I've used StarChapter for more than 10 years. The platform is very user-friendly and customer service is top notch. The knowledge base is thorough and easy to navigate.

When membership dues are variable based on size, the platform isn't intuitive. Flat dues work great!

StarChapter has streamlined our website management with its extensive proprietary integration. Although they have just raised their prices, it is still a reasonable value and the simplest way for us to pull all of our functions together.

We went with StarChapter because it integrates website, membership management and email into one system. StarChapter is based on WordPress, which makes for easier learning for users already familiar with WordPress. Event management is a plus. There's an extensive knowledgebase for help and StarChapter support department is very responsive.

1. The system is so feature rich that there is a substantial learning curve to master the full capabilities. 2. Although webpage editing is based on WordPress' block editor, the content editing and navigation editing is a bit clunky. Fortunately, there is a source code (HTML) option, but StarChapter inserts additional tags based on its CSS. 3. The elimination of 3rd party payment processors in favor of its proprietary (and extra cost) StarPay system means we have to use payment links to the processor instead of keeping everything within StarChapter.

rocky... no immediate user assistance...have to email and wait for a return... not convenient .

pre-designed templates are attractive... meets the requirements of the national organization

not at all user intuitive...takes a long time to find things and upload/update items

Has many features to assisy managing an organization

The features are not easy to manage, customer service is lackluster with self learning videos.

It was at first highly recommended by a colleague. However, that colleague is now pulling out of StarChapter for the same issues that makes our organization unhappy. We have brought our concerns to StarChapter and have received no response.

Everything in the same place. Didn't need a separate bulk emailer. Registration for events could be handled.

We are international. They did not tell us up front that there were certain countries they would block and refuse to unblock (Hong Kong, for one). Their suggestion: tell our members in HK to get a VPN--which means extra cost for the members. It isn't user friendly. There is a steep learning curve.

I've worked with Star Chapter since 2010. They have been responsive, easy to work with and great to problem solve with. I like the ease of use for my staff as well as our volunteers that want to dig in on the admin side. We have about 20 clients on the platform which allows all of our staff to work on something in StarChapter. We are able to enhance other websites based on new features we see or something a client asks for on one we can implement for others. They have been a great partner.

For an affordable price, your association can host their website and manage it easily. It has all of the features needed where you don't have to have 1000 platforms and systems to manage and keep track of logins for.

The biggest complaint I hear is that the meeting registration has one to two too many pages to click through vs. being a one page sign up. That would be a great feature to enhance.

It has significantly improved our chapter's efficiency in managing memberships, events, and communications. The consolidated platform has made our administrative tasks more streamlined and accessible.

StarChapter offers a comprehensive solution for chapter management, making it a go-to for association leaders. The membership management features are robust, providing seamless tracking of member data, event registrations, and communication.

Customization options for the website design could be more extensive. While the provided templates are functional, more flexibility in design elements would be appreciated.

Easy to use, works well with payment processers, integrates well with APICS Corporate to pull in member information in a timely manner

The Lite version has limited functionality. Help documents do not apply as they are written for other non-Lite versions. Spend way too much time trying to find some parts for updating the site.

Overall experience has been positive. StarChapter looks so much better than our previous website. Even with its cost and difficulties I believe StarChapter still allows for easy updates for the important things like events.

StarChapter makes it easy to schedule events and email reminders about the events.

The emails all have the same sort of bland look to them and they seem hard to customize. Certain file storage options are not easy to use on the website. Creating and managing pages can be difficult and the content customization seems to crash frequently.

Good days and bad days. There are still a lot things to learn. Knowledge based learning is good. Unfortunately time is a big thing when we all do the job as a volunteer.

Set up the meeting and the registration for the meeting. Check up the statistic of the use of the website.

Unfortunately Board member changes every year and new members needs training. An annual introductory training sessions would help.

Before StarChapter, we had a website that we built and maintained ourselves. It was outdated and hard to administer. We used an email campaign software, an invoicing software, paid hosting fees, used a security software, and tracked attendees at our events in a spreadsheet — it was a bulky way of operating. Our organization looks so professional now! We were able to consolidate all our other systems into one which is such a time saver! I'm not sure we're saving any money, but the time, ease of use and professional image is worth it. I highly recommend that anyone in an association consider StarChapter. I couldn't be happier with a management software.

StarChapter has streamlined our volunteer organization's processes and saved each of us time — which is important as volunteers! It's eliminated the use of an email campaign system and invoicing system. It has streamlined our communication with the newsletter feature, and contacting members and non-members with the email templates makes our roles simpler. I love that each of our board members are learning how to maintain their own pages through StarChapter's Knowledgebase. Everything you need to know is in there and it's presented in a style that's easy to read, follow and understand. I've had to request support for a couple items that were more complex than what I could handle, and their support team has responded within a day or two to resolve the challenge.

I've been using the software for about eight months. I think I still have so much to learn — it's a very robust software — yet they do make it easy to use. I just wish I could dedicate more time to really diving in to understand the connections between the modules and how to maximize the software.

Our onboarding experience was HORRIBLE! Zero support, zero expectation management, and the SC team linked our membership page TO THE WRONG WEBSITE > as in, visitors to our membership page were redirected to another chapter that is in our geographic area and is OUR COMPETITOR. When we let our customer service lead know and asked her to fix the error, she responded with a one-word answer - "done".

I thought we would like that it was an all-in-one solution, but even that isn't worth the headaches of trying to use it.

Too many pros to list here but this box is requiring more characters . . . it doesn't integrate with any other tools, the website design options are incredibly limited, outdated and stale looking. Check out their website and have a look at the one positive testimonial listed - if you visit that site, you will see they are no longer using StarChapter!

Amazing! StarChapters staff is super friendly and willing to help. I enjoy working with the team.

I use StarChapters for multiple things. Website, Bulk Email, track membership, Meeting registration & so much more. Its easy to use and user friendly even if your not tech savey.

For tickets - You don't have a live chat option. I have to put in a ticket and wait, and hope you get to me quickly. There's no phone number to call when your stuck and need just a little bit of help to keep moving forward.

Overall, it’s a vast improvement from how we were managing our chapter. However, there are definitely parts that could be better.

This tool greatly helps us manage our chapter and events by automating processes that we used to do manually. Gone are the days of tracking everything with spreadsheets. New member sign ups and membership renewals are a breeze, we are able to link to a payment gateway and accept payment directly though or website, and best of all, members can update their contact information at any time. Event registration, sign-in, and payment is also easy. And being able to run reports from the software is great.

It’s difficult to update the website unless you have prior experience. The reporting function is lacking by not being able to include all data that we want. And while sending emails from the software is great, having to manage this or respond using an outside email provider is very cumbersome. It would be better if we could read emails in the software. Also, not being able to create and send continuing education credit certificates through the software is a huge miss!

Great public website that allows online meeting registration.

Love the ease of ease and the professional facing website and features. Star Chapter customer service is wonderful to work with.

I honestly do not have any. Wonderful software for the price. Has paid for itself in removing the tedious administrative tasks as well as the human error mistakes.

Overall it has served us very well. There are many "work arounds". From the perspective of someone who has done some software design, the navigation of star chapter is built on the concept the administrators don't want to see or understand the logic behind the scenes. This leads to a lot of confusion and as more and more people are forced to learn computers and programming type of understanding, it makes many navigational tabs very clunky, unnecessary, and confusing. For example, there is a very nice section for "Board Transition" which is somewhat of a hand holding to set up new profiles for board/leadership members and remove old or outdated members. It would be much easier to just have a section that says "Email Routing" where you can see the logic that "Treasurer@abcorg.com" routes to "JohnDoe@abccorp.com". Instead it is a clunky process similar to a turbo tax style of question and answer that is not as easily understood.

This is great for organizations and non profit that need something simple to get them going. We use this to manage members, as well as host our e-commerce type transactions for events.

It is a bit clunky and not as intuitive when wanting to do more advanced level organizational management. For example, if a member has not renewed their membership there is a grace period and then the member gets moved to a different list. If that member wants to renew- they have to create a whole new login which adds to confusion when the user expects to just to be able to login and renew their membership. Since starchapter has membership level built into their pricing, it makes it very hard for organizations to keep a seemless record of "active" and "inactive" members. This makes a big difference when doing complex registration or selling of items on the e-commerce site. For example a member may get a certain discount versuses a non member. It is very clunky if a user wants to pay for a membership and get membership pricing of an event registration all at the same time. It is very limited in that logic.

I've had a great experience with StarChapter.

BEST:An integrated website, membership database, calendar/event schedule, event registration.The ability for other admins with different levels of access. The knowledge base.The ability to design the page content and event emails using html or wysiwyg. Document storage for meeting minutes.Tech support is very helpful.Registration list viewable to attendees.

REQUESTS: #1 The ability to print out or pdf a professional-looking directory for those wanting to save it offline. #2 There needs to be a customizable .ics calendar-type feature that users can download once registered that includes the full description of the event, Zoom instructions, etc. #3 Include the calendar entries in the event list to have a single calendar and event listing. #4 In surveys, the ability to choose more than one checkbox option.#5 The ability to edit the Registration "receipt" template (and why is it needed if there is a registration confirmation template?)#6 The ability to incorporate meeting photo galleries in different parts of the website other than the home page slider. #7 Better sharing link to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. #8 A separate database section for business partner sponsors with access options.

Overall, it has improved MANY of our organizational functions. We can manage our membership much better, find the meeting functionality to be a vast improvement over what we were doing and it does help us manage our finances better. As we have no paid staff, maintaining does seem to fall to one or two volunteers, which is going to get old. The is more of an organizational issue though. I would recommend the program for people like me that have a basic tech savvy, as overall it is easy to use. I find the online support database to be far too basic and at the same time hard to find information, so I tend to send in customer support requests a lot and they are excellent in that type of support.

I liked that they provided the initial set-up and conversion from our previous web-site. I like that over-all it is easy to manage the site and to update content. Please note that I do NOT have an IT background and learned everything from scratch. We are looking at an organizational name change, so it will be interesting to see if I still hold this view once I tackle that project. I have always had great customer support when I have a question, even when I pose something that the program can't do.

It is not intuitive for someone that doesn't have skills in web design. I have to research and learn new options, not just pick them up along the way. I find some of the finance and accounting functions too basic, as well as only a basic reporting functionality. There also don't seem interested in updating and adding functionality, just maintaining what they have.

As noted in my previous comments, overall there is a great value to the software but I am worried that myself and my clients will need to start looking to other products to service our need if some feature enhancements don't start being created. It seems like the product is stagnant.

I like the ease of use and connectedness of all of the software segments. The product also gives a lot of functions for the price which makes it an easy sell to our clients from a value standpoint.

Some items are clunky and not as nimble as they could be. I also feel like starchapter has stopped developing enhancements or improvements outside of the website templates that they sell for a fee. I would like to see more robust reporting or the ability to build ad hoc reports, enhanced functionality on the events with regards to promo codes/discounts, adjusting registrant information/substitutions, and more robust functionality with the eblasting system.

My experience was great! From the first call that got my questions answered, getting everything set up, knowledgebase, and getting help when I can't find answers to my questions - it's been a very smooth process. I'm very happy with our selection and don't see us switching away from this platform.

Being able to have a Member Manager page, easier set up for events, invoicing system, and communication platform. These were all pieces missing previously. StarChapter has helped to make almost everything easier.

It can be difficult to update certain things. For example: getting the correct address to appear on invoices (or get it on invoices at all). It needs to be updated in three different places. It would be nice it you could change it in one spot (in settings for example) and have it feed to the others. Also, there seems to be a disconnect on the member login side. When a primary contact renews membership, it doesn't renew anyone else with them. Not sure how to fix that, but it hasn't been a major issue that needs to be addressed yet. Just a convenience thing.

We are able to market our events with ease and efficiently. It solved the issue of mass emails. Membership is easier to track and to communicate with those members. I like StarChapter; it's fees are spot-on and I have recommended it to other associations.

Top items: 1) Ease of access from any location. 2) Ability to have most of the associations information in one spot 3) Email communication 4) Reports available. Love the graphs for membership, meeting attendance, etc... 5) Love that the members can download the meetings they attended to track their own CEH credits. 6) Love how the support team gets back promptly on issues. 7) The newsletter StarChapter sends out although finding time to read it gets in the way. 8) The ease of using it. It's not hard to train others to use it.

Least liked: 1) Email verification. 2) The difficulty to find where to change some information and the need to ask what page it is on. 3) Renewing a members dues from administrative point of view has been difficult. 4) Would like notification of any issues concerning members. 5) Screen size for creating an event. Would like it bigger.

There are some features of the software that are excellent. I really like the email communication interface. Our biggest concern is that there is very little ability to customize to your association needs. Customization of the site is not an option and work around options are complicated, confusing & time consuming for the board. Communication between the front and admin end can be mismatched. If you are ok with small things like application field names not matching profile field names and back end names, but being similar it's fine. If you are ok with having drop down menus on your application, but not on your individual profile editors, which results in somewhat of a mismatch of information, you will be fine. For our Association, it's all small things that you will encounter with the software, scrolling down pages of data, the overall display of profile editors, etc... that will make things difficult for the board and for membership. It's very important to understand that these items can't be changed even with a work order and in our eyes this is a major limitation of Capterra. Overall, the system functions, but it isn't the easiest software to manage and it will take a MAJOR commitment on the part of the associations board to make this system work as best as it can for your association. If your Association is small and doesn't need much in the way of tracking and display, CME, spreadsheet export, and more, Capterra will be a good solution. I will say compared to a fully customized website development it is more economical for all involved, despite the commitment it requires.

The email communicating system.

The mismatch of options on the front end, individual profile end, and admin end of the site. The inability to set standard views for daily use (defaults for individual members) The complicated way the profile editor is displayed. The inability to have custom drop downs made (similar to the State drop-down) for large comprehensive lists - these need to be on both the front end - application and member profile editor as well as the admin member manager area.

StarChapter is relatively easy to learn if you already have some background in web development. But the layperson may need more support in order to accomplish their goals with the site. We hired a web developer to work with StarChapter's team and set up our website in order to give the site a little more polish. StarChapter's training videos are very helpful in getting started on the site, and I highly recommend watching them.

StarChapter makes it very easy to track registration and payments for our monthly meetings. Our previous process was for attendees to email one specific person, and all payments were handled on-site at the meeting. We were able to reduce the time commitment for our Registration chair significantly by switching to StarChapter, and we've been able to open up pre-payment for meetings through online credit card payments. This helps to ensure more turnout, since people are more likely to show up when they've already paid. It is also much easier to enable multiple people to work on the site, and those people don't need a background in web development to do important tasks that keep the Chapter running, like posting new meetings and newsletters, and keeping our calendar updated.

My least favorite part of the platform is the text editor, which isn't terribly surprising. If you want to include more than simple text for an event or mailing, you are better off creating the content outside StarChapter and importing an image or attaching a PDF with your content. I think this is a pretty typical complaint with text editors, but it would streamline our processes if we could do everything in one place.

It is an incredibly frustrating site to use (and I have developed sites myself) but if you want an integrated database (again difficult to use), credit card processor and website at low cost, StarChapter fits the bill.

You cannot beat the cost- we choose it because it is inexpensive and if you are trying to save money StarChapter will help you with that.

It is very difficult to use. Everything requires multiple non-intuitive steps. It is almost impossible to get the site to look the way you want. It is supposed to be WYSIWYG- but is not. The leading is always off and you never get what you expect when making changes. I have had professional developers and designers try to help make the site look the way I want, but even they have thrown up their hands in disgust.