9 Best Membership Software for Bloggers Compared

Your blog doesn't have to make money from advertising and affiliate marketing alone.

If you've built an audience around your content, you can turn that audience into a membership business by giving readers something they can't get from your regular blog.

This could be a paid newsletter, premium articles, courses, videos, a private community, a collection of resources, or even a marketplace where members can buy and sell products or services. The most important part is choosing the right membership software.

Some platforms are built primarily for paid newsletters, while others are designed for courses and premium content or communities and forums. Newer platforms combine memberships with apps, events, and community features.

So rather than putting everything into one giant list, I've grouped these platforms by the type of membership experience they're best suited to.

The 4 Types of Membership Software for Bloggers (Summary)

1. Paid Newsletters & Subscriber Memberships

This category is ideal if your main product is your content.

So, instead of charging readers for access to a huge course library or community, you can offer premium articles, newsletters, insights, resources, or subscriber-only content.

Ghost

Ghost is the platform I use for my own blog, and it's also my favorite blogging platform. And what makes Ghost particularly interesting for membership businesses is that blogging and memberships aren't separate experiences.

You can publish your regular articles, build an email list, send newsletters, and offer paid memberships from the same platform.

You can create paid membership in different tiers (for example: Tier 1 - $10/month and Tier 2 - $25/month) and restrict certain content to paying members.

This makes Ghost a great fit for bloggers who want to turn an existing publication into a paid content business.

Beehiiv

Beehiiv to me is the best platform for newsletter-first creators and publishers. It's not just an email marketing platform; it's a publishing platform built around growing an email audience and monetizing.

You can publish web content, send newsletters, build subscriber relationships, and create paid subscription.

It offers more growth and monetization features than Ghost. Features like automation, polls, pop-ups, in-built newsletter referral program, A/B testing, offer lead magnets, podcasts and communities.

Aside from paid newsletter subscriptions, you can also make money on Beehiiv through their ad network, direct sponsorship, recommending other publications, selling your own digital products, offer coaching and premium communities all on Beehiiv without needing a separate platform.

I personally make use of Beehiiv (not for this blog) and honestly, it's also another great platform I 100% recommend. Beehiiv also supports running up to ten publications (Pro Plan) on one account.

Try Beehiiv 14-days free then get 20% off your first three months through my partner link.

2. Premium Content, Courses & Digital Memberships

If you want your membership to contain more than written posts, this category is for you.

These platforms are more suited to bloggers who want to package their knowledge into videos, courses, resources, downloads, lessons, or a private content library.

Sellfy

Sellfy is an ecommerce platform. It supports selling of digital products like courses, ebooks, templates, licenses for software, physical products, print-on-demand, exclusive content, newsletters, subscription boxes and more.

All you have to do is to select what you want your monthly subscribers to receive. Your blog attracts the readers, while your Sellfy store gives them somewhere to buy access to these premium resources.

Sellfy also offers marketing tools like email marketing, affiliate marketing, coupon codes, upselling, cart abandonment and customer reviews for your membership program.

Klasio

Klasio is designed around helping creators and brands package and sell knowledge online. You can build a more structured learning and content experience for your subscribers.

Offer courses, digital downloads, advanced quizzes and host webinars with your paid members. Every Klasio account comes with the access to free mobile app for students available on App Store and Play Store.

To create your own custom app, Klasio charge a one-time setup fee and monthly subscription.

3. Communities, Forums & Creator Marketplaces

If your idea involves discussion, networking, groups, events, member interaction, or a marketplace, platforms such as Heartbeat and Whop become great choices.

Heartbeat

Heartbeat is an incredible community and membership platform. It’s not just a place to host a private community; you can create a full member experience with content, discussions, courses, events, paid memberships, and more.

You can create different channels for your community, set up member profiles and a member directory, give members badges, add gamification, and create a more engaging experience for your members. You can also have admins and moderators, send direct messages, use in-app and push notifications, and manage your community from the platform.

Heartbeat also gives you tools to monetize and grow your community through paid memberships, paid waitlists, landing pages, autoresponders, and even run your own affiliate program directly from the platform. This gives your community members a way to earn commissions by referring new members or customers to your community.

Another thing I like is that Heartbeat has its own iOS and Android apps, so members can access your community from their phones rather than having to rely entirely on a web browser.

Whop

Whop provides a marketplace-oriented environment where you can sell digital products, memberships, communities, and other online experiences.

When you create a Whop (your own community), you can install different apps such as forums, courses, files, events, shop, knowledgebase, leaderboards, testimonials and so much more to add functionality to your community.

4. Community Apps & Member Experiences

If you want your members to have an actual branded community experience, sometimes including a mobile app, events, courses, challenges, or other interactive features. That's where this category comes in.

Passion

Passion is a no-code app builder that combines interactive courses, community and coaching. It is focused on helping you build community experiences rather than simply publishing content.

Since most of your users likely spend more time on their mobile devices, creating an app is a great way to boost engagement and keep your members connected.

With apps, you build distraction-free spaces where your audience connects without ads or algorithm interference, and you own the relationship with your audience instead of renting space on social media platforms.

Passion takes care of your app maintenance, updates and feature upgrades.

You can host and schedule your video, audio and pdf content, reach your entire audience instantly without relying on email open rates through push notifications, offer offline access and create courses and communities.

An app gives a more premium experience and reduces subscription cancellation rate.

Movement

Movement works similar to Passion. You can build your app without the knowledge of code and offer exclusive content, courses and community.

It also supports direct messages, built-in form for easy data collection, free trials, analytics, push notifications, personalized post-purchase emails and more.

Movement also has a forever free plan that lets you build your app, sell digital products and engage up to 100 active members all for free.

But Why Sell Subscriptions Online?

Selling a product once is great but being paid by the same customer repeatedly feels even more great.

1. For starters, it gives you a more stable and predictable income.
2. It also strengthens your relationship with your audience and helps your followers and buyers stick around.
3. Subscriptions have higher lifetime value.
4. Subscriptions create easier launches for new products. Because, when you already have subscribers, every new product starts with an audience that’s ready to listen, click, and buy.
5. Subscriptions also have scalable growth. Any time you want to scale it, you simply add more content, unique perks, or membership tiers.

Don't Build a Membership Just Because You Can

This is probably the most important point.

Adding a paywall doesn't automatically create a successful membership business.

You need something people actually want to pay for. That could be:

• Exclusive articles
• Detailed tutorials
• Premium newsletters
• Courses
• Templates
• Private communities
• Coaching
• Industry research
• Resources
• Events
• Accountability
• Access to you
• Access to other members

Start with the value proposition, then choose the software. Not the other way around.

Frequently Asked Questions

To Summarize the Entire Post

Memberships give bloggers another way to build a business around the audience they're already creating. You don't have to place ads everywhere on your blog just to make profit.

Your membership doesn't need to be complicated on day one.

Start with something genuinely useful, get to know what your audience wants, and expand the experience as the business grows.

Recommended Reading:

• How to Get a Free Business Email
• How to Write Blog Posts 10X Faster
• Tailwind Review + Complete Tutorial
• Learn All About Affiliate Marketing as a Blogger

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• Blogger Business OS
• SaaS Affiliate Program Tracker
• Blog Content Planner Sheets