustrated manual on the dashboard for when a new user signs in. There is a quick 4 minute video guide that I may find usable later on the opening page. But its definitely not a deal breaker for me.

Wild Apricot helped organize our organization!

Our small, non-profit organization of internationally located English teachers needed a "home" for our members to connect. Nobody on the board was particularly tech savvy; nor were we confident enough to build our own website. So we were thrilled to discover Wild Apricot (WA). The tutorials are fabulous, thankfully using simple English and easily understood, and the structure is intuitive to even the most novice user. The Customer Service team quickly replies anytime I have a question. We initiated a small annual membership fee to cover our cost, and WA's automated system tracks our member renewals with ease. We are still able to offer free memberships to our global and student members, and the general membership fees easily cover our annual costs. Our little site hosts all of our organization's history (past conferences, journals, newsletters, etc.), and we're hoping to soon add a Resources tab where our members can share unpublished curriculum ideas for teaching English language learners. I love that we can have a members-only viewing for some things on our site, and open everything else to the public. Our annual conference registration is so much more organized now, and we love the ease of the Paypal system for payments. Of course, there are changes we'd like to see, particular to our organization's needs and goals. Three times I've made suggestions to WA for site improvement, and the follow-up was quick, respectful, and thorough. Suggestions are taken seriously and are useful to the WA team for making site improvements and upgrades. I am happy to write this recommendation and assure you that anyone, absolutely anyone can create a useful and attractive website with the help of Wild Apricot!

Pros

Ease of use for general public, ability to create an attractive, efficient website, Paypal link for easy registration for memberships and conference fees, great customer support

Cons

Some limitations for the structure of the website

Wild Apricot is perfect for recreational clubs

I would definitely recommend Wild Apricot for any organization with a membership and events that require registration. They manage this amazingly well!!. I love the fact that it is so easy for both admins and users to use. Most of my admins and membership are not technical so this is important to us. It's easy to enable blogs, forums, and photo galleries to create community pages -- somewhere that members can connect to the club and each other.

Pros

We are a recreational tennis club with 70 members. I created a great website with a customized membership application form in just one day with no coding required. Within a week, we were live, with online applications and online event registration for tennis tournaments and even electronic payment. I have ALL contact information plus player rankings available when it is time to do the draw; it is so much easier than taking paper entry forms which are not filled out completely or legibly. Thanks to customized event registration forms, I can solicit volunteers at the time that they register. No more calling people at their homes trying to find someone to help!!! I appreciate the security measures too -- I am able to provide club newsletters and photo galleries to club members only. My membership is very pleased with the functionality and everyone says that the club feels more connected this year. The Wild Apricot support team has been responsive to all questions and problems.

Cons

The finance side of Wild Apricot is a little weak as their reports do not take into account the finance fees that Google Checkout and PayPal deduct. And you can't modify the numbers manually to reflect actual amount received, either due to finance fees or if someone sent in a partial payment. They are aware of these issues and are working on them. The other enhancement request that we have is to have users be able to see who else is signed up for tournaments. That's because we are a social organization and because we make use of changing volunteers to help with every event. Wild Apricot is working on this but it was not an early priority because professional organizations that were hosting seminars, for example, had no need for participants to see who else was attending and did not necessarily use any volunteers.

Wild Apricot - Membership and Organization management tools and website.

Wild Apricot has been an awesome tool for us. No complaints at all. I have only contacted Support a few times for special requests and they have been responsive and very good about answering any/all questions.

Pros

I have implemented Wild Apricot for over 20 organizations so far... and was involved in the decision to go with them by comparing to the many other membership website tools out there. In each organization, Wild Apricot always won out. The best part is, Wild Apricot provides for a nice website and all needed integrated features/tools to run a membership organization. Member management, auto-renewals, newsletters, events and management/payments for events, product sales, reporting, and much more.

Cons

About the only con I have heard from clients... is the cost increases that have happened over the past few years. When you consider all the features and how well Wild Apricot does things... it is not that expensive. I often show clients how if they had all the tools and features in separate services it would be much greater than the Wild Apricot price.

We looked for a simple Cloud application to decentralize administration tasks and found it.

Database that is accessible for any of the administrators of the club. Members can self manage accounts. Automatic upgrades and easy to manage Web content. Automatic billing through predefined time periods etc. Ease of use. We were up and running in a few weeks. Data import was easy as well.

Pros

The primary driver was to find something that was intuitive to use. Our staff are all part time volunteers and needed to be able to use the software with minimal instructions from their homes. Wild Apricot provided this by making the import of data simple as well as creating a new Web site that had same look and feel of existing site. Also migrating the DNS was easy. There are plenty of tutorial and FAQ pages to guide you along. Once you under stand the basic concept everything else becomes easy. Best part is being able to grant limited admin access to certain pages for updates and changes. Also by letting users update their own information we saved a lot of time updating Membership data. Creating Events proved very popular as well with Members now being to sign up on line and also remit payments. Integration with PayPal was easy as well. The application packs enough features to make it much easier to manage the Swim Club without making it too complicated to use. Everything beforehand was Excel driven and therefore never synchronized or up to date. I also like the mobile app a lot. Easy to take a look if new members signed up, paid or if member are delinquent without going online.

Cons

We have encountered some minor issues we wished were a little different but nothing to deter from the overall functionality. I think that would be the case with any software packages. So no major cons to report. We like the software. It is easy to use and has powerful reporting etc capabilities.

Flexible software but needs some tweaking

Pros

I manage the memberships for a club that has over 15 teams and 240 members, so it is not the easiest thing to manage. I went through a few different programs and Wild Apricot seems to be the best fit for the numerous needs the Club has! It is easy to track payments - overpaid balances and balance due, I can enter manual payments, add extra line items to keep track of fundraising credits, and easily email families or certain individuals from the software. There are workarounds for some of the limitations that the software has, which has been helpful.

Cons

There are a few issues that I have with this software: 1) it does not allow group invoicing so if I need to add an invoice to all members on one team, I have to go into each account and manually create; 2) it is not intuitive when it comes to families with 2 or more players, as it does not allow two different memberships to be linked to one account - I end up having to create a unique account for those families; 3) it does not allow partial payments. As with most membership sites, I have found the website portion to be somewhat clunky and limited, so I have the actual website on a different platform, which is unfortunate.

Great Service, no hidden costs and love the database

Have been with 3 other companies who promised great things for membership-based software and under-delivered. WA's response time for customer service is faster than any of the other 3. Sometimes takes several tries, but with stay with it and the issue is usually solved. Rather than promising many items before the contract is signed, then revealing that you get rudimentary versions and have to pay for the more robust item that you really need, WA is up front with what you get. They accurately answer questions about this type of issue before you sign on with them. They also have a free version limited to a small number of members, which can let you try everything before you totally commit to a fee-based version for a larger organization with more members. The database is faster than any other we have used. They allow a LOT of fields rather than limiting you to an extra 10 or 29 beyond the basic ones needed for a members-only database. As a result we have been able, for the first time, to keep track online of members, contacts, past members, exhibitors, donors, etc., all online without the need for separate offline databases for some of them. With other companies the limited fields means we could do a lot with members records, but could not adequately add or change anything enough to keep track of advertisers, sponsors, exhibitors for our conference, and had problems with trying to identify prospects for members or to track those who dropped their membership. There are a few areas that still are lacking. We currently use Joomla for content management, and find the Joomla templates, content categorizing, and methods of limiting access to be more useful than WA. There needs to be at least one responsive template, since a large number of our members have become more dependent on tablets and phones for their internet content. The report system gives a nice online report, but results are not printable and when downloaded, give you a spreadsheet including every single field in each record rather than the single items you were looking for in the report. WA makes upgrades about twice a year, usually incorporating the most requested improvements. They also make other smaller upgrades in between the main ones. If you can't wait, tweaks are available for a fee through a third party which is familiar with the WA environment. They are the only organization out there who makes me feel that they really DO care about what a non-profit organization might want.

A great all-in-one package for membership management

Excellent all-in-one system for many basic needs of a member-based organization. Terrific support staff and very clear online documentation make implementation straightforward. Very professional look for e-mails. Be aware that you will need to rebuild your website (and/or be satisfied with a patchwork look as you link from your main website into Wild Apricot).

Pros

We use the software to host our website and manage our membership database/contact system (emails to members and potential members). Before moving to this system, we were using separate tools for these three functions and it was extremely cumbersome. The consolidation was straightforward, their online help documentation is superb, and their technical support is astoundingly prompt and thorough. Seriously. It rarely takes more than 3 hours to get an extremely high quality response, and during one interaction the support staff proactively suggested a completely different approach that had advantages over what we were trying. The contact management system (emails) is beautiful. It has given us a much more professional look and feel for our user base and many of our members have told us they feel it is impressive. We are not using all the features (in particular, photo albums, user forums), but may want to use them some day, it is good to know we have these options for expansion.

Cons

I gave it a three star rating on ease of implementation only because they do not have the ability to easily import your old website into their system. This frankly is not a big problem for us, we wanted (and needed) to overhaul our website anyway, but it means that as of today (three months after go live on the member database and contact management system), we are still transitioning our website. We are all-volunteer with no staff, it is truly not difficult to re-do the website, but if a user is satisfied with their existing website, the effort to transition over should be part of consideration.

Bringing our rowing club into the 21st century!

I was asked to "freshen up" the appearance of our club's static HTML website. I conducted user interviews, during which a lengthy list of wished-for functionality emerged, way beyond the site's appearance. The Board and our members wanted an online implementation for the following: up-to-date member directory; a wide range of membership "types" (scullers, sweep rowers, coxes, paddlers, kayakers, dragon boaters...); automated processing of membership applications and renewals; credit card payments; event scheduling; calendaring; email blasts; donations; and on and on. My research into available options within our limited budget yielded one clear winner: WildApricot. The Board agreed, I ported (and freshened up) the existing website content, and implemented all those requested features. The process was easy and straightforward. The WildApricot online help system is terrific, and the technical assistance is always timely and spot on. We have been using WildApricot for about five years now, and it continues to serve us very well.

Pros

Rich funtionality; ease of implementation; terrific customer support

Cons

Complexity of handling our multiple member "types" (but at least we can handle them!); complexity of analyzing financial data

Great software, constantly improving

We are the oldest and largest ski club in the USA, and switched to WA about 6 months ago after a few years with a much smaller and less robust software system. Our new website is beautiful, packed with content and action-oriented images, and up until recently was administered by just one volunteer web editor. We have gotten positive feedback from our members and guests, and also from members of other local ski clubs in our area. They're jealous! Since we offer over 500 events per year, ease of creating and managing events was a prime consideration. WA's flexible Calendars and event registration, notification and payment options provide an effective means for reducing the workload of our event leaders. Membership management is equally effective, and our membership has grown by 10% or so in recent months. After experiencing some problems with Paypal and Stripe, we seamlessly switched to Authorize.net as our payment gateway, and are extremely pleased with the results. The biggest single weakness for us is with regard to invoicing and payment for our ski flight trips. We offer 15+ trips yearly to over 500 participants, at $1500 to $3000 or more per trip. Our members can register for a trip with a $250 deposit, and we then offer a 3-payment installment plan. WA is not set up for such multiple payments, and so the invoicing and automated email functions must be manually manipulated to be effective. WA is aware of the issue, but no solution is yet scheduled. Customer service is truly outstanding, with most questions and issues addressed in-depth by online tutorials, guidelines, and reference materials. Telephone support is equally good.

Gave us control of our web-presence (finally!)

I like this product so much, after setting-up the site for AGO-Milwaukee, I convinced my church to switch from the service supported by our Denomination to WildApricot and it's much easier to use. We're just getting started, but already our site is far better at serving our needs. I would highly recommend WildApricot for any small to medium organization which cannot afford to hire a full-time computer-geek webmaster but needs an attractive and functional website. The learning-curve was gentle and we were operative in a very short time. I am completely satisfied that WildApricot has allowed us to meet and even exceed our goals for our new website.

Pros

Our goal was to maintain a constantly-updated website, but we were working thru a vendor who designed our old site from scratch and one needed to know html to do any updating. Our events calendar was constantly missing events and full of errors which were difficult to correct. WildApricot allowed us to assign people who were only slightly computer-savvy because no coding was needed. The site is incredibly intuitive and easy to use and takes only minutes a day for people to update. We can assign multiple administrators with different duties and everything doesn't need to go thru a webmaster who may or may not get around to meeting our needs. The site looks wonderful and the membership is responding very positively to its features.

Cons

There is almost nothing I don't like. I wish Safari was supported (and I hear they may be working on that) but it is not inconvenient to use FireFox and it's free, so that's just a very minor annoyance. I would like to see a little more flexibility in the forms-templates -- we had trouble getting the membership categories in the order we prefer on the screen, but all-in-all our experience has been trouble-free. There may be some people out there who will feel constrained by the available templates, but there are enough that our problem was more of which to choose, and I understand that even the templates are customizable (if you know how to code). The standard ones met our needs.

Event Scheduling Needs Work

First, I do love the software and feedback from my members has been great. There are some issues with the event Scheduling, in that most of my events are posted at the beginning of the year so that I can track interest and participation from my members. Most of my members sign up for events as soon as they are posted. Sometimes situations arrive through the year, where they are unable to attend. There is currently no way once registered for an event, to cancel the registration if something comes up. In addition, some of my events require certain memberships to pay a fee to attend, If they need to cancel and reschedule for a different event it would be nice if they had a way to do that without having to pay again. We do not give refunds but I'm stuck with the task of keeping track of Cancellations and Rescheduling Manually.

Pros

It is so easy to communicate with my members, notify them of events and remind them of events.

Cons

Too Much Administrative Emails every time an action is performed by a member. It would be nice if instead (1) email came in Weekly or Monthly to summarize activity especially Event registrations, why can't there be an email option to receive a list of registrants for each event instead of notification every time someone registers. I want to turn this feature off, but I also want to at least be updated- Very Annoying

Wild Apricot - best website and event manager choice for organizations.

I have moved dozens of clients over to Wild Apricot and often sound like a salesperson for them. Overall, an awesome product that is worth the money.

Pros

The Wild Apricot service is entirely online and updates are automatic to the system. Constant upgrades and improvements are noted and over the past few years have seen this service become the very best in class. It has become the single management tool for dozens of membership organizations that I have worked with and even a couple groups that just wanted to manage their events and online presence easier.

Cons

The price has been raised twice in the past year or so but it was very reasonable before that. The cost is still reasonable when you consider all that you get (membership management, event management, online store, online newsletters, a great website tool, etc) but a few of my clients have complained about the costs lately for renewals... so will want to watch this.

Perfect Software for Small and Not So Small Associations

I have all of my clients using this software. I have very small associations on it and one not so small organization. New versions appear to come fully tested. No system is 100% perfect unless you design and deploy one that the organization builds from scratch. However, there is a flexibility to WA that lets us make it work for you. The support both online and in person is superb. Once you get your members to interact with the system you will most likely hear or see comments as "It is really easy to use" or "Even I feel comfortable being online with it". From a technical point of view the application is well integrated and it make navigating the site almost a no brainer. Having said all there are things that can further make the system more effective and efficient. The WA staff is very open to user suggestions and they have a short, medium and long range plan for system improvements and enhancements. Most associations I am familiar with can make this system work for them without an enormous outlay of capital and human resources. Keep up the good all of you Apricots. Lawrence E. Rosenthal, PhD Principal & Owner The Kaleidoscope Associates (TKA)

An inexpensive, easy-to-use, ever-growing association/member management software solution

I have used other software to manage our association's membership, and Wild Apricot is far ahead of the curve as far as functionality, customization, and ease of use. But probably the best feature is Wild Apricot's team of wonderful customer-focused developers and support personnel who respond quickly, efficiently, and reliably to all support requests...at no extra charge!

Pros

Wild Apricot's team is extremely customer service savvy and quick to respond to problems (of which there have been very few). They also are always making product enhancements (on nearly a monthly basis) based upon their customers'/users' requests, suggestions, recommendations, and needs. The functionality is as simple or as complex as needed, based upon the size, structure, and budget of an organization. Online registration has made keeping track of events a breeze; although we have not yet instituted online payment, several options are available. Automatic reminders of membership renewals are easily programmed and customized, as well as event reminders; membership blast e-mails; opt-out feature; advanced search and filtering of member records; back-end administration rights can be customized; importing and exporting records; viewing and editing member records and privacy settings; CSS and Javascript customization; saved e-mail drafts. Pricing is based upon number of active records.

Cons

I have very few complaints. I have requested several features that have been incorporated into the software's functionality. I have made a request that is in the queue for consideration: because our association is for public relations professionals, we have a lot of news, and it would be nice to be able to set news posting dates and archiving dates with individual articles with a library of past news stories. The WYSIWYG formatting for pages is a little clunky, but there is a wealth of documentation for customizing pages as well as support materials.

Great Software for Membership Management

I had reviewed a couple of different options, but opted to use Wild Apricot for our small cultural organization this past summer. So far, we haven't regretted the decision. Previously our site was managed in WordPress but it was designed by a local web hosting company and the old site didn't have any built in membership management and communication features. If we continued to use WordPress we were expected the dish out a lot of service fees to the company to implement additional features to our site. Instead, we moved to Wild Apricot. I was happy with the web design template solutions, and realized with a few minor changes I could achieve the look I wanted for our organization. I am a somewhat savvy computer user but I an in no way a professional web designer or a programmer. I didn't want to dabble too much with completely customizing the themes and style sheets. Wild Apricot's customer service reps were very kind to share with me a few quick tips which allowed me to achieve the perfect look. Membership sign up process has been very easy, and we have just implemented the standard PayPal payment option which appears to be working great. There are only two major limitations with the product for my organization: One is the multi-language support (There is no easy way to create a version of the site in a different language). We opted to list everything in both languages in our links, and repeat content in both languages on the same page. This is actually working OK for us. Second limitation is the inability to create recurring events. One can replicate events easily, by using an existing event... but the simple functionality that's available in Google or Outlook Calendars is lacking. The company does provide frequent updates to the software, though. I was pleasantly surprised to see them incorporate features I hadn't thought of but may come in handy. They allow users to submit items to a public wishlist and seem to listening (at least the easier to implement features are making the update roadmap). Overall, I am happy about the choice. A little bit more flexible pricing may be necessary. I may exceed the 250 members list soon, but my organization will never be getting too big.. If I have to move to the next price range, our Board may feel it's a little too expensive.

Best software for nonprofit clubs

We previously used a small website provider that lacked essential features such as online payment processing. Their technical support was also lacking, and it took months for software fixes to be implemented. When we switched to Wild Apricot, membership levels stabilized, and our cash flow was greatly improved.

Pros

Wild Apricot has all of the essential features that are needed by small nonprofit clubs like ours. It provides a membership directory, supports different types of memberships and durations, and automated renewal reminder emails. Our club offers over 500 events a year, so setting up event applications, registrations and payments is important to us. The software supports several different online payment gateways, allowing our members to submit credit card payments without ever leaving our website.

Cons

There are some missing features that would be helpful. One is the ability to track membership trends over time.

Improved our Web Site and Membership Management

Wild Apricot gave us a professional looking web site and automated most of our membership database and maintenance functions. We moved over from an obsolescent, hand-crafted site with minimal hitches and no outside help. Our membership database was in an Excel spreadsheet, which we were able to import with a modest amount of massaging. WA gives us features we really needed, like online event management and credit card prepayment. For credit cards, WA just hooked up to our PayPal account, with no added fees, although there are other options. Like any complex system, there were some features we had to wrestle with in order to do what we wanted, and a few things it just won't do yet. There is an active "Wishlist" forum and features requested by the user community are steadily being added. But email support is fast and competent and in many cases we were told how to do something or work around a limitation. Switching to any organization management and website platform is a big job and comes with plusses and minuses. Our experience with WA was that the job was easier than we had thought, and there were a bunch of plusses and very few minuses.

Pros

Ease of migration. Ability to easily create professional website with lots of functionality and gadgets.

Cons

Nothing serious enough to mention.

Our professional organization moved to Wild Apricot because it does a complete job of helping us.

If you manage an organization with members and need a full service product that will help you build and manage your website, this is it. It also does all of the back-end things necessary and integrates mail, payments, event management, blogs and many other features all in one product. We LOVE Wild Apricot

Pros

It manages membership, collects payments, sends and tracks emails and also provides all of this in the administrative side of our website. We used to have a self-built website that was a mess. After moving to Wild Apricot, we increased membership by almost 50%. We have a professional looking website now and the bonus of managing our membership, email blasts, payments invoicing and collections. Now they have just added a store front for those who need it. They have built two smart phone apps (one for ADMINS and one for Members) which make it easier.

Cons

It tracks your current members and is up the moment accurate of who is a current member. But I cannot answer the question: "How many members did we have on this date last year?" It takes a slew of special search criteria to even get close to being able to answer that question. I've taken to doing a export of the member list quarterly into a spreadsheet so I can answer such a basic question.

I have been with Wild Apricot for 2 years now, all I can say is THANK YOU!

As a small non-profit and an all volunteer board, we do not have the capability to run our membership sign ups and training registrations, by hand. We now have automated payments, registrations, renewals and are able to communicate in an instant with our membership. It is also very nice to have all of this with a user-friendly website in one place!

Pros

As a small non-profit, this software has made organizing and communicating with our membership SO much easier. Membership is now automatic and registering for our events is easy for our guests and much less work for us. The website is easy to manage, and our financials are much more organized. I think what I like the most about this company is that they are CONSTANTLY improving according to a "wish list". It is very obvious that they care about their customers (US!) and continually work hard to improve. I love Wild Apricot!

Cons

The software is missing just a few things that would be great for us personally, but with 1000's of wishes, I understand that not all of mine will be granted :) As far as function, I have no complaints.

We are largely happy with WA about a year into the relationship

Pros

The product is rather easy to use for my role as web-pages and journal editor and de-facto co-webmaster, especially compared to the high-priced-brand from which we switched (in stages) last year. WA staff have been quite helpful as I asked a lot of questions, some of them later seen to have been kinda dumb. They do strive to improve. Example: When we started, the "Files" function loaded quite slowly via Mac Safari. I beefed and they fixed. Every tool I now use regularly is usually fast and consistent. I cannot speak to the membership-management and money matters that others handle.

Cons

Several small points of inconvenient usability. I did an online survey and mentioned several. The only one I remember clearly was a little thing, having to mouse-click then type then click again when entering anchor names, for example. Fixing that will save about 100 switches from keyboard to mouse and back in an editing session. In text, Ctrl/Cmd-A-X-C-V do work, but Ctrl/Cmd-B-I-U do not. WA staff said they are working on these things. They face real challenges in the way HTML and Word documents afflict text handling, especially links and hidden format code, but those gremlins are probably Internet-wide, certainly on other sites I edit.

Impact SA implementation of membership management software

Our implementation of Wild Apricot was very positive as our lists and fields easily transferred into Wild Apricot. Setting the membership levels was a challenge as we discovered that our different payment options created separate membership levels. If we could have simply set up four levels with different payment options it would be much simpler for our members. Wild Apricot support has been fantastic. Allowing our members to update their information and having members input their own information upon joining for the first time has saved us hours of manual put (both initially and going back to correct errors). One of the drawbacks of Wild Apricot for us is the inability to set up specific payment plans, while it is possible to set up recurring payments we must track the number of payments and turn off the renewal date once the required payment has been reached. Bundle memberships has also been a bit of a challenge as all the payment is required in order to set up the membership. We have created a way around by entering partial payments as a different membership level and moving them into the bundle membership once the required payment is accumulated. The inability to receive regrets for events has also been a bit of a drawback. Performing searches in Wild Apricot is one of it's strongest features. Searches may be saved and used for future needs. It is possible to search by every field that has been set up. Event are also easy to set up and track. The integration with our financial partner and square has also been very possible. Although, the integration with Square seems to be in the initial stages and not fully integrated with Wild Apricot.

Pros

Searches, ability to edit fields and event creation and tracking.

Cons

No ability to set up specific payment plans (i.e. 5 payments, 4 payments). No option to send regrets for an event.

Wild Apricot Review

We are an all volunteer organization of about 500 and use Wild Apricot for our membership database and event registration. Once we made the few changes to customize the site we have found it very easy to answer questions about our membership, handle the renewal process and run our events registration. The work is done by a variety of non-technical members. Wild Apricot help is actually helpful and almost always answers the question. On the few times, there have been problems we have received a very rapid response and the problems have gone away.

Pros

The software can be used by non-technical folks It is easy to add data fields associated with our organization Wild Apricot response to questions and problems is prompt and very helpful

Cons

These are not biggies 1. The search logic is a bit restrictive - no and or within the same search 2. Formatting of event announcements is sometimes tricky, seem to loose control of the font

Association Management - Wild Apricot Style

We are a 35 year old Association Management firm that specializes in managing non-profit trade associations. Over the years, we have worked with multiple clients using the Wild Apricot platform. From 200 members to over 1,300 members, we have been part of Wild Apricot's growth and continued focus on upgrading and improving the technology we need to serve our clients. The ease of learning and using Wild Apricot is a huge part of our success in providing our clients with consistent real time information that allows our clients to offer their members all the services, information resources and communication tools they require. We are a "Can Do" customer service company. Our clients demand that for their members and we deliver it. Wild Apricot has been there for us from the beginning - together we look forward to 'what's next on the horizon.

Pros

Ease of use and dependability. We have never been 'down' or had any technical problems.

Sailing Along

We are a Sailing Club of around 200 members based in the UK and have been using Wild Apricot to manage our Club membership and events for 5 years. The package represents value for money and works well for us in managing both membership and Events. Although, there are still things we would like to see the system has seen significant development during this time eg. The new templates which work well on tablets and phones, the improvements to event management . Despite being across an Ocean the support are both helpful and responsive to issues. We are encouraged to submit our ideas for change. We are regularly complimented on its quality by new members and visiting speakers.

Pros

The package is well thought out in terms of functionality for a club of our size. Always want more but is evolving. Competitively priced. We regularly review other offers.

Cons

Sometimes runs slowly and can become unresponsive which is frustrating. Would like further functionality on events e.g adding guests cannot be done retrospectively.

Everyone professes to be the best, while Wild Apricot is supreme of all the rest

Efficiency times a 1,000 plus effectiveness times 1,000

Pros

The primary focus is tracking members and personalizing them. This is made possible with the back end user field creation. It is simple, user friendly and improves strategies on what to create, track and respond to the member with less man hours to use, that promotes huge cost savings when you achieve more with less using the full functionality and power of the the backend

Cons

Two things, admin access has improved, but no option exist to disallow exporting members. This is a crucial consideration to manage and control member data. If a switch can be added where exporting is an option that would be great. Second is the forum or blog needs an option to screen a post prior to making it public.

Wild Apricot is Outstanding!

My overall experience has been excellent, and I have used it for another nonprofit and recommended it to a third who adopted it, and all have been more than satisfied with the product and service.

Pros

The database and event management tools are excellent, and the website construction is very good as well. I pretty much love just about everything about the software.

Cons

While the software makes it easy to create, maintain, and update the website, there are limitations when compared to other platforms for site creation, but that is the trade-off for getting everything packaged together, and I have been able to do everything I needed to do. On the back end, sometimes things can be a little idiosyncratic or unclear, but the important thing is that whenever I haven't been able to figure out how to do something, the online help guide has made it easy to find the answer, and when I needed to talk to someone, the live chat and phone service has been absolutely outstanding.

Life Saver

This has streamed lined our membership and management there too. I love this website provider. They answer the phone all the time and work for solutions. Yes, there are a few things I would like changed but overall it saved our small organization. We are a nonprofit made up of only volunteers (no full time employees). Thank you for your comment to this software. Check our website out; we are a group of Artist with over 200 members and growing. Our people are starting to use their members photos so it is exciting. Take Care

Pros

Membership management, Easy of posting to website, Albums for our members (their art work is getting attention), Donation and payments, Just about everything is great....Oh email in one system and don't have to do constant contact.

Cons

Need help with members directory....not responding to changes very easily .... had to rebuild several times to get it working. Also, would love to see a flag or way to highlight members who are using their albums. I did figure out a work around by adding a yes/no button to the members questionnaire. Once the member click yes they are using their photo album, I have a saved search that pulls that member to a special membership directory "Members Ark Work to Review". This allowed me to direct viewers to this list instead of the membership directory to view art work. We only had 35 members of 204 using their albums. Now the public doesn't have to hunt and peck and get frustrated trying to see members art work in albums.

Third Party Support for Wild Apricot

Our organization has been using Wild Apricot for many years and as the times changes we are able to keep up with all the features most other websites are using. The website features and options are great, the membership, event and donation features are wonderful.

Pros

Even thought I started the use of Wild Apricot I found a thirty party company Site to be seen that could take my ideas and create a much better website than me. Using Wild Apricot. I could use them to do things in less the half the time it would take me. However, I can still make the minor changes if needed.

Cons

The only downside I see with the software is you have to be a pro to use some of the features. I am not a computer expert and I don't have the time to learn.

Great for Chamber of Commerce/NonProfits with Membership Base

Great for an organization on a tight-budget looking for an all-in-one database for membership management.

Pros

Supports organizations with a few members up to 15,000 (large size range); template-based website design gives the user numerous options. Great customer support/help videos. Perfect for storing information on members, communication and billing of dues. Easy to import spreadsheets. On a tight budget, this is a great all-in-one tool. Minimizes the use of error-prone excel sheets and runs great reports.

Cons

The user interface is a little bit dated and can be confusing. Does not integrate with social media. There are some other membership software that are a little bit more modern.

Best Software on the Planet

Wild Apricot (WA) software works all the time, anywhere and everywhere. Apricot software works on any viewing device. The dashboard interface is very easy to use, and the navigation band is compact and unobtrusive. Several options exist if support is needed. The knowledge database is very well written, providing screenshots to guide the user. In short, Apricot software takes the pain out of membership management and web publishing/design. WA staff maintain servers, security, and backend development and provide a robust, user-friendly application. WA staff are divided into project teams to allow for specialized and faster development of enhancements and features. Customers vote to prioritize tasks/projects. WA listens to their customers. Pricing is very reasonable compared to other similar applications. WA offers free trials to test drive the system. Of course, a paid subscription unlocks loads of features. I've converted two organizations to Wild Apricot and have been contacted by another group for more information and my success stories. I'm extremely happy to have found such a superb application and company. :)

Pros

The application has an easy-to-use, unobtrusive interface and responsive web page templates that adjust for any viewing device.

Cons

The company is located in the Eastern time zone, and phone support ends early for those of us in the Midwest or Pacific states. Wild Apricot is aware of this and currently working to address the issue.

Makes organizing your organization easy

I have used Wild Apricot for two different professional organizations now, both run completely by volunteer nurses. We are not strong in business or computer skills. But creating a website is so easy, and just the automatic membership renewal process makes it worth its price. Pricing is manageable for the smallest of organizations, and the features are so valuable. It is easy to create events, track registrations, collect dues and fees and communicate with your members and that is all in addition to the website that is so easy to build. The support team is excellent. They are always ready to help and want to know what they can do to improve, and improvements happen often. A great product, easy to use.

Pros

Easy to use, lots of functions to organize your group, easy to manage registrations, dues and renewals. Very easy to set up a multipage website

Cons

Can't schedule emails to go out in advance on a particular date.

Wild Apricot A-

I have had a great overall experience with Wild Apricot ! They're product is logical, intuitive and well organized. In addition, I am extremely pleased with the product and customer support! The technical support staff has been professional, proficient and thorough when assisting me. I look forward to enhancements in the Events and Financial reporting areas to take this to an A+ product !

Pros

The screen layout and displayed information is very relevant to each task. I can get where I need to go with minimal keystrokes and from multiple screens. I like the ease of use modifying information, merging information, archiving and the overall database. Although I don't personally oversee the website functions, it's design options are professional and the functionality is great.

Cons

It doesn't provide for collecting some basic financial information to search and or select for reports and exports. Also, the event registrations do not allow for "easy" registration of multiple registrants.

Wild Apricot - membership System

Our non-profit organization compared several membership systems. Wild Apricot provided the most features at a very good price. We needed to move our system away from what we had in a very short time and before the summer season began. We were able to this in the time frame provided.

Pros

Feature rich software. Easy to create a website Standard features included automatic membership renewals, management of multiple membership classes, ability to add custom fields, controlled access of data dependent on membership/director level, ability to share Board meeting and AGM minutes to all members and ability for members to update their own basic data. The help documents and associated articles were very helpful. Our staff are not technical and found it easy to configure the web site and convert our existing data to the new database.

Cons

Every thing we wanted was included in the package. We did not need to make any modifications and really could not fault the software at all. As with most help/contact, one has to remember the time difference between the west coast and Wild Apricots service center which is in Ontario. As a result, trying to contact them after 2pm PST required us to wait until the following day for a response. Having said that, they did respond very quickly.....not that we had many questions at all.

Annette Kaohelaulii's Review of Wild Apricot for Hawaii Ecotourism Association

I was actually involved in setting up Wild Apricot when Hawaii Ecotourism Association first began using it. I moved the information over from a previous website to the Wild Apricot website. I did not do much of the administrative work until later. I made minor spelling and informational changes to the website and handled the updating of member information. At that time HEA had administrative help and I supervised the administrator, so I knew how to do some of the tasks and could find answers. More recently, I assumed more duties as Treasurer of the organization, so I had to figure out how to do more of the accounting tasks. Previous administrators utilized phone calls to resolve problems, but I have not done that, yet. With the help of another volunteer, we figured out how to do many more tasks, pertaining to membership, accounting and messaging The help section usually gave us the answers. I would recommend Wild Apricot to other small organizations because it can be customized. I am an older woman, so I have usually have problems with terminology and the technical aspects of using computers, but I persisted and learned to do many of the necessary tasks. This program is probably easily understood by a younger person.

Bike Club Using Wild Apricot

So far so good. Give it a try!

Pros

Wild Apricot seems very feature-rich for the cost. Our intention is to use it to replace My Emma for newsletters, Evite for invitations, Excel for contact info and membership status, the existing website, and maybe more. Our club has over 200 members. Administering membership renewal and contact updates are very time-consuming. Wild Apricot will allow us to use a single, user editable, database. Our members will be able to change their own contact information. Lapsed members will be automatically removed from the list active members. The website building tool is fairly good. The included templates are attractive. There is an extensive array of help videos, although I tend to stick with the user manual, which is quite extensive (over 2000 pages). We're hoping that the admin portion of club support will be greatly reduced. Our board members will add events and post articles. Hopefully, the rest will maintain itself, more or less. 30-day free trial. Easy to try. WA has good online reviews. Importing contacts from an Excel file was a snap.

Cons

r us. A little more variety of the templates might be nice. A bit tough getting the webpage to look good both on desktop systems and my iPad. With less experienced users the learning curve might be daunting, but it's near impossible to create a product as feature rich as Wild Apricot without making it a bit more time-consuming to learn.

Kudos to Wild Apricot

This software has really simplified our lives. We are a small but growing networking organization that runs on the energy of volunteers. Our treasurer and membership chair are overjoyed with the simplification of their tasks. I rate the ease of use and functionality high but not perfect; we have some relatively unsophisticated computer users who struggle with the complexity of creating events. One of them recently listed our annual meeting on Eventbrite instead of our website; this event is RSVP only.

Pros

Membership and financial tracking, automated emails.

Cons

Inability to upload basic event information (date, time, title, description, registration names and fees) from a spreadsheet Calendar! Wish it would play with Google calendars, as in Add to my calendar. Wish I could color code events on the calendar.

Wild-Apricot Membership Database

Before Wild-Apricot I used Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Access to keep up with our non-profit organization's membership. UGH! I wanted to hang myself. However; Wild-Apricot has been my life saver. This program handles all of my membership needs, reports, and emails. And improves every time there is an update that is beneficial to a non-profit organization.

Pros

I like everything. It invoices, emails, recruits, schedules events and allows members/non-members the opportunity to register/sign up and so much more.

Cons

I have not found anything that I really don't like in this software.

Great Back End For Tracking

For the money, I would like it if they would work on the front end as well as the back end. There are so many things I feel could make this the easy winner for all things non-for-profit but I think they have banked on the back end for so long that they've let other things go which, honestly has made me look at other places to host our website. And we're talking over a thousand dollars a year that we currently pay.

Pros

The back end of it is great for non-profits as it is all intergrated. It allows a one stop shop for membership and events which is great! It also allows emails to be targeted to certain groups which is even better. They have great email templates and do offer a myriad of how-tos.

Cons

The front end is a mess. The website functions are awful and dated. You can't make it your own unless you're a wiz at html and writing code. What time is saved from the back end is lost trying to keep the front end looking sleek and up to date. You're painted in a corner by only be allotted so many fonts and the worst part, it's not reactive to mobile devices. The emails are the same. They have great templates that you can follow, but the problem is what you think you're sending out and what is actually sent out are two different things and all the hours trying to make an email look professional are lost.