Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover community platforms. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Memberful | NodeBB | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $49 | From $20 |
| Pricing model | Paid subscription | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | No | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | Not stated | 14 days |
| API | Yes | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | 4.9% of what you earn | Not stated |
| Runs on | Web | Web |
| Covers | Memberships & Subscriptions, Community Platforms, Monetization & Payments | Community Platforms |
| Works with | Nothing in particular | Nothing in particular |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
Paid memberships bolted onto a site you own
Memberful sells memberships from a site you already run rather than moving your audience to a platform, and it is the tool most WordPress publishers reach for when they start charging. One price covers everything and the money is charged on top as a percentage. Nothing is billed until a first payment comes in, so a launch that never launches costs nothing.
Our note
The 4.9 percent is the number to model, because it is charged on revenue rather than on profit: at $2,000 a month collected it is about double the subscription. Against Ghost, which takes nothing, this wins on flexibility and loses on arithmetic once you are large.
Only on this side
Forum software you can host yourself
NodeBB is forum software in the old sense, with categories and threads, built on Node.js and released under the GPL. You can run it on your own server for nothing, or pay NodeBB to host it and keep the plugins and backups somebody else's problem. Hosted plans are sized by pageviews rather than by seats, so a busy community with three moderators costs the same as a quiet one with thirty.
Our note
Take the self-hosted route only if somebody on your side is comfortable keeping a Node application patched. Otherwise the $20 plan is cheaper than the hours, and it is the same software either way.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.