Memberful Alternative
Looking for a Memberful alternative built for nonprofits? Communal offers membership management plus events, facilities, volunteers, and donations — without per-transaction fees.
Key Differences of Memberful vs Communal
Built for Nonprofits
Memberful was designed for individual creators and publishers. Communal is purpose-built for nonprofits, community associations, and member-based organizations with features tailored to their unique needs.
All-in-One Platform
Memberful only handles subscriptions and gated content. Communal combines memberships with facility booking, event management, volunteer coordination, and donor CRM in a single integrated platform.
No Transaction Fees
Memberful charges 4.9% on every transaction on top of Stripe processing fees. Communal offers straightforward pricing without per-transaction fees eating into your organization's revenue.
Memberful Pros & Cons
Memberful Strengths
- Clean white-label branding that integrates into your existing website
- Strong Stripe integration for recurring subscription billing
- Good for gated content and private podcast feeds
- Free trial mode lets you test without connecting payments
- No cap on member count across all plans
Memberful Limitations
- Owned by Patreon since 2018 — focused on the creator economy, not nonprofits
- Charges 4.9% transaction fee on top of Stripe processing fees
- No facility management, booking, or rental capabilities
- No volunteer management or scheduling tools
- No donor CRM, tax receipting, or fundraising features
Why Communal
Everything your nonprofit needs in one place
Memberful is a payment layer for creators that only handles subscriptions and gated content. Communal is a complete nonprofit management platform that brings memberships, facility booking, events, volunteer coordination, and donor management together — eliminating the need to piece together multiple tools with Zapier.
- Comprehensive membership management with digital cards
- Facility booking with calendars and rental agreements
- Event registration with ticketing and member pricing
- Volunteer coordination with hour tracking
- Donor management with automatic tax receipting
Designed for organizations, not individual creators
Memberful was built for podcasters, writers, and independent creators who sell subscriptions. Communal was built from the ground up for nonprofits, community associations, and member-based organizations. Every feature is designed around the workflows that matter to your team — from managing family memberships to coordinating volunteer shifts.
- Developed in partnership with real community organizations
- Features designed based on nonprofit administrator feedback
- Family and household membership support
- Resident vs non-resident pricing automation
- Straightforward pricing without per-transaction fees
Detailed Feature Comparison
| Feature | Communal | Memberful |
|---|---|---|
| Membership Features | ||
| Multiple membership types and tiers | ||
| Online member payments including auto-renewal | ||
| Digital membership cards (Apple Wallet, Google Wallet) | ||
| Targeted member emails | ||
| Membership lists and reports | ||
| Automated renewal reminders | ||
| Automated resident vs non-resident memberships | ||
| Custom questions during registration | ||
| Family/household memberships | ||
| Waiver agreement collection | ||
| Event Management | ||
| Event ticketing and management | ||
| Collect custom information during event purchase | ||
| Member pricing for events | ||
| Event signup lists | ||
| Integrated volunteer management for events | ||
| Facility Management | ||
| Online facility calendars | ||
| Member pricing for facility rentals | ||
| Instant or admin approved rental requests | ||
| Online payment for instant rentals | ||
| Member only rentals for courts | ||
| Online rental agreement forms | ||
| Custom invoicing and damage deposit collection | ||
| Volunteer Management | ||
| Volunteer signups during event registration | ||
| Comprehensive volunteer management | ||
| Tracking volunteer hours | ||
| Recurring volunteer shifts | ||
| Volunteer interest tagging | ||
| Donor Management | ||
| Online tax receipting | ||
| Donor CRM | ||
| Fundraisers | ||
| Other Features | ||
| Unlimited admin accounts | ||
| Granular admin roles and permissions | ||
| White label branding | ||
| API access | ||
| Website builder integration | ||
| Gated content / paywalled articles | ||
| Private podcast feeds | ||
| No per-transaction fees | ||
See How Communal Works for Your Organization
Get a personalized walkthrough of the features that matter most to you. We'll answer your questions and help you understand if Communal is the right fit.
Most demos are scheduled within 24 hours
Powering 500+ community organizations
We love hearing from our customers and are proud to have helped 500+ organizations drive more impact and grow their communities.
We are finally able to communicate with our members, run booking software and a program payment platform all in one application. The cost to our Community is very reasonable and the team is fantastic to work with.
My experience with the software and the team has been overwhelmingly positive. We switched from another provider and the difference was night-and-day!
Revenue from membership sales and renewals increased, and we save a significant amount of staff time and paperwork. The customer service is outstanding and the team at Communal continues to add helpful features.
Frequently asked questions
Memberful was designed for individual creators selling subscriptions and gated content — not for nonprofits managing members, events, and facilities. Communal provides everything you need in one platform: membership management, facility booking, volunteer management, and donor CRM — without the 4.9% transaction fee Memberful charges.
Memberful charges $49/month plus a 4.9% fee on every transaction, on top of Stripe's processing fees. This means the more your organization grows, the more you pay in fees. Communal offers straightforward pricing without per-transaction fees, so you keep more of your revenue. Visit our pricing page for details.
Yes — and this is a major advantage over Memberful. Communal includes robust facility management for booking halls, courts, and spaces with online calendars, rental agreements, and payment processing. You can also manage events and programs with ticketing, member pricing, and waitlists. Memberful offers none of these features.
Absolutely. Communal includes comprehensive volunteer management with shift scheduling, hour tracking, and volunteer discounts. Our donor CRM handles donations, automatic tax receipts, and fundraising campaigns. With Memberful, you would need to integrate separate tools for each of these functions.
Memberful specializes in gated content delivery and private podcast feeds, which are designed for individual creators monetizing digital content. If your organization primarily needs to paywall articles or distribute private podcasts, Memberful may be a better fit. However, for nonprofits that need membership management alongside events, facilities, volunteers, and donations, Communal is the more complete solution. See how Communal compares to other nonprofit software alternatives as well.
Migration is straightforward. Our team helps transfer your member data from Memberful to Communal, typically completing the transition within 1-2 weeks. Since Communal is designed to be intuitive for nonprofit administrators, your team will be up and running quickly.
Your data is stored in a secure database that is not accessible to anyone. Users' credit card information is not stored on our platform. We utilize Stripe to process payments, learn more about how they store their data here.
You can! Our team is happy to help migrate data from an excel spreadsheet or an existing platform you utilize today. Contact us for more questions.
Communal directly deposits into your bank account. We do not hold any funds on our platform.
Yes, Communal is fully PCI-DSS compliant as we partner with Stripe as our payment processor. Stripe has been audited by an independent PCI Qualified Security Assessor (QSA) and is certified as a PCI Level 1 Service Provider. Communal does not have access to see or store any credit card data as all transactions are sent directly to Stripe.