Best solution for small to medium sized associations

WildApricot is an excellent solution for managing association memberships and websites. The solution includes basic eCommerce and the ability to build a website with the Wild Apricot CMS - you can also connect easily to other website tools. Members love the easy of managing their own profiles and the other features for member communications.

Pros

Easy of use, ability to customize the member database easily and the integrated content management system for a professional website.

Cons

The software does not allow you to determine the membership ID within he system. This creates a challenge for any organization that already has a member number schema.

An Out of the Box Solution for Membership Management

Other than the issues described above with the payment gateway, we have been extremely pleased with our Wild Apricot experience.

Pros

Wild Apricot is a single source for nearly everything needed to manage a membership organization. It has revolutionized our database, taking it into the cloud, it has streamlined our renewal process, given us greater visibility into our email marketing, and overall allowed us to function more efficiently as an organization. Since its deployment, we've been able to replace the work of up to 2 FTE because of how Wild Apricot has allowed us to streamline our operations.

Cons

Their payment gateway, Wild Apricot Payments, does have some unique challenges that we are working through. It has errored out a number of times and there was no intuitive alert to let us know we were missing out on authorized donations. Their customer support team has been slower than we'd like to respond to these issues and have yet to provide a clear reason for them and any timeline for resolution.

Serves Our Current Needs

It serves our current needs. The software is affordable, and probably includes more features than we need. At the current prices, you really can't go wrong.

Pros

We run a faith-based organization for women entrepreneurs, and Wild Apricot provides many of the features we need for membership registration and management. The platform is also very affordable. The automated invoices and reminders make it easy for us to support members through their initial application and renewals.

Cons

The interface is outdated, and the back-end menu can be better organized. For example, some features in settings (like discounts), seems like it would be more appropriate in the members section of the menu. Initially, we had to google many of the features because we could not find tutorials on them, and the menu was not easy to navigate.

Not Customer Friendly

Our non-profit has approximately 1500 members we are managing and this was our first attempt at using a membership management tool. The implementation went well and our first year was generally positive. The features they offer are functional but pale in comparison to standalone services. For example the newsletter tool is extremely limited compared to our previous service, MailChimp, to the point where we are considering going back to MailChimp. After the company switched owners recently, the customer service quality has dropped dramatically. A recent forced change of payment systems resulted in our members' automatic subscriptions being canceled without warning, which was not expected or documented. We tried to engage customer support prior to the change but they were not helpful at all. This will likely result in a loss of members and thus income.

Pros

It offers a large selection of features and can be a one stop shop for membership tools. Although most of the features are not nearly comparable to equivalent stand-alone services, they are functional.

Cons

Customer support has been quite poor. They dropped telephone support in the last year and did not provide any guidance or assistance to us when they forced a payment system change that affected our members.

Cost Effective Website and Database

Overall Wild Apricot is a great tool for associations and/or others who need to process dues payments, event registrations and keep up with your clients.

Pros

Wild Apricot makes it easy to process registrations for events, dues payments and store purchases in addition to being a website. It is very easy to use. There are user groups that you can join to get help from other users. Also, it is very easy to create a manual invoice for things that I might need a product for or a registration. There is also an app for administrators which is super convenient when to try to look up open invoices, etc. when away from the office.

Cons

There are several features that should be available that are not. First and foremost there should be the availability within in the software to create a pdf and email it to contacts. The store does not appear to be integrated with the mail database and there are not a lot of reports. When I have orders from my store I have to constantly watch for duplicates. There is also not an email report to run that will search for possible duplicates in the system.

Use with Multiple Organizations - A True Advocate

Eight years ago I went through a selection process and chose Wild Apricot and then implemented it. A HUGE step up from disparate systems on Excel, a separate website, and email. This year I led the selection and implantation process for a different organization and Wild Apricot came out on top again. Processing a new member went from one hour to minutes. Renewals from 30 minutes to zero. Sending out emails used to be a huge process. Now it's simple. One thing I've noticed is that Wild Apricot continues to add and improve features. The website builder has gotten easier to use. And adding responsive themes and an easy-to-implement app is a huge plus.

Pros

Integrated features for membership management, communications, event management, and website development. Great coaching services during implementation and then support after.

Cons

Nothing that would stop me from selecting it again. Some of the newer features like polls can use some development, and formatting is sometimes challenging. But the tradeoff for a fully integrated system is well worth it.

Best Bang For Your Buck

Wild Apricot allows us to schedule classes, have members enroll in activities, and hosts our web site simply.

Pros

It's universality, it works well on every device, giving us instant functionality. I can find members, schedule events and make adjustments instantly, anywhere.

Cons

Sometimes I get lost doing certain operations.

Wild Apricot - robust non-profit management tool

Customer Service, online support and chat are all very helpful and easy to use. Telephonic customer service hours aren't too long but the service is good. There are also great video tools for implementation and getting started.

Pros

Software has lots of features that we were not getting from our previous event management software. In addition, we get a member directory and membership management all in one program.

Cons

The learning curve for using it is somewhat steep, but once that is conquered you can see the true value of the software

Great value and functionality

Pros

Ease of use, functionality, and cost are all attractive to our small Associations.

Cons

The new email feature is AWFUL. Not being able to add an image within content (you actually have to build out different layouts just to accompany a picture - it's ridiculous) has been a huge area of discontent for our staff that used to use WA for email blasts and newsletters. Believe it or not, it's easier to create in Constant Contact or Mailchimp and send out that way (and it looks better too).

Pleased With My Results and Value

Generally positive

Pros

Stable and reliable. I have succeed in deploying three different sites all with different needs.

Cons

Some additional customization without CSS would be nice. I would like to see more variety in the templates.

Good Product for Non-Profit Management

The selection of Wild Apricot has allowed a small non-profit working with a hodge-podge of cobbled together "free" solutions to move into the 21st century. Volunteers and board members can work from a unified database rather than multiple, out-of-sync, task-specific spreadsheets. Tasks can be distributed without dis-integrating this data. Web site integration and payment processing allow members, donors and event participants to interact with the organization online, rather than the previous limitation to paper forms and checks. Implementation was straight-forward, if not exactly "simple". Years of old and inconsistent data always complicate a migration. The choice to integrate with the organization's existing WordPress web site rather than fully implement Wild Apricot's built-in CMS also provided some challenges. Support was mostly timely and helpful during the migration and implementation phases.

Pros

Product is full-featured and the least expensive for a small non-profit on a limited budget. Of particular interest were membership management features, including self-service join, renew, and update. Also critical was event management and integration with membership, since the organization's main publicity and fundraising activity is a large bike ride. Web site integration was also attractive. Good platform for communicating with members and event participants. Payment processing integration for memberships, donations, and event registrations.

Cons

Lacked QuickBooks integration, although the organization's treasurer at the time did not consider this a needed feature. Lack of volunteer management, though that was not considered an essential feature at the time of review. Web site integration works best when using the built-in CMS. Integration with WordPress, the organization's existing CMS was largely successful. However some issues did arise with the forms for things like memberships, donations, and event registrations, especially on Apple devices.

Wild Apricot, is it good for membership website builder?

Overall, the Membership Database is good, Event emails can be automated to send to registrants and managing the membership is good but there are some serious lacking features that need to be addressed by WA otherwise customers are not going to be satisfied by the $1670 (AUD) just on the system that can feel very broken. If WA could either do a large update on the Builder and start working on integration for Xero and other large Accounting packages so that it provides a simple integration instead of just having the one.

Pros

I absolutely loved setting up this software, I found it very challenging but I do enjoy a challenge. I migrated out of Associations Online (AO) to WildApricot (WA). I found that using the CSV export of the membership out of AO really easy and the upload in WA simple as well. The events system is fantastic for Zoom and events that need to have someone at the door checking people in. The admin app for WA is awesome when I'm on the go and just want to see who has checked into an event or who has registered for an event.

Cons

The biggest, and I mean this is a deal-breaker, the site builder is seriously broken and needs a massive update. I have checked about 30 other sites that use WildAprioct and they all look the same. Very Narrow, broken up into blocks of either 1/2/3. There is a basic function of having a button added but the customization of said button is the link and text. Not the colour or the size. The blogging functionality for the site is very basic which is fine but it would be nice if I could categorize it and allow for displaying the post on other pages so that it isn't locked to the single blog page. WA integrates with WordPress so I wanted to build a better-looking frontend for my site but the downside is the integration is not in full. You can have the login and some profile migrated over but things like Events, Profile Updates and even administration of membership can only be done in WA. So any changes in the profile can not be done in WordPress as it is only a one-way sync. The plugin for Wordpress is only a SSO for WildApricot. Finally, the Support/Feature request, WA is probably one of the slower ones for it. It may take years for anything to happen. They update often around the 4th of each month but its never anything that is really useful for the Admin or User. Its usually bugs in the system which is awesome, but I would really like to see some more functionality with the system like the website builder and other integration into online Accounting Packages.

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.

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.

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

Complete, Logical, Reliable, and Quick

Wild Apricot is one of four web-based systems we use, the others being Quickbooks for accounting, Brivo for physical access control of gates and doors, and Online Exam Builder. Each fulfills a specific role, with very little overlap, but without Wild Apricot at the center life would be much more complicated.

Pros

With the baseline requirement for membership management completely fulfilled by Wild Apricot, we have found considerable value in the events management features to manage training courses, and the mass emailing features for communications. Of course, solid invoicing and payment processing are also very important. Overall, the user and administrative experience with Wild Apricot is satisfying and very productive. We built or re-engineered our business processes around the capabilities in Wild Apricot, to a significant degree.

Cons

It takes quite a while to get what look like simple enhancements made to the search and select features within "saved searches". We don't seem to be getting attention, and the enhancements we've requested have been in the queue for over a year. The result of having to wait is that our saved searches are needlessly complex and hard to maintain.

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.

Excellent Full Feature CRM, Event Management and Website platform

Prior to using Wild Apricot, we had a custom-built CRM and Website with a separate payment system for events. We wanted to change the look and feel of our website but it would have been expensive to have a company rebuild it. We switched to Wild Apricot and have since had two website refreshes using different templates. Prior to WA there was a lot of backend reconciling of events, payments, etc which only our [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] was able to do. Now WA takes care of it all seamlessly which means we don't have to rely on the knowledge of one person to keep everything working.

Pros

I like how easy it is to keep a consistent looking website using the themes.

Cons

I don't like that you don't charge in local currency. It is very had for non-profits to budget when the cost varies so much based on the US dollar. I also don't like that you can not easily change the default theme colours for a theme so that they show up at the top of the selection box. Instead, we have to constantly use the hex codes for any text etc that doesn't pick up the theme colours automatically instead of picking one of the theme colours because they remain the colours of the original theme.

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.

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.

Great product but not for everybody

Biggest impact has been the reduction in paper processing for membership applications and renewals, and for tracking event registrations and financial results.

Pros

We are the oldest ski club in the USA, and run hundreds of events each year, including over 20 high-dollar flight trips. WA has excellent features for setting up and managing events. The membership management software is also first-rate.

Cons

WA recently implemented an in-house credit card processing feature. Soon afterwards they started charging a 20% processing surcharge for those who do NOT subscribe to their product. Their processing fees are higher than what we are paying with a very large merchant provider, so we don't want to switch. We are waiting for the "other shoe to drop" when WA will drop support for 3rd-party payment processors.

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.

Daily user of Wild Apricot and developer for new Wild Apricot websites and setup for organizations.

I have participated in moving 20 organizations over to Wild Apricot and use it daily for administrative purposes. It is an awesome platform and would not recommend another to anyone. Hoping they can keep this excellent service going for a very long time. Also, the support team and responsiveness has always been great!

Pros

Easy, quick, and efficient transition over to Wild Apricot from other website types such as WordPress, Weebly, and other member platforms. Excellent for small to mid-size organizations to consolidate all needed features and tracking/reporting in one place.

Cons

The only weakness is the choice of new "themes" to help speed up a new website. You can certainly do almost anything you want with the templates... but the ready-made themes make it so much better (and easier). Just need to keep the sample themes up-to-date and competitive with WordPress... so the organizations are happy with the basic choices available when they are deciding to move to Wild Apricot.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Sometimes Have to Wrestle with It; Development Has Slowed

Frequent price increases over the past 5 years, and a slowing of new feature development and attention to feature and glitch requests since being taken over by Personify in 2017, are reasons to hesitate in committing to Wild Apricot.

Pros

Easy to move over to. Good-looking website; easy to edit and expand.

Cons

As in any complex system, it's sometimes necessary to fight its limitations, particularly in event creation and registration. It assumes that memberships are individuals and bundles of individuals, each with their own record. This can make it a challenge to maintain, communicate with and register for events couples and families. Editing web pages and email blasts often runs into time-wasting line spacing glitches, a longtime issue. Reports are limited in flexibility and not particularly useful - it's usually necessary to export data to Excel and format your own.

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 is a great solution for association management and events

Wild Apricot is the platform we use for member management, event registration and payment processing. They meet all of our needs.

Pros

Wild Apricot is a great product that meets all of our needs for member and contact management, communications and event registration. They provide excellent support through their online documents, step-by-step tutorials/videos and by phone. The software is simple to manage but looks dynamic to the end user and website traffic.

Cons

Every association is unique and would like customized features. Wild Apricot meets the majority of our needs. They consistently release new versions in response to user feedback.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 - 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.