Last Updated: May 2026
Choosing between MemberPress vs Raklet is a decision between two different business models. MemberPress is a paid WordPress plugin that you bolt onto a self-hosted WordPress site, while Raklet is a hosted SaaS platform that bundles membership, CRM, events, and email in one product. This guide compares the two head to head on pricing, features, company stability, and the operational realities of running each. If you want a wider view, see our other alternatives to MemberPress.
MemberPress vs Raklet: quick verdict
Use the table below for a fast read on where each platform fits. The short version: MemberPress wins on WordPress-native content gating and built-in courses for solo creators. Raklet wins for associations, nonprofits, and clubs that need a CRM, event registration, dues, and email broadcast under one login without managing a WordPress stack.
| Dimension | MemberPress | Raklet |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Solo coaches, course creators, paywalled content on WordPress | Associations, nonprofits, clubs, alumni networks |
| Hosting model | Self-hosted WordPress plugin | Hosted SaaS (no hosting required) |
| Pricing transparency | Public tiers, intro price doubles at renewal | Contact-based, scaled to organization size |
| Transaction fees | 4.9% on Launch plan, 0% on Growth and Scale | No platform transaction fee |
| Built-in CRM and events | Not included | Included |
| Member data on cancellation | Admin UI locks when license expires | Members and exports remain accessible |
Side-by-side overview
MemberPress is the flagship product of Caseproof LLC, founded by Blair Williams in 2004 and launched in 2014. It is a WordPress plugin that adds content restriction, recurring billing, and a built-in LMS to any self-hosted WordPress site. The plugin is sold on annual licenses, with three tiers (Launch, Growth, Scale) priced based on features rather than member count.
Raklet is a hosted membership and community platform built for organizations rather than individual creators. It combines a membership database, CRM, event registration, online dues, email broadcast, member directory, and a branded mobile app in a single account. There is no WordPress to install or maintain. Pricing is contact-based and scales to your contact volume and module mix rather than to user seats.
Feature comparison
The feature table below maps the day-to-day capabilities most membership operators evaluate. The biggest functional gap is not any single feature, it is scope. MemberPress focuses on content gating plus courses; Raklet covers the membership lifecycle (acquisition, dues, events, communication, retention) inside one tool.
| Feature | MemberPress | Raklet |
|---|---|---|
| CRM (contacts, segments, notes) | No | Yes |
| Event management and ticketing | No (third-party plugin) | Yes (native) |
| Email broadcast and newsletter | No (Mailchimp / ActiveCampaign add-on) | Yes (native) |
| Recurring dues and renewals | Yes (subscription billing) | Yes (membership plans) |
| Branded mobile app | AppKit add-on | Included |
| Public REST API | Scale plan only | Available |
| Member directory with profiles | Growth and Scale (ClubSuite) | Included |
| Self-hosting required | Yes (you run WordPress) | No |
| Transaction fee on entry plan | 4.9% per payment | None |
| AI features | AI credits, ChatGPT add-on | Limited (assistive features in roadmap) |
AI features
MemberPress added AI credits to its plans in 2024 and 2025, allocating 25,000 credits on Launch, 50,000 on Growth, and 100,000 on Scale. These credits power admin-facing tasks: generating course descriptions, drafting quiz questions, and writing membership page copy. A separate ChatGPT integration add-on lets administrators automate setup tasks. None of these features are member-facing, they are productivity tools for the site owner.
Raklet’s AI exposure is more limited today. Assistive features for member communication and segmentation are on the roadmap, but Raklet does not advertise an AI-credit allocation comparable to MemberPress’s. If your buying decision depends specifically on bundled AI content generation, MemberPress has more shipped functionality in this area. For most association and nonprofit buyers, the more decisive trade-offs are CRM, events, and email scope, not AI credit volume.
Pricing
MemberPress sells annual licenses on three tiers. The first-year intro price is roughly half of the renewal price, which surprises buyers at year two. The Launch tier also adds a 4.9% transaction fee on every payment processed, which can exceed the plugin license cost on active sites. Full numbers are on the MemberPress pricing page.
| Plan | Intro year | Renewal | Transaction fee | Notable inclusions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Launch | $199.50 / year | $399 / year | 4.9% | Core membership, courses, 1 site |
| Growth | $349.50 / year | $699 / year | 0% | Adds CoachKit, ClubSuite, 2 sites |
| Scale | $499.50 / year | $999 / year | 0% | Adds REST API, Zapier, affiliates, 5 sites |
Raklet pricing is contact-based, tailored to organization size and the modules you turn on (CRM, events, email volume, branded app). There is no public per-seat price and no transaction fee charged by Raklet on payments processed through the platform. See Raklet pricing plans for a personalized quote.
A practical TCO note: the WordPress side of a MemberPress deployment carries its own costs. Hosting, security, backup, SSL, and a maintenance retainer typically run several hundred dollars per year for a small site and several thousand for a busy one. Those costs sit outside the MemberPress license and should be added to any like-for-like comparison.
Company health
MemberPress is published by Caseproof LLC, a privately held Utah company founded by Blair Williams in 2004. MemberPress itself launched in 2014. Caseproof has not raised traditional venture capital. The most notable outside investment was a 2018 round from the WPBeginner Growth Accelerator led by Syed Balkhi of Awesome Motive. Williams remains CEO and majority owner.
Since 2023, Caseproof has been actively rolling up the WordPress membership ecosystem. It acquired MemberMouse in February 2023, WishList Member in May 2023, ThirstyAffiliates across 2023 and 2024, and AccessAlly in 2024 to 2025. Three of the most-recommended “MemberPress alternatives” in WordPress listicles, MemberMouse, WishList Member, and AccessAlly, now share the same parent company.
Product cadence is healthy. The MemberPress changelog shows roughly monthly releases. Version 1.12.15 shipped on April 7, 2026, adding Apple Pay support, modern pricing tables, and a PayPal Complete Payments gateway. The full release history is on the MemberPress changelog. Raklet ships on a similar continuous cadence as a SaaS platform, with feature updates delivered without customer action.
What MemberPress users say
MemberPress holds strong aggregate ratings: 4.8 on Capterra across 365 reviews and 4.7 on G2 across 276 reviews. The negative themes are concentrated in the long tail of one and two-star reviews, and they cluster around three issues: the admin lockout when a license expires, the 4.9% transaction fee on the Launch plan, and the design customization work required to make member-facing pages match a brand. Full review libraries are on G2 reviews of MemberPress and Capterra reviews.
The license-expiry policy is the most-discussed grievance. As one verified Capterra reviewer put it: “Completely unethical. Once your license expires you are locked out of the backend and cannot manage your members unless you pay. I removed it from 80 plus client websites.” WP Tavern’s coverage of the license-expiry policy documented the original Reddit thread that surfaced the issue and confirmed that Paid Memberships Pro used the controversy to publicly commit to keeping its code working after license lapse.
Other recurring complaints from review mining include Mailchimp integration that only syncs at signup (not on email changes), Elementor compatibility friction, a “clunky” PayPal flow, and basic built-in reporting that pushes analytical users to export raw data and rebuild views in spreadsheets. None of these are deal-breakers individually, they accumulate into the “I had to hire a developer” pattern that appears across reviews.
Raklet’s own sales team frequently hears association buyers describe MemberPress as “great for solo coaches, not for our membership program” when they hit the WordPress maintenance wall and realize they also need a CRM, events, and email under one roof.
Migration and switching
Migrating from MemberPress to a hosted platform is usually straightforward on the member data side and slightly more involved on the subscription side. MemberPress exports member, transaction, and subscription records as CSV. Raklet imports CSV from any source, which keeps the data side simple. Sites previously running MemberPress alongside WooCommerce Subscriptions report manual reconciliation work, because the two products do not always agree on the canonical subscription state.
The license-expiry policy is a switching consideration even for buyers who plan to migrate. If you let your MemberPress license lapse before you finish exporting your member list, you may need to re-purchase a year of the plugin to regain access to the admin UI long enough to run the export. The cleanest path is to renew, export, and then migrate, in that order.
For buyers moving from MemberPress to Raklet specifically, the typical migration covers four data sets: members and contact attributes, active memberships and renewal dates, transaction history for accounting, and any uploaded files or course content. Raklet’s onboarding team handles CSV import for the first three; course content typically migrates on a per-asset basis.
FAQ
What happens to my MemberPress site if I let my license expire?
The public-facing pages of your site keep working, but the MemberPress admin UI becomes inaccessible. You cannot view, manage, refund, or export your members and subscriptions from the WordPress dashboard until you renew. Multiple verified Capterra and G2 reviewers describe this as a “ransom” rather than a normal license lapse, and WordPress community commentators have noted the practice is unusual for the plugin ecosystem.
Is MemberPress better than Raklet for a single coach or course creator?
For a solo coach selling courses or paywalled content on an existing WordPress site, MemberPress is usually the better fit. It is WordPress-native, has a strong built-in LMS, includes CoachKit on Growth and Scale, and integrates with the WordPress block editor. Raklet is overkill for that use case. Raklet is built for organizations with members, not individual creators with customers.
Can Raklet replace MemberPress for an association or nonprofit?
Yes. For associations, professional bodies, alumni networks, and nonprofits, Raklet replaces MemberPress and several add-on tools at once. It covers membership, dues collection, event registration and ticketing, email broadcast, CRM, member directory, and a branded mobile app in one product. You do not run a WordPress site, manage plugin updates, or pay separate vendors for events and email.
Does MemberPress charge transaction fees on top of the annual fee?
Yes, on the Launch plan. MemberPress adds a 4.9% transaction fee to every payment processed on the Launch tier. The Growth and Scale plans remove this fee. For a site processing $5,000 per month in memberships, the Launch fee alone exceeds $200 per month, which often pushes buyers to upgrade to Growth at $699 per year renewal just to eliminate the fee. Payment gateway fees from Stripe or PayPal are separate.
Which one should you choose?
Choose MemberPress if you already run a WordPress site, sell digital content or courses, and want a mature plugin with strong content restriction, a built-in LMS, and a roadmap focused on creators and coaches. Be ready for the renewal pricing jump, the 4.9% Launch-plan transaction fee, and the operational work of maintaining your own WordPress stack. For a broader view of where MemberPress fits inside the wider category, see our broader roundup of MemberPress alternatives, which also covers Memberful (a hosted SaaS option) and other non-plugin choices.
Choose Raklet if you run an association, nonprofit, alumni network, professional body, or club, and you need membership, CRM, events, dues, email, and a member directory inside one platform without a WordPress site to maintain. Raklet wins on scope and operational simplicity for this audience, MemberPress wins on creator-focused depth.
If Raklet fits your scope, the fastest way to evaluate is to start a free trial and import a small sample of your member list. See Raklet pricing plans for a quote tailored to your organization, then Try Raklet free.
