How much does Join It cost?

Join It offers tiered pricing: Starter Package starts at $29 per month with 3.0% service fee, Total Package at $99 per month with 2.0% service fee, Extra Package at $199 per month with 1.5% service fee, and Enterprise Package with custom pricing. Nonprofit organizations receive an extra 10% discount.

What makes Join It unique for associations?

Join It distinguishing features include digital membership cards with Apple Wallet and Google Wallet integration, best-of-need integration philosophy with platforms like Eventbrite and Mailchimp, and membership automation that reduces administrative workload for staff or volunteers.

Where does Join It fit in the association software market?

Join It is classified as Tier IV Micro-Membership Software, ideal for micro-associations or small volunteer-run organizations with operating budgets from startup to less than one million dollars, without dedicated IT staff.

Join It AMS Software Review for Association Executives

Q: What is Join It AMS Software?

Join It is a cloud-based membership management tool founded in 2015, focusing on providing a modern, integrated, and intuitive solution primarily for small to midsize membership-based organizations. It emphasizes automation and simplicity with seamless integration to other best-of-breed platforms.

Join It AMS being reviewed by SmartThoughts with a group of Association Executives

Join It AMS Software Review for Association Executives: The Power of Simplicity and Integration

In the intricate realm of association management, choosing the appropriate software is among the most crucial decisions an executive can make. It's an investment in your organization's mission and future, rather than merely a cost. This detailed overview of Join It AMS Software aims to offer you, the busy association executive, an objective, expert-reviewed analysis, providing the expertise and reliability needed to navigate your path toward the most suitable solution.

Summary of the Join It Software

Join It, developed by Join It, Inc., is a cloud-based membership management tool, founded in 2015 by Mitch Colleran and Bradley Geddes. It focuses on providing a modern, integrated, and intuitive solution primarily for small to midsize membership-based organizations. The unfunded company has experienced significant growth, reaching profitability.

Join It is best described by its user-focused design: "Join It has eliminated all of our membership management challenges. Now we have the time to focus on getting new members vs. trying to set up and manage our existing members".

The Purpose Statement of the Join It Software

The core mission of Join It is to help organizations "bring people together" by providing software that is modern and integrated. The philosophy centers on automation and simplicity, aiming to solve specific membership problems and then seamlessly integrating with other best-of-breed platforms, ensuring user data syncs automatically. This approach is explicitly designed for groups that do not have a dedicated IT or large membership staff, allowing them to automate repetitive, time-consuming tasks.

What Makes Join It a Fit for the Association Market and Unique?

Join It's primary distinguishing features revolve around its simplicity and its strong integration philosophy. While many AMS systems strive to be the all-in-one solution (often described with the analogy "The tool that thinks it's a toolbox" for Tier III systems), Join It accepts its role as a core membership management system and focuses on deep, seamless connections to other industry-leading tools.

Digital Membership Cards: A highly praised, unique feature is the native integration with Apple Wallet and Google Wallet for digital membership cards, including QR codes for check-in.
Best-of-Need Integration: Instead of building a comprehensive, and often complex, suite of tools, Join It prioritizes integrations with popular systems like Eventbrite, Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Stripe, and QuickBooks. This is crucial for associations that prefer to use market-leading, specialized software for functions like email marketing or event ticketing.
Membership Automation: The platform automates repetitive membership tasks, such as renewal reminders, recurring payments, and expiration notices, significantly reducing the administrative workload on staff or volunteers.

What are the Functional Goals of the Join It Software?

Join It concentrates its functionality around the foundational needs of member management. As a more simplistic solution, its functional goals are direct and focused on core membership mechanics.

Membership Management: Core function with a focus on ease-of-use, member profiles, and unlimited membership types and price levels. It manages the member life-cycle, including automated confirmation and renewal reminders.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM): Provides a membership CRM to organize, automate, and optimize member data. It allows for customizable CRM fields, including admin-only fields.
Financial Management: Primarily handles recurring billing and payment collection through integrations with major merchant providers like Stripe. It offers offline payment options and detailed financial reporting on membership fees. Financial tracking is generally for Accounts Receivable related to dues and not a full general ledger accounting system.
Events Registration and/or Event Management: While it offers check-in features, its event focus is on integration. It allows organizations to configure members-only benefits, discounts, and early access codes for upcoming events, often leveraging its deep integration with platforms like Eventbrite.
Marketing Automation and/or Email Marketing Automation: This is handled via seamless integrations with email marketing partners like Mailchimp or Constant Contact, maintaining synchronized member and email lists. The system itself can send quick, one-off email blasts and automated membership-lifecycle emails.
Member Portal: Offers a member-friendly portal for members to manage their information and payments.
Advanced Reporting: Provides reporting capabilities to track member behavior and financial data related to membership.
Content Management Capabilities & Chapter Management: Join It does not typically focus on building or hosting an association's main website or providing deep content management capabilities, often requiring integration with an existing website (like WordPress) or using its simple embeddable purchase widget. Multi-chapter support is a feature reserved for its custom-priced Enterprise package.
Artificial Intelligence & Dashboards: While reporting is offered, explicit features classified as Artificial Intelligence (AI) are not a primary focus, aligning with the general trend of the smaller AMS market to prioritize core functions over AI prowess.

Where Does Join It Software Fit in the Market?

According to the SmartThoughts Tier Classification Framework, Join It is classified as a Tier IV: Micro-Membership Software. Additionally, we would not consider it a true example of an AMS by definition.

Ideal Client Profile: This system is geared toward micro-associations or small volunteer-run organizations with an operating budget typically ranging from startup to less than one million dollars. Its core users are organizations that do not have dedicated IT staff and appreciate the simplicity, automation, and reliance on existing best-of-breed software for complex functions.
Tier Characteristics Match: Tier IV systems are defined by offering basic features with limited depth in areas like events and advanced financial management, often functioning as a website/CMS plugin or simple standalone tool. Join It’s simplicity, reliance on integrations for marketing/events, and limited accounting depth (focused on AR and billing) align perfectly with this micro-tier structure.
Comparison Systems: Join It competes head-to-head with other Tier IV systems like Raklet, WishList Members, MemberSpace, and possibly a more robust Tier III system like Wild Apricot (although Wild Apricot, a Personify company, is often seen as a comprehensive Tier III "Swiss Army knife" due to its all-in-one approach). Join It differentiates itself from all-in-one solutions by maintaining its simplicity and promoting its integrations.

What is the Price of Join It Software?

Join It offers tiered, publicly available pricing plans:

Starter Package: Starts at $29+/month (with a 3.0% service fee for online transactions) and includes 3 Admin Seats and custom fields.
Total Package: Starts at $99+/month (with a 2.0% service fee) and includes Digital Membership Cards, Check-in Features, API access, and 5 Admin Seats.
Extra Package: Starts at $199+/month (with a 1.5% service fee) and includes the removal of Join It branding, Custom Domain support, a Dedicated Account Manager, and 10 Admin Seats.
Enterprise Package: Custom pricing for large organizations requiring multi-chapter support and custom development.

Nonprofit organizations are eligible for an extra 10% discount on their subscription fees. All plans incur payment processing fees (which are separate from the Join It service fee), such as those imposed by Stripe. These processing fees are a significant concern for many and should be included in the overall cost of ownership.

Disclaimer: In the end, it is recommended to contact the software vendor directly for the latest pricing information. Association executives must understand the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), including the transaction fees and potential costs for integrating or subscribing to external software like Mailchimp or Eventbrite.

Join It Peer Reviews and Unique Feature Insights

Join It consistently receives strong peer reviews across major platforms, with a notable focus on its customer support and ease of use.

High Satisfaction Scores: The platform averages 4.9 Stars on Capterra and a high rating on G2.
Praised for Simplicity (The Good): Users frequently highlight its intuitive interface and ease of setup, making it ideal for non-technical teams. One user noted that its simplicity allowed them to save thousands per year by moving from a more complex system without losing the most important features. The prompt, responsive, and "superior technical support" is consistently singled out as a major strength.
Limitations of Simplicity (The Trade-Off): The main critique, which is a natural trade-off for its core value proposition, is its simplistic nature. Some users may find that certain advanced aspects of a membership management tool are not directly available within the core system, necessitating reliance on integrations.
Employee Insights (Inferred Correlation): While no specific Glassdoor data is cited here, the positive and highly personalized testimonials that call out team members by name (e.g., "Mitch and Leah... are the loveliest humans") suggest a positive internal culture. This inferred correlation aligns with the expert opinion that happy, well-supported employees are more likely to provide the high level of customer support that Join It's clients consistently report. An issue that happened a decade ago is irrelevant, so checking the date of the reviews is important.

What Does SmartThoughts Expert Analysis State?

Join It is a highly effective solution for a very specific segment of the association market: the micro- or small association that values simplicity, autonomy over its ecosystem, and low TCO.

As a Tier IV product, Join It is capable of solving the core pain points of this market—messy spreadsheets and complex, over-featured all-in-one systems. For an Executive Director of a small organization, the ease of automation and the high-quality, responsive support translate directly into maximizing staff time and focusing on the mission.

The decision to focus on integration rather than an all-in-one approach is a strategic advantage for its target market. It allows associations to avoid being trapped in a single vendor's ecosystem, enabling them to use the best email marketing tool or event platform available. This "best-of-need" approach provides flexibility, which is often severely limited in lower-tier, all-in-one solutions (a common constraint of a Tier III "Swiss Army knife").

However, the analysis dictates caution as the organization scales. While Join It supports growth to a degree with its member-based pricing and Enterprise option, an association with an operating budget approaching or exceeding $1.5 to $2 million, a complex committee structure, or a need for accrual-based accounting, deep conference management, or sophisticated CRM may find the platform’s limitations become roadblocks. This is the natural transition point where the simple Tier IV/III solution must give way to a more robust Tier II or Tier I platform designed for complexity.

For those organizations in their sweet spot, Join It represents a modern, intuitive, and low-risk investment. The consistent theme of excellent customer support and a clear, well-defined product roadmap (evidenced by its history of growth and feature development) suggests it will continue to be a trustworthy partner.

Our Final Thoughts on Join It

Join It doesn't aim to be the AMS for everyone; its strength lies in recognizing its niche: small-to-midsize associations that value simplicity and strong integrations rather than a complex, all-in-one platform. For association executives dealing with cumbersome spreadsheets or outdated legacy systems, Join It provides a quick, cost-effective, and user-friendly way to automate the most time-consuming aspects of member management. This solution serves as a reliable engine for enhancing revenue and staff productivity in the micro-membership sector.

Failure is not an option in this critical software selection decision. Let our 20+ years of expertise mitigate the risk and eliminate the guesswork. We invite verified Association Executives (not currently working with a consultant) to schedule a conversation for a free evaluation and/or the full, more thorough, detailed Smart Report from SmartToughts. You have nothing to lose but the time you spend managing outdated technology.