Building a brand new membership is exciting, but it can also be confusing and intimidating. As the resident experts, we’d like to demystify the process for you.
I want to be upfront with you, though: This article is not to compare different kinds of membership platforms, what they cost, what the setup looks like, etc.
We’re a little biased, but we believe the best kind of membership site you can build lives on WordPress. This gives you the ultimate flexibility while remaining secure and convenient.
Not sure about that? I hear you, which is why we’ll touch on why you should be using WordPress for your membership site in this article.
Before we get into the hard stuff, though, let’s start with why.
Why You Should Build That Membership
Whether you’re brand new in the membership game or a seasoned vet, it can be easy to let the overwhelm take over. As with any other business, the odds of success are stacked against you, and the only way to guarantee survival is with a “why” stronger than the fear and the forces working against you.
Without a doubt, membership-based businesses are some of the most lucrative. The steady income and relationships you build often make you feel satisfied and blessed to even be in this position!
Even though parts of this process will feel tedious and intimidating, you should know that it brings a level of satisfaction that is hard to describe. If you have a membership program in your heart, this is your permission to move forward with it and give it your best shot. After all, as the great Wayne Gretzky so famously said, “You miss 100% of the shots you never take.”
Once your membership is up and running, here’s what you get to look forward to:
- Predictable income: Cashflow is the lifeblood of a small business. If you do coaching or consulting work that is feast or famine, you’d be well served converting your knowledge to an on-demand learning platform behind a membership.
- Fulfilling work: Having “clients” is entirely different from having “students” or “members.” It may seem subtle, but when you have people lined up to learn from you, you can patiently instruct them to get the results they want to see instead of feeling like you have to “deliver” the results to them.
- Meaningful connections: Speaking from experience, having a membership platform has allowed me to build long-term relationships and connections I never dreamed of having otherwise.
- Life freedom: My personal favorite. Having a membership website has allowed me to travel, take time off, and adjust my schedule, so business happens around my life and not the other way around.
Oh yes — building your membership site will take work. But it will be worth it. And we’d love to help you on the journey!
Why Build Your Membership Site on WordPress
As I mentioned before, there are many platforms you could build your membership website on. We’ve discussed a few of them here. But we believe that WordPress is the best long-term option.
WordPress is open source. This means that instead of being owned by a company who takes full control of the experience, it is merely overseen by a company (Automattic) and is built/distributed by a wide range of contributors. Nobody “owns” the code that WordPress is built with. There is no central hub who can shut down your account, withhold your payments, or dictate how you run your business.
This is huge, since in today’s world, many businesses have seen their operations stalled or halted by companies who want too much control. Your membership site will actually involve multiple companies (usually through WordPress plugins), each of which has different terms and plays a part in the larger decentralized WordPress ecosystem.
Many prefer “all in one” solutions — and while that is understandable, it remains true that the best solutions are usually those that don’t try to be everything to everyone. With WordPress, you have the best of both worlds. A centralized platform to manage your entire membership, but a plug-and-play environment that can be built to exact specifications.
Speaking of which, that’s the next benefit. Many of our clients don’t simply want a boilerplate place on the Internet to host their content. They want to create a unique, beautiful, and highly functional experience for their members.
WordPress allows more flexibility than you could possibly imagine. Need team management? Want control over how your members experience your video content? Want to embed highly interactive content? Want the website’s design to be a spot-on match for your brand?
These are all quite difficult to achieve on other platforms, but with WordPress, we can do all that and more.
So you understand — this route is not as cheap or as easy. But it does provide a superior experience. And if that is what you want to give your members, this is the way we recommend doing it.
With those preliminaries out of the way, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. What’s it gonna cost to build one of these things, anyway?
How Much Does the Design and Build Cost?
How much you money you spend depends on a few things, which we’ll cover throughout the rest of this article. Here are the high level ideas you should be thinking about:
- Are you going to build the site yourself?
- Are you going to hire a professional?
- What kind of professional should you hire?
- How is the site going to be maintained?
- What are the pros and cons of going it alone?
There’s no “gotcha” here — we absolutely believe you should hire an agency — our agency! — to build your site. That’s why we’re in business!
But we feel it’s important to be honest about the trade-offs you make in that kind of decision. Having worked with dozens of membership owners, course creators, and online coaches over the years, we’ve seen our fair share of pitfalls to avoid. If we can build some trust by sharing those with you, we feel it will go a long way, even if you don’t end up using our services.
So, how much does it cost to design and build one of these things, then?
Well, a lot! 😅 The reality is, it depends upon many factors. In general, the more complex your requirements are, the more money it will take to bring it to life.
I’ve personally encountered agencies charging anywhere from $6,000 to $25,000 USD for a membership site build. Our sites are a bit different. We aim for a clear, package-based pricing model that fits most builds, so you know exactly what to expect.
If you simply need a site managed, it will cost around $199 USD/month. If you need a simpler membership with minimal course material, it will cost around $499/month. And if you need more course material and advanced functionality, it will cost around $849/month. There is a minimum 18-month term with our builds, but after that, the site’s yours to take and do whatever you want with it.
If you want to stick around with us, though, we’ll continue to reward you by managing the site and even giving it a fresh look and feel every three years or so.
Our goal and pricing approach is simple: You pay us a flat monthly rate, and you always have a beautiful, fresh, optimized website that gets your business results and provides a great platform for your students. No headaches or stress. What’s not to love?
“But Steve, what if I built it myself? Then what would it cost?”
Great question! In terms of hard costs, it would be much cheaper, similar to the way most of the bill for auto repairs is labor. The parts don’t cost that much. The knowledge, experience, and time it takes to do the work professionally, though? That does cost a lot.
By the way, it’s the same for me. I utilize a team that helps me get more done, better and faster. They are by far my largest expense each month. I could save a lot of money if I fired them all. But guess what? Then I’d be left to do all the work myself.
No question, it would be cheaper in terms of money. But it would cost a fortune in time and opportunity. Therefore, when it comes to whether you’re going to build this thing on your own, I think it’s the opportunity cost you should seriously consider.
The Opportunity Costs of Building a Membership On Your Own
Indeed, it may only cost you a few thousand dollars up front to get your membership site built if you do it yourself. But let’s consider that route for a moment.
Let’s say you are a digital native, your background is in computers and IT, and you’re the kind of person who waits up at night to order the latest iPhone. Although IT is not website design, and it would still take a lot of time to learn, you’d be able to pick up on the nuances of building your membership site fairly quickly and learn how to navigate the terrain.
In terms of the setup work, you may indeed be well-served to design a fantastic membership site. However, there’s still a problem in this scenario: There’s nothing in your background that includes functional, instructional, or graphic design. Respectively, these are the design skills that lead to your website working well, being effective for your students, and looking great. At the very least, you may want to consider partnering with a design firm or freelancer to handle that part of things while you work on the technical implementation.
Suppose you are an analog native, your background is in gardening, and you’re the kind of person who watches HGTV on repeat. You probably have an eye for design, and you’re certainly very intelligent (there’s no way I could plant a garden and it survive, haha), but there’s nothing in your background to suggest that you should be messing with your membership site build.
In short, the time and frustration that would result from trying to do it yourself would melt away if you worked with a team of professionals instead. The opportunity costs are gigantic. How many more members could you serve, how much more revenue could you make, and how much more impact could you have if you were focused on marketing your business and helping your students rather than building a site?
In fact, we often encourage clients to work on growing their membership while the membership site is being built! You could be holding webinars, creating engagement posts, connecting 1:1 with potential new members, and even building your email list while we’re building your custom membership site!
This is a fantastic way to hit the ground running and even get your website paying for itself in no time.
Here’s another way to look at it: Suppose you’re a business consultant or professional organization, and you charge about $100/month for access to your membership. Since your membership site will likely cost you around $850/month, you only need nine members to become completely profitable on your site. The rest is pure profit!
When you’re in business, it’s important to separate cost centers and profit centers. While in the near-term you might look at your new website like a cost, in reality, it is a long-term profit center that is worth investing in now.
The more time you spend doing it on your own is time you could have been working on building and growing your membership instead. Whichever path you choose, just make sure you go in eyes wide open.
How Much Should I Spend for Monthly Maintenance?
One significant consideration with any website is ongoing maintenance and optimization. Unfortunately, there’s a common misconception that building a website is like a house. Build the house once, then keep it from falling over (maintenance). We find this thinking to be unhelpful, since it doesn’t reflect reality.
A website is not static like a house. It’s dynamic. It changes often, sometimes every day, and has to respond dynamically to the environment it’s in. This means that the frustrations from DIY-ing your project are not one-time, but never-ending. A handful of our clients had undertaken the build themselves and managed their sites for a couple of years before growing weary of pulling their hair out over the support.
I jokingly refer to these as Frankenstein sites — usually put together by intelligent, well-meaning clients who simply did the best with what they had. No shade on them! We’re happy to work with them. But all the better if we can start from the get-go with a professional site made with tools that work well together.
As mentioned above, we charge about $199 for maintenance/management of a site that we didn’t build. And the reality is, you’ll have software license renewals and time spent managing your site to account for. You may find it more responsible (for your financial AND mental health!) to partner with a professional like us. And the way we build your site, the management is built in! Imagine having a fantastic site that you don’t have to worry about for as long as you have it!
Working with an Agency to Build Your Membership
By this point, I hope you’ve decided that working with an agency like Pro Membership Sites to build your site is the clear winning choice.
While you can certainly save some money doing it on your own, when the opportunity cost is considered, it usually makes the most sense to work with a team (unless your budget is simply far too prohibitive, which we absolutely understand).
Other than saving time and headache, what does working with an agency stand to offer you? A lot! For example:
- Confidence the job will be done right: We’re not perfect, of course, but we are professionals. And when we do a job, as you can see from our portfolio, we do the best work we possibly can.
- A great member support experience: The worst part of managing a membership site is troubleshooting member problems (access, payment, etc.). We help you with this support. You’re not the expert on this stuff, so why should you have to do it?
- Communication you can rely on: Many decide to work us with for one reason alone: feeling like someone has their back. When you work with Pro Membership Sites, we communicate throughly and often, so you always know what’s up and where things stand.
If you’d like to explore having us build your site, send us a note or schedule a time on our calendar, and we’ll have a brief conversation with you to see if it makes sense to work together. Thanks for reading!