Most organizations leave Glue Up over the $3,000/yr entry price, annual billing and the list of separately priced power-ups for chapters, community, certifications and the branded app. Stay on Glue Up if you run dozens of events a year across several countries and want a branded member app.
Ordered by how well each one fits the organizations that usually outgrow Glue Up.
Memberships, programs and facility booking, month to month
Membership management, automated renewals, wallet cards, donations with tax receipts, volunteer shifts and POS on one member record, with programs, events and facility booking as modules.
Check first: No website builder, no native mobile app and no SSO; Communal is a member portal that sits beside your existing site.
The lowest-friction swap for associations that want a website and database together
Wild Apricot bundles a website builder, member database, events, email and a store at every tier, with a 60-day no-card trial and month-to-month billing.
Check first: Pricing is by total contacts, and using a gateway other than Personify Payments adds a 20% subscription surcharge.
Association management for staffed professional and trade associations
MemberClicks runs MC Trade for chambers and MC Professional for professional societies, with dues automation, committees, event management, forms and an OAuth REST API.
Check first: Quote-only pricing, annual contracts, and community, member app, LMS and registration tech are paid add-ons.
Community engagement first, for alumni and professional networks
Hivebrite is built around groups, sub-communities, forums, mentoring and a white-label mobile app, with unlimited users on every plan.
Check first: Higher entry cost than Glue Up, no facility booking, limited volunteer tools and no native wallet cards.
Unlimited member records and renewal automation for chambers
Membee bills by admin seat rather than by member, so member records are unlimited, and it charges no vendor transaction fee across eight gateway choices.
Check first: No public API, no QuickBooks sync, no wallet cards, and reviewers call the mobile admin experience poor.
Chamber-grade AMS with integrated payments, CMS and LMS
GrowthZone (ChamberMaster lineage) covers sponsorships, business directories, committees and certifications, with GZ Pay processing and a REST API.
Check first: Quote-only pricing, annual or multi-year contracts, and website, community and LMS are priced add-ons.
Membership and events that embed in the website you already have
MembershipWorks plugs events, a directory, donations, forms and a job board into WordPress, Squarespace, Wix and others.
Check first: No public API, no member app, no facility booking and no wallet cards.
| Feature | Communal | Glue Up | Wild Apricot | MemberClicks | Hivebrite |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Membership management | IncludedTiers, custom fields, segments | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Automated renewals | IncludedReminders and auto-renew | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Digital membership cards (Apple / Google Wallet) | IncludedIncluded in every plan | PartialIn-app cards | Partial | Not listed | Not offered |
| Event registration & ticketing | Add-onPrograms & events, +$50/mo | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Program & class registration | Add-onWaitlists, capacity, attendance, rosters | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed |
| Facility booking & rentals | Add-onFrom +$50/mo; approvals, invoices, agreements, iCal | Not offered | Not offered | Not offered | Not offered |
| Volunteer shifts & hour tracking | IncludedShifts, hours, auto volunteer discounts | Not offered | Not offered | Not offered | Partial |
| Donations & fundraising | IncludedIncluded; donor covers fees option | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Automatic tax receipts | IncludedAutomatic | Not listed | PartialDonation receipts | Not listed | Not listed |
| Member self-service portal | Included | IncludedBranded app | IncludedMember app | Included | Included |
| Email campaigns | IncludedCampaigns and segments | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Website builder | Not offeredWorks beside your site | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Chapters & federations | IncludedFederated leagues and chapters | Add-onChapter Management power-up | Not offered | Included | IncludedSub-communities |
| Public API | IncludedREST API, Zapier webhooks, MCP server | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Detail | Communal | Glue Up | Wild Apricot | MemberClicks | Hivebrite |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $75/mo | From $3,000/yr | From $66/mo | From $3,500/yr | From $895/mo |
| Pricing model | Flat, by member band (to 250 members at the floor) | Annual plan by org size | Per contact, tiered | Annual quote by org size | Flat plan, billed annually |
| Contract | No contracts, prorated billing, cancel any module any time | Annual (all contracts billed annually by default; one-off event pricing possible) | Month-to-month available;Detailsoptional 1-year and 2-year prepay discounts; no cancellation fees | Typically 1-year contracts;Detailsmulti-year contracts offered at a discounted rate | Annual |
| Payment fees | Card-processing application fee set in your agreement, often 2%; no monthly minimums | Payments run through integrated third-party gateways (Stripe, PayPal, Paygage and others) at the gateway's own rates;DetailsGlue Up does not publish a platform transaction fee. Fee for using external gateways: not published. | No per-transaction fee from WildApricot itself when using the integrated Personify Payments processor (processor rates not published on the pricing page).DetailsUsing a third-party gateway (Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.Net) triggers a Payment System Servicing Fee described in the help center as 20% of the subscription plan price, applied to US/Canada accounts; vendor pricing page calls this 'an additional fee'. | Integrated payment processing via partner (Payroc/NMI gateway noted in help center at $16.95/mo customer rate with setup fee waived);Detailsper-transaction processor percentages not published on vendor pricing page. No published surcharge for external gateways found. | Payments via integrated gateways (Stripe, Braintree, PayPal, Square, Zelle per vendor pages) at gateway rates;Detailsno Hivebrite platform transaction fee published. Fee for using external gateways: not published. |
| Free trial | Free trial, no credit card | No (demo only) | 60-day free trial, no credit card required; no permanently free plan | No free trial or free plan advertised; demo via sales | No (demo only) |
Glue Up plans start around $3,000/yr and every contract is billed annually by default. For a chapter, club or small association that budgets month to month, that is a large check before the first event runs.
Chapter Management, Certification (CPD/CPE), Community, the website power-up, the branded My Glue app and SSO are priced separately, and limits on events, emails, admins and contacts can be raised for a fee. The quoted plan is rarely the whole bill.
Glue Up sells through a demo and proposal. You cannot open an account, import a member list and test a renewal flow before you commit, which makes it hard to compare fairly against tools you can try for free.
Glue Up has no volunteer shift management and no facility booking. Organizations that schedule volunteers or rent rooms and courts need a second system, and the member record splits across both.
Digital membership cards live inside the My Glue app. Apple Wallet and Google Wallet passes, which members can use without installing anything, are not confirmed on vendor pages.
Communal starts at $75/mo for up to 250 members with no contract, prorated billing and the option to cancel any module at any time. Glue Up bills annually, and a demo and proposal come before a price.
Communal runs each organization as its own tenant under a parent, with federation fees and address-based routing of members to the right chapter; the EFCL runs 163 community leagues this way. Glue Up sells Chapter Management as a separately priced power-up.
Volunteer opportunities with shifts, clock in and out hours and automatic volunteer discounts are included, the facilities module handles approvals and rental invoicing, and Apple and Google Wallet passes are in every plan. Glue Up has neither volunteers nor facilities, and keeps cards inside its app.
Communal has a 30-day trial with no credit card and free scoped data migration, so you can import your members and test renewals before paying. Glue Up offers a demo only.
Stay on Glue Up if events are the center of your organization, you work across borders, and the annual plan plus power-ups fits a staffed budget. It is a mature event and association platform, and the gaps above only matter if you schedule volunteers, rent facilities, or want a monthly bill you can cancel.
MemberClicks for staffed associations that need committees, CE tracking and an AMS with implementation support. Communal for smaller associations and chapters that mainly need tiers, renewals, events, a directory and wallet cards without an annual contract.
Membee gives chambers unlimited member records and no vendor transaction fees, while GrowthZone adds sponsorship, business directory and LMS tooling for chambers with staff. Both are built for the chamber workflow that Glue Up treats as one use case among many.
Communal. Each chapter is its own tenant with its own Stripe account, the parent pushes fields and membership rules down, and residents are routed to the right chapter by address; the EFCL runs 163 leagues on this model and chapters are not a paid power-up.
Communal if the club rents a hall or courts, runs programs, or schedules volunteers, since those are the core of the product. Wild Apricot if the club is new, has no facilities and wants a website and membership from one vendor.
Glue Up exports members, event history and invoices as spreadsheets; the mapping into Communal is straightforward and we do it for you at no charge.
Export contacts, membership types, renewal dates, event attendance and invoice history from Glue Up; we map the fields and run a validation pass with a dry-run import before anything goes live.
Set up membership types, chapters (if you have them), programs and any bookable facilities in Communal, then import members with their existing renewal dates so nobody is billed early or late.
Point your website and email links at the Communal portal, send members their Apple and Google Wallet cards, and run both systems briefly while the first renewals and event registrations come through.
The EFCL runs 163 Edmonton community leagues on one Communal federation, with each league as its own tenant and members routed to the right league by address. Read the case study.
How the hall gets booked, how program pricing works, how you chase renewals. No canned tour. We walk Communal through your real process so you can see the fit before you decide.
No canned tour · No sales script
For community associations, clubs and chapter-based federations, Communal: flat $75/mo, no contract, volunteers and donors included, and federation support built in. For staffed professional associations that want an AMS, MemberClicks. For a small association that wants a website and database together, Wild Apricot. See the Communal pricing page for the full module list.
Glue Up plans start around $3,000/yr (about $250/mo), billed annually, with Professional, Advanced and Enterprise tiers sized to your organization. Chapter Management, Certification, Community, the website power-up, the branded app and SSO are priced separately, and limits on events, emails, admins and contacts can be raised for a fee. There is no free trial; pricing comes through a demo and proposal.
Yes. Communal is $75/mo for up to 250 members, month to month, with automated renewals, wallet cards, donations and volunteer tools included. Wild Apricot starts at $66/mo for 100 contacts, and MembershipWorks is free to 50 accounts and $35/mo to 300. All three can be tried without a sales call.
Yes, and migration is free. We import contacts, membership types, renewal dates, event history and invoices from your Glue Up export, validate the field mapping with you, and keep existing renewal dates intact. A 30-day trial with no credit card lets you test the import before you commit.
No. Communal has a responsive member portal (dashboard, renewals, registrations, bookings, invoices, donations, volunteering, family) in 11 locales, plus Apple Wallet and Google Wallet membership cards that update automatically. If a branded native app is a requirement, Glue Up or Hivebrite is the better fit.
Yes. Communal runs a parent tenant with child organizations, each with its own Stripe account, federation fees and parent-level custom fields pushed to chapters. Members are routed to the right chapter by address. This is part of the platform rather than a separately priced power-up; the EFCL uses it for 163 leagues.
Wild Apricot is cheaper to start ($66/mo for 100 contacts, 60-day trial) and includes a website builder; Glue Up is stronger on large event programs, multi-currency operations and a branded app, from $3,000/yr. Read the full Wild Apricot vs Glue Up comparison.