# Memberful > Membership platform for paid newsletters, podcasts and communities Memberful lets creators and publishers sell memberships and subscriptions on their own site, gating newsletters, podcasts, courses, downloads and community access behind a paywall. It works with WordPress, Discord and common email tools, or with its own website and newsletter builder. Memberful is a Patreon company, and it charges a monthly fee plus a cut of each payment taken through the seller's Stripe account. - **Category:** Selling Digital Products - **Made by:** Memberful LLC - **Website:** https://memberful.com - **Runs on:** Web - **Facts last checked:** Oct 18, 2026 ## Pricing Memberful is a paid product with a free trial, starting at $49 per month. - **Pricing model:** Free trial - **Free plan:** None. - **Free trial:** Free in test mode for as long as you like; billing starts when you connect Stripe and go live. | Plan | Price | What you get | | --- | --- | --- | | Standard | $49 per month | Everything Memberful offers, unlimited members. Memberful also takes a 4.9% transaction fee on each successful charge, plus Stripe's processing fee. | | Enterprise | Custom | Custom volume-based pricing, premium services and success management, and custom migration and implementation support. | Read from https://memberful.com/pricing/ on Oct 18, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Memberful before buying. ## Key features - **Flexible memberships:** Weekly, monthly or annual subscriptions, one-time payments, group plans, gifts, free and paid trials, free registration and pay-what-you-want pricing. - **Content behind a paywall:** Gate newsletters, podcasts, courses, downloads and community access, with dynamic paywalls and integrated comments. - **Website and newsletter builder:** Build a site and landing pages on a custom domain with your own theme, or protect members-only content on a WordPress site. - **Community integrations:** Paid members are invited to a Discord server or Discourse forum and lose access automatically when their subscription ends. - **Email list sync:** Keeps members in sync with Mailchimp, Kit, ActiveCampaign, Klaviyo, MailerLite, Campaign Monitor, Drip or Sailthru, segmented by plan. - **Retention and growth tools:** Coupons, a built-in referral program, automated retention discounts, cancellation surveys, global tax collection and growth reports. ## Good for - Writers and publishers running a paid newsletter on their own site - Podcasters selling members-only episodes - WordPress sites that need a paywall for members ## Worth knowing - Memberful takes 4.9% of every successful charge on top of the $49 monthly fee, and Stripe adds its own fee, typically 2.9% + $0.30. - A Stripe account is required: Stripe processes the payments and transfers the money to your own bank account. - There is one self-serve plan; volume pricing and migration help are only on the custom Enterprise plan. ## ToolGPA grades **GPA: 2.0 out of 4**, graded Oct 18, 2026. Memberful puts a paywall on your own site for newsletters, podcasts, courses and downloads, and ties members into Discord, WordPress and your email tool. It's free to set up in test mode for as long as you like. Going live is steep, though: $49 a month plus 4.9% of every charge. - **Value for money: D.** $49 a month plus Memberful's 4.9% of every charge, $49 more on $1,000, comes to $98 a month, with Stripe's fee on top (not counted). That's in this category's dearest tenth, about level with Patreon's 10%. - **Free plan and trial: C.** No free plan, but test mode is free for as long as you like: you can build everything, and billing starts only when you connect Stripe and go live. - **Features: C.** Memberships of every shape, paywalls, a website and newsletter builder, Discord and Discourse access, email sync, referrals and global tax collection. It does the membership job fully, but it's a smaller job: no upsells, order bumps or affiliates in the listing. - **Ease of use: C.** No App Store rating on record. You'll connect Stripe, set up plans and either build a site or wire it into WordPress before members can join. - **Platforms and integrations: B.** Web, with Stripe, WordPress, Discord, Discourse, Mailchimp, Kit, ActiveCampaign and Google Analytics. No phone or desktop app is listed. These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Memberful's own pages on 18 October 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. ## Where it stands among tools for selling digital products - Memberful's GPA of 2.0 is higher than 0 of the 14 other tools for selling digital products we grade. - It stands best on platforms and integrations (B, above 0 of 14) and worst on value for money (D, above 0). - Its paid plans start at $49 a month, against a middle price of $24.50 for the category: 8 of the 9 others that charge start lower. - On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.3 out of 4. 8 tools score higher and cost less. The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/digital-products ## Keep it, or make your own? **Keep it.** The plain part of Memberful you could make: paid newsletters, online courses and digital downloads. What surrounds it you could not. The 2 things listed below take a company, not a weekend. That makes this kind of software worth paying for, not this one in particular: 14 of the 14 other tools for selling digital products grade higher. It costs $588 a year. - You could make: Paid newsletters, online courses and digital downloads: an app builder makes these well. - You could not: A members' space with posts, chat and events that people keep coming back to. - You could not: It plugs into other products, Stripe, WordPress and Discord among them. A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it. ## Works with Stripe, WordPress, Discord, Mailchimp, Kit, ActiveCampaign, Discourse, Google Analytics **Tags:** Paid newsletters, Community, Online courses, Digital downloads ## Alternatives - [Patreon](https://toolgpa.com/tools/patreon): Paid memberships, a shop and community for creators and their fans. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/memberful-vs-patreon) - [MemberPress](https://toolgpa.com/tools/memberpress): WordPress plugin for paid memberships, courses and communities. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/memberful-vs-memberpress) - [Ko-fi](https://toolgpa.com/tools/ko-fi): Creator page for tips, memberships, a shop and paid commissions. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/ko-fi-vs-memberful) - [Buy Me a Coffee](https://toolgpa.com/tools/buy-me-a-coffee): Creator page for tips, memberships and a simple shop. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/buy-me-a-coffee-vs-memberful) - [beehiiv](https://toolgpa.com/tools/beehiiv): Newsletter platform with paid subscriptions, ads, website and podcast. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/beehiiv-vs-memberful) ## Sources The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Oct 18, 2026: - https://memberful.com/pricing/ - https://memberful.com/integrations/ Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/memberful Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).