WildApricot

Avantages

It has lots of great features like the forums and all the different letters you can generate and set up dates to have them automatically sent out. It’s also great for setting up events and then attaching all the reminders. It’s just all very difficult to do though.

Inconvénients

It’s not intuitive and very difficult to work with.

Avantages

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

Inconvénients

The UI of the websites you build with this and the backend feel outdated. I feel like the event tool could be more powerful, especially with how powerful you can easily build websites with Drupal/Wordpress. It would feel more like a membership program if the events could be dynamic with attendees, volunteers, being able to list what is still needed, etc. We found ourselves moving to Facebook or Next Door a lot to interact with our members.

Also, in the span of one year, our plan went up by $20/month, which was an extra $240 a year for our small, local advocacy group.

Avantages

Comprehensive membership management and membership data.

Inconvénients

no customer service. I am locked out of our web site and WA does nopt answer.

Avantages

Wild Apricot is a fully featured membership platform covering both the back office administration as well as member-facing website/portal. It would be a solid choice for an organisation that is willing to fully adopt the "Wild Apricot way", i.e. working in the way the system works rather than trying to do anything unique.

Inconvénients

Wild Apricot is from North America. This means many of the settings are geared towards organisations based in the US/Canada. Customers elsewhere (e.g. UK) may find certain important features don't exist, or are slow to be offered. Examples would be Gift Aid on donations and BACS Direct Debit.

Avantages

Wild Apricot provides a great deal of hope that you've finally found the magic solution that will do it all. Event RSVPs work well.

Inconvénients

We were unable to successfully add Wild Apricot widgets to our website (which was not hosted on Wild Apricot's system). I contacted support multiple times and even they couldn't figure out how to fix it. So one of the chief reasons we wanted to use Wild Apricot (so that people could become members online through our website) never worked.

Avantages

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.

Inconvénients

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.

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi passer à WildApricot

Avantages

It streamlined a lot of processes, including:

- Member database, with automated process for sending out renewal notices and changing a member’s status to Lapsed if they didn’t renew before their membership expired
- Online payments for membership applications, renewals, and events
- Automated emails to let members and potential members know about upcoming events, including appropriate reminders for those who have or haven’t registered
- Ability to send email newsletters and other communications to members and/or potential members, including specific segments of the list
- Discussion forums

Inconvénients

The blogging platform is useless and hasn't been updated in years (if ever). No way to organize content by categories, or to moderate comments.

Avantages

Wild Apricot is great for our nonprofit. We are able to track membership and implement new campaigns through this software. The software is robust and has a great deal to offer small and large organizations. Overall, it is a one-stop assistant for our management team needs.

Inconvénients

The free trial is decent (30 days), but to get the full benefit, obviously, you need to purchase the software. This can be pricey. My only wish is that there was a deeper discount for small non-profits with minimal start-up funding. Or at least extend the free trial to 90 days.

Avantages

All in one software, great support.

Inconvénients

You cannot track paid traffic conversions in Wild Apricot because the URL does not change after a purchase is made. You also cannot create drip email campaigns.

Avantages

Strong database, customizable templates, and good search and advanced search functions. The customer service used to be excellent - but I address that in the next section...

Inconvénients

Two price increases within 12-months with only a 2-month warning on the second increase; decline in customer service with responses to an email inquiry taking more than three days and phone calls not getting returned. I have a help desk ticket that is over four months old that's still open.

Avantages

Wild Apricot is one of the most economical contact management systems out there and has basic functionality to track and communicate with members. It is great for small business or non-profit organizations because of the price and relative ease of use.

Inconvénients

Wild Apricot does not have the functionality of other contact management systems. Incorporating a recurring payment option is difficult based on the current functionality.

Avantages

I like the potential and possibilities of Wild Apricot. While the software does provide a one stop shop for maintaining member contact information, billing and event promotion and registration, each of these features are limited and require accommodations to take advantage of them.

Inconvénients

Constraints and limitations of each of the features has been a frustration. Work arounds are required to use the software. Setting up the site was not intuitive or easy (and we ultimately engaged our technology consultants to assist). The Quick Books interface is weak and neither Wild Apricot or Quick Books have much experience or insight in helping work through set up or troubleshooting.

We are actively looking for alternatives that have more flexibility to customize to meet our needs.

Avantages

Simplicity and price

Inconvénients

Lack of ListServ feature

Avantages

I like that Wild Apricot covers most of your organization's needs.

Inconvénients

There are a few things that Wild Apricot doesn't do (check in among other things) that really make it difficult to maintain.

Avantages

Easy to add events; customer support is helpful. Like design of website (which was done by a web developer).

Inconvénients

Missing key feature of allowing multiple payments which is key for our organization; We would like the trip name to be passed to Stripe.

Avantages

I like the flexibility you have in defining your membership levels, and like the reporting around member status/renewal status.

Inconvénients

I have one client that is using Wild Apricot, and they have started shopping for new databases. WA just "changed their pricing structure", which means raised the price, for my client, offering a bunch of new bells and whistles they won't use, and justifying the price increase that way. But that's just kind of the final straw - there have been other frustrations.

The website is slow, and I mean really slow. Sometimes it freezes when you're trying to pull reports. When you go to WA-integrated pages on their website, everything slows down. The web page integration doesn't look great, but it's passable. No integration with QuickBooks Online, and the reporting isn't super friendly to do monthly reconciliations between the two applications.

Avantages

Price for managing HOA communities was a little better than some of my other options.

Inconvénients

Very clunky interface, cumbersome and dated looking. I felt like I was using decade-old software, like FrontPage. Remote area means we don't have as high speed internet speeds as we'd like, and this dramatically affected using Wild Apricot. The clunky interface was made worse on slow-speed days, whereas other programs were not affected at all.

Avantages

I liked the graphics. They do a great job with marketing and making it feel user friendly.

Inconvénients

The price. We found cheaper solutions elsewhere that performed the same tools.

Avantages

Wild Apricot has been a good program for building a website. It has plenty of tools that you can use to manage your members and communicate with them. It is also fairly simple to use. If you have difficulties, I have found the help section to be very useful.

Inconvénients

Sometimes it is difficult to format emails when sending an email blast to members. It can also be challenging to figure out certain things you want to accomplish while in admin mode.

Avantages

1) WildApricot looks simple when you log in, the user interface is intuitive and easy to navigate, and the layouts provided are modern and fresh compared to other platforms

Inconvénients

1) I think the communication from WilApricot is usually pretty good, and the company does a good job of keeping people updated on new features. Sometimes I think there could be more updates to the features to keep things connected with the online world of plug-ins.

Avantages

There are useful features that I never would have considered but add a great deal to the customer's experience.

Inconvénients

There is no supporting functionality for our most important annual event. Billing information is not sent to the office until after payment is due. Setting up credit card payment via PalPal and WA was very difficult.

Avantages

I like the ability to manage all "members" in one location (including payment info).

Inconvénients

Too many "member" classifications can complicate even the easiest membership. Cleaning data is not as easy as we'd hoped.

Avantages

By far the best looking membership management site.

Inconvénients

Does not work properly in Opera or Safari. Support staff do not seem to consider browser compatibility a priority.
Site is often very slow to respond.