WildApricot

Friendly Website Design and Membership Management System

Comments: With Wild Apricot's assistance, we are able to easily add new events and maintain our website current with our ever-evolving needs. In addition to keeping tabs on emails and contacts. All of the personnel and volunteers of the several non-profit trade associations we oversee are constantly busy. Making a living in this industry is exciting and challenging, and there is never a dull moment.

Pros:

I appreciate not having to ask anyone else to help me run the website or set up events. If you have a basic understanding of computers, you should have no trouble getting about. You can customize your page and report generation in a number of ways.

Cons:

When I have a question about how to use the site, I wish I could talk to a real person. It would be fantastic if there was a real assistance line.

Cost Effective Website and Database

Comments: Overall Wild Apricot is a great tool for associations and/or others who need to process dues payments, event registrations and keep up with your clients.

Pros:

Wild Apricot makes it easy to process registrations for events, dues payments and store purchases in addition to being a website. It is very easy to use. There are user groups that you can join to get help from other users. Also, it is very easy to create a manual invoice for things that I might need a product for or a registration. There is also an app for administrators which is super convenient when to try to look up open invoices, etc. when away from the office.

Cons:

There are several features that should be available that are not. First and foremost there should be the availability within in the software to create a pdf and email it to contacts. The store does not appear to be integrated with the mail database and there are not a lot of reports. When I have orders from my store I have to constantly watch for duplicates. There is also not an email report to run that will search for possible duplicates in the system.

No customer service

Pros:

Comprehensive membership management and membership data.

Cons:

no customer service. I am locked out of our web site and WA does nopt answer.

OCEY President

Comments: Converted our website in 2010 from a regular static to Wild Apricot. All of our users quickly adapted to using it. The features of WA allowed us to keep the club running smoothly during the pandemic. Utilizing all WA features has been a contributing factor to our growth.

Pros:

It's flexibility and simplicity. You don't need a degree to use it, it can be learned by almost anyone.

Cons:

Not enough features on using the App, compared to the website. For example, we have a carpool page on the website but unable to see it on the app.

Wild Apricot is great for non-profit membership, event and website management

Comments: It is easy to use if you are tech savvy. If you are not tech savvy, it can be overwhelming. There are tutorials and videos available and many of those are helpful.

Pros:

That it is an one-stop-shop for all things membership & event & website management. Plus, it has all the Finance features, fantastic reporting, and Paypal integration.

Cons:

No way to identify Duplications in the Contact List. We have to manually figure out which contacts to MERGE.

Amazing Website Platform

Comments: I love WildApricot and highly encourage businesses to consider as a viable website product!

Pros:

I loved how easy it is to create and maintain our website, host events, manage payments. I was in charge of the migration to WildApricot and it was a breeze

Cons:

Sometimes the format options for designing webpages and emails could be a little clunky.

Wild Apricot for Non-Profits

Pros:

The best thing is that it is an all-in-one software. So with the backend management system you have a web-site sitting on top of it. It makes everything super simple for us to only have to use one main software.

Cons:

Honestly, nothing. It does take a bit of time to figure it all out and their are limitations of it in terms of website design. But from what you pay for it is a solid software.

No major surprises - works as advertised.

Comments: Our society and its business processes and information management had grown without design, ending up a spreadsheet-driven beast with disjoint systems.Wild Apricot has allowed us to bring that all together with a single system, with clear business rules and a simple web user interface for admins and members.Yes there are bugs and limitations but no show stoppers for us.

Pros:

Member management and communications is good.Event management is good.Support is good.

Cons:

Financial management needs work - only shows income not expenditure so no P&L view.Some permissions for admins need to be more fine-grained (e.g. FOH in event management with the app.)The contact-based pricing hurts organisations like us... the value is in our 300 members, the cost is in our 1000 other contacts.

Do Not Use

Comments: Horrible to use and to figure out and is f----d

Pros:

Nothing that was offered by them for use in my club

Cons:

Operation that was offered by them for us ein my club

Nice software

Pros:

Great and easy software to use. Would recommend to anyone

Cons:

I have no complaints about the software

This software has lots of features in addition to membership management

Pros:

This software is a one-stop shop for membership management. It also manages your website, event management, payments, subscriptions, members only content, and more!

Cons:

It has a learning curve for setting up, configuration, and for daily administration of the software.

Company cash cow not in tune with the needs of users in 2023

Comments: Extremely dissatisfying in every respect, the product, the customer service, th e lack of transparency, the company principals and developers are bunkered in where nobody from the public can have direct access to a human. The price increases in the past several years that there have been no innovations on this platform that the customers have been asking form judging by the forum, since 2014, several [sensitive content hidden] ago. Evidently this platform is something that keeps switching hands as every new [sensitive content hidden] tries to milk this cash cow.

Pros:

I don't like anything about it compared to other platforms, I inherited it

Cons:

Complete lack of response to customer needs, the program is inflexible, archaic, no improvements have been made in years and no attention is paid to the user forum where customers have been requesting basic functionality that was available on other platforms in the 1990s. Their support materials - check them out - now all start with an article telling you what the platform CAN'T do. In these, you'll find lists of all the functions that normal platforms a fraction of the cost of this one have been doing routinely since the internet was invented, like, oh...being able to proof the copy of a blog before it goes live, or schedule an event on a calendar to blast out at a specific date and time - a feature that is available on another part of their platform but not in the event module - I could go on for a long time. Customer service is useless, all they do when you finally get them on a chat is send links to articles that describe how customers needing more flexibility can add custom css. Isn't that the developers' job? Or they refer you to their 'partners.' My organization interviewed 4 of their partners. None of them had knowledge of css, or any more access to the staff at Wild Apticot than the general public. Their disregard for the needs of their users is shocking.

AUTOMATIC ASSISTANT

Comments: MUST use system for all non-profits!

Pros:

Time saver, gives back valuable man-hours to service the program cause

Cons:

Limited to the users creativity.

Lack of product development and poor support do not justify multiple price hikes

Comments: Wild Apricot has suffered greatly since its purchase by Personify. There have been zero major updates or changes since the purchase. The updates to templates, GUI, and functionality have not come to pass, despite major price hikes. Support has become abysmal. Asking any question or reporting issues is given a rote response.

Pros:

A single system for membership, content management, and event planning

Cons:

Email systems between membership and events are inconsistent (two separate systems). Difficult to set up, Zero product improvement or enhancements, poor customer support. Very dated GUI

Wild Apricot, is it good for membership website builder?

Comments: Overall, the Membership Database is good, Event emails can be automated to send to registrants and managing the membership is good but there are some serious lacking features that need to be addressed by WA otherwise customers are not going to be satisfied by the $1670 (AUD) just on the system that can feel very broken. If WA could either do a large update on the Builder and start working on integration for Xero and other large Accounting packages so that it provides a simple integration instead of just having the one.

Pros:

I absolutely loved setting up this software, I found it very challenging but I do enjoy a challenge. I migrated out of Associations Online (AO) to WildApricot (WA). I found that using the CSV export of the membership out of AO really easy and the upload in WA simple as well. The events system is fantastic for Zoom and events that need to have someone at the door checking people in. The admin app for WA is awesome when I'm on the go and just want to see who has checked into an event or who has registered for an event.

Cons:

The biggest, and I mean this is a deal-breaker, the site builder is seriously broken and needs a massive update. I have checked about 30 other sites that use WildAprioct and they all look the same. Very Narrow, broken up into blocks of either 1/2/3. There is a basic function of having a button added but the customization of said button is the link and text. Not the colour or the size. The blogging functionality for the site is very basic which is fine but it would be nice if I could categorize it and allow for displaying the post on other pages so that it isn't locked to the single blog page. WA integrates with WordPress so I wanted to build a better-looking frontend for my site but the downside is the integration is not in full. You can have the login and some profile migrated over but things like Events, Profile Updates and even administration of membership can only be done in WA. So any changes in the profile can not be done in WordPress as it is only a one-way sync. The plugin for Wordpress is only a SSO for WildApricot. Finally, the Support/Feature request, WA is probably one of the slower ones for it. It may take years for anything to happen. They update often around the 4th of each month but its never anything that is really useful for the Admin or User. Its usually bugs in the system which is awesome, but I would really like to see some more functionality with the system like the website builder and other integration into online Accounting Packages.

ECF..."Florida's Electrical Industry Leader"

Comments: Wild Apricot is the best thing that works for our association. We have used the platform for multiple associations in the past and from day one to now, it is the best solution out there for our organization at a price that includes great 'self-help' information and multiple choices when support from WA is needed.

Pros:

Wild Apricot offers ECF an opportunity to create, modify and update our online software when needed, allowing our in-house staff to make necessary adjustments without having to spend association funds to hire programmers to complete the tasks.

Cons:

There is one item on our "Wish" list that we hope to see in the future. It would be nice to upgrade to a newer version of Excel or Word when exporting information. It's a small thing, but when you are trying to handle multiple lists for conversion to reports, etc., the first move is to save and rename the document based on the compatibility function. On a busy day, it's an added step that's time lost. A 2nd wish would be for a bit more friendly e-mail design module. It works but can be challenging.

A Sinking Ship

Comments: I have been a long time client of WA (7 years), but we are unlikely to renew. 3 years they ago they had a 40% price increase, but they allowed you to renew for up to 2 years at the previous rate. That increase was somewhat understandable because they had not raised fees for the previous 4 years we were clients. 2 years later they had another 40% increase but did not offer the same renewal. Neither increase coincided with major functional additions other than normal enhancements to existing functions. Today they announced a new 20% penalty if you don't switch to their payment processing system (US/Canada only). We have no intention to switch from PayPal so this was the last straw. We will be looking for an alternate option. They were acquired by a larger company and subsequently and equity firm. These increases are obviously cash grabs from current clients without considering the impact to the organizations. My suspicion is the company has a major cash flow issue and this is a way to get money now. I would be very leary of the stability of the company as they will lose many clients over this. This is really unfortunate because their tool is excellent!

Pros:

WA has a great feature set that includes a lot of the functionality we need to completely manage our membership, communication, and payment collection. I especially like that we can have bundle memberships and can create saved searches for email distribution or member management.

Cons:

There are occasionally issues with some of the search fields that can only be resolved by logging off and back in. I would like to have group texting capabilities.

Complete, Logical, Reliable, and Quick

Comments: Wild Apricot is one of four web-based systems we use, the others being Quickbooks for accounting, Brivo for physical access control of gates and doors, and Online Exam Builder. Each fulfills a specific role, with very little overlap, but without Wild Apricot at the center life would be much more complicated.

Pros:

With the baseline requirement for membership management completely fulfilled by Wild Apricot, we have found considerable value in the events management features to manage training courses, and the mass emailing features for communications. Of course, solid invoicing and payment processing are also very important. Overall, the user and administrative experience with Wild Apricot is satisfying and very productive. We built or re-engineered our business processes around the capabilities in Wild Apricot, to a significant degree.

Cons:

It takes quite a while to get what look like simple enhancements made to the search and select features within "saved searches". We don't seem to be getting attention, and the enhancements we've requested have been in the queue for over a year. The result of having to wait is that our saved searches are needlessly complex and hard to maintain.

Not Customer Friendly

Comments: Our non-profit has approximately 1500 members we are managing and this was our first attempt at using a membership management tool. The implementation went well and our first year was generally positive. The features they offer are functional but pale in comparison to standalone services. For example the newsletter tool is extremely limited compared to our previous service, MailChimp, to the point where we are considering going back to MailChimp. After the company switched owners recently, the customer service quality has dropped dramatically. A recent forced change of payment systems resulted in our members' automatic subscriptions being canceled without warning, which was not expected or documented. We tried to engage customer support prior to the change but they were not helpful at all. This will likely result in a loss of members and thus income.

Pros:

It offers a large selection of features and can be a one stop shop for membership tools. Although most of the features are not nearly comparable to equivalent stand-alone services, they are functional.

Cons:

Customer support has been quite poor. They dropped telephone support in the last year and did not provide any guidance or assistance to us when they forced a payment system change that affected our members.

Wild Apricot: A Quick and Efficient Event Software

Comments: Our component school district staff members and members of the public who register for programs understand intuitively how to register for our programs. The function most used by staff is the Excel download. Staff are able to easily sort and filter data to invoice schools and other agencies for multiple registrants through our agency finance system as required by law rather than through Wild Apricot's invoicing system. Our Wild Apricot website was once very robust. We have been able to simplify it while using the same template so the site is easier to use and looks much more like our agency site making the flow from one site to another nearly seamless.

Pros:

Our agency hosts many repeated events not only multiple times during the school year but that also repeat year after year. The ease with which events can be duplicated and edited for specific dates allows staff to set up a year's worth of events in just a few hours.

Cons:

We have many users creating events and Wild Apricot has only one events manager. We do have a very talented group but there is still a bit of nervousness since events are unable to be compartmentalized by a user or a department. PayPal payments are collected into one bank account and have to be parsed out after receipt by registrant as to which account the funds need to be deposited. We would like to have payments tied to department accounts for each event and pass that info through PayPal to our Fiscal Department.

Great for member

Comments: Overall, our non-profit has had an amazing experience using Wild Apricot and would highly recommend them/

Pros:

The main reason we went with Wild Apricot was for the membership database. It is great to be able to keep track of all members, and be able to search by category.

Cons:

would love a more step-by-step process for setting up the webpages. This is not my area of comfort

Daily user of Wild Apricot and developer for new Wild Apricot websites and setup for organizations.

Comments: I have participated in moving 20 organizations over to Wild Apricot and use it daily for administrative purposes. It is an awesome platform and would not recommend another to anyone. Hoping they can keep this excellent service going for a very long time. Also, the support team and responsiveness has always been great!

Pros:

Easy, quick, and efficient transition over to Wild Apricot from other website types such as WordPress, Weebly, and other member platforms. Excellent for small to mid-size organizations to consolidate all needed features and tracking/reporting in one place.

Cons:

The only weakness is the choice of new "themes" to help speed up a new website. You can certainly do almost anything you want with the templates... but the ready-made themes make it so much better (and easier). Just need to keep the sample themes up-to-date and competitive with WordPress... so the organizations are happy with the basic choices available when they are deciding to move to Wild Apricot.

Wild Apricot has everything a non-profit needs

Pros:

I was the Secretary for my Chapters well known organization. The Secretarial duties are vast and important to the life of the organization. Wild Apricot appears to have everything a non-profit organization needs. It allows me to do all of the required things necessary. The membership database allows for custom as well as preset categories with specified access. I can keep track of membership categories, addresses, dues due, and Quick books is a part of the application. Reports can be easily generated using the information entered into the database. My favorites are the communication sections. I can announce events that all members can quickly view, be registered for or wait listed. Reminders can also be sent to all members or those specified. Payments can be taken and recorded, invoices and receipts sent. The confirmation emails are customized and can be personalized. Documents that need to be shared can also be done. I find that Wild Apricot can complete all necessary duties assigned to an organization. While all officers can have premium access to all documents, reports and finances 24/7, it also allows for all shades of transparency to members while keeping confidential information secure. I haven't run across any application as thorough as Wild Apricot. I've only used the application a few days as they allow a 30 day trial to try it out and show off their goods to potential users.

Cons:

My only concern is that the way in which things are laid out aren't as intuitive as I would have liked. I would rather have an illustrated manual on the dashboard for when a new user signs in. There is a quick 4 minute video guide that I may find usable later on the opening page. But its definitely not a deal breaker for me.

We looked for a simple Cloud application to decentralize administration tasks and found it.

Comments: Database that is accessible for any of the administrators of the club. Members can self manage accounts. Automatic upgrades and easy to manage Web content. Automatic billing through predefined time periods etc. Ease of use. We were up and running in a few weeks. Data import was easy as well.

Pros:

The primary driver was to find something that was intuitive to use. Our staff are all part time volunteers and needed to be able to use the software with minimal instructions from their homes. Wild Apricot provided this by making the import of data simple as well as creating a new Web site that had same look and feel of existing site. Also migrating the DNS was easy. There are plenty of tutorial and FAQ pages to guide you along. Once you under stand the basic concept everything else becomes easy. Best part is being able to grant limited admin access to certain pages for updates and changes. Also by letting users update their own information we saved a lot of time updating Membership data. Creating Events proved very popular as well with Members now being to sign up on line and also remit payments. Integration with PayPal was easy as well. The application packs enough features to make it much easier to manage the Swim Club without making it too complicated to use. Everything beforehand was Excel driven and therefore never synchronized or up to date. I also like the mobile app a lot. Easy to take a look if new members signed up, paid or if member are delinquent without going online.

Cons:

We have encountered some minor issues we wished were a little different but nothing to deter from the overall functionality. I think that would be the case with any software packages. So no major cons to report. We like the software. It is easy to use and has powerful reporting etc capabilities.

A great all-in-one package for membership management

Comments: Excellent all-in-one system for many basic needs of a member-based organization. Terrific support staff and very clear online documentation make implementation straightforward. Very professional look for e-mails. Be aware that you will need to rebuild your website (and/or be satisfied with a patchwork look as you link from your main website into Wild Apricot).

Pros:

We use the software to host our website and manage our membership database/contact system (emails to members and potential members). Before moving to this system, we were using separate tools for these three functions and it was extremely cumbersome. The consolidation was straightforward, their online help documentation is superb, and their technical support is astoundingly prompt and thorough. Seriously. It rarely takes more than 3 hours to get an extremely high quality response, and during one interaction the support staff proactively suggested a completely different approach that had advantages over what we were trying. The contact management system (emails) is beautiful. It has given us a much more professional look and feel for our user base and many of our members have told us they feel it is impressive. We are not using all the features (in particular, photo albums, user forums), but may want to use them some day, it is good to know we have these options for expansion.

Cons:

I gave it a three star rating on ease of implementation only because they do not have the ability to easily import your old website into their system. This frankly is not a big problem for us, we wanted (and needed) to overhaul our website anyway, but it means that as of today (three months after go live on the member database and contact management system), we are still transitioning our website. We are all-volunteer with no staff, it is truly not difficult to re-do the website, but if a user is satisfied with their existing website, the effort to transition over should be part of consideration.