How to Choose the Best Free Membership Management Software for Your Needs (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Hey, you want to talk about how to pick the best free membership management software? Okay, that's why I'm here. Let's do it. You might have just stopped the video to ask yourself, what in the living heck is a membership management software? Well, they're commonly referred to as MMS, but let's call them M&Ms because those are delicious and I kind of want a sponsorship deal. M&Ms are programs for your computer that let you become a big time organization. They can set up online event registration pages, set up automated invoices, emails, and newsletters, give you a professional and easy to build website, give you an easy to search full contact database, and other things that are way harder to explain. M&Ms are sort of like the Swiss army knives of softwares, or the Voltron of softwares, or the Swiss army Voltron of softwares. M&Ms will save you time and money by automating administrative tasks, so you don't have to worry about them. And what is better than having more time and more money? Nothing. Not only will you save time and money, but you'll be offering a better service to your members. And with M&Ms, all of your data is saved in one place, which makes it less likely that you'll make any stupid mistakes. Mistakes. Who makes those? I know what you're thinking. Wow, this sounds amazing. This must cost a lot of money. Well, there's actually a lot of free M&Ms out there for you to use. A free M&M is a great option if you have too few members to justify paying a big monthly price, but too many members to handle all of the administrative tasks. Free M&Ms allow you to try a bunch of different programs or options without any risk or contract. There are two full-service M&Ms with free lite versions. Wild Apricot and Member Planet. Wild Apricot is the number one provider of M&Ms. It's used by over 20,000 organizations. Wild Apricot's lite version allows for one admin and 50 total members. We also have unlimited support for you if you ever get confused. Member Planet's lite version allows for unlimited members and admins, but they have a limit on how many emails you can send out a month. Aside from those lite versions, there's also some open-sourced M&Ms available to you online, such as Zenbership, AdMideo, CiviCRM, and Tendency. But let me tell you, if you're not very tech-savvy, like me, you should avoid those. They're highly customizable, which means they're way harder to use. Wild Apricot's lite version is like riding a bike with training wheels, while one of these open-sourced M&Ms is like riding a unicycle blindfolded with one leg. Choosing the best M&Ms doesn't have to be hard. Figure out what you need and decide which membership management software is for you. If you decide to go with one of the free ones like Wild Apricot Lite or Member Planet Lite, there's no commitment, there's no risk, so why not go for it? Choosing M&Ms should be fun. Personally, I like the red and the brown ones.