WildApricot - Avis

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.

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.

Wild Apricot is a single source for nearly everything needed to manage a membership organization. It has revolutionized our database, taking it into the cloud, it has streamlined our renewal process, given us greater visibility into our email marketing, and overall allowed us to function more efficiently as an organization. Since its deployment, we've been able to replace the work of up to 2 FTE because of how Wild Apricot has allowed us to streamline our operations.

Their payment gateway, Wild Apricot Payments, does have some unique challenges that we are working through. It has errored out a number of times and there was no intuitive alert to let us know we were missing out on authorized donations. Their customer support team has been slower than we'd like to respond to these issues and have yet to provide a clear reason for them and any timeline for resolution.

When we first got the system, it was very comprehensive. We were able to get a trial to set up everything before we went live

There are two different mail systems/clients. Very fractured. Support is non-existent. There has been zero product improvement, in spite of multiple large price increases.

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

Limited to the users creativity.

The different modules are pretty easy to use and generally are quite reliable.

It is difficult to format email blasts and web pages sometimes; there are more options we would love to see such as a calendar of upcoming scheduled emails.

We migrated over 14 different nonprofit organizations to Wild Apricot based on ease of use and a fully integrated online member management system WITH website builder, and all for an affordable fee. Wild Apricot handles "day to day operations" so you can focus on strategic initiative. One system has it all - contacts, members, events, finances, communications, and website builder!

Wild Apricot needs to update the format of the event announcements.

It was very nice to have a software to organize our membership. The software was built into the website directly, so members can directly renew their membership while browsing the website. You can build different user permissions into different levels.

The UI of the websites you build with this and the backend feel outdated. I feel like the event tool could be more powerful, especially with how powerful you can easily build websites with Drupal/Wordpress. It would feel more like a membership program if the events could be dynamic with attendees, volunteers, being able to list what is still needed, etc. We found ourselves moving to Facebook or Next Door a lot to interact with our members.

Also, in the span of one year, our plan went up by $20/month, which was an extra $240 a year for our small, local advocacy group.

Not much. It does have some features built in that are easy to use, like the member forum. It also has some customizable features in the membership rules...if they work. Sadly, you can't rely on them and the support staff is less than supportive.

Where to start. Support is only available via chat or email, and only Monday through Friday from 10:00 - 5:00.

Next, the system is full of bugs. Members renew and it doesn't advance their renewal date. Members try to log in and it won't let them establish a password. Members can't log in so they create a whole new account, and there is not duplicate warning, so we just have to stumble on the duplicates. There were several member files that had the wrong renewal date but we couldn't change them manually. The system would give us error messages. The system would also randomly change information that we entered into the fields. The search features are less than reliable and do not show all the information unless you export the file to a spreadsheet. If changing member levels it will automatically revert someone to the current member year. You should be able to set that option or create a rule where if the member price is the same it keeps the already paid for years. We have an extremely high rate of payments that go unprocessed, for various reasons. Recaptcha not working, card declined because the payer used auto-fill on the form, card declined because the website is in Canada, and more.

I have spent almost every day in some sort of chat session with the support staff, and you cannot interact with the higher tier support, only the base level. Plus, there have been times where it was a week or more before we received a response.

I manage the memberships for a club that has over 15 teams and 240 members, so it is not the easiest thing to manage. I went through a few different programs and Wild Apricot seems to be the best fit for the numerous needs the Club has! It is easy to track payments - overpaid balances and balance due, I can enter manual payments, add extra line items to keep track of fundraising credits, and easily email families or certain individuals from the software. There are workarounds for some of the limitations that the software has, which has been helpful.

There are a few issues that I have with this software: 1) it does not allow group invoicing so if I need to add an invoice to all members on one team, I have to go into each account and manually create; 2) it is not intuitive when it comes to families with 2 or more players, as it does not allow two different memberships to be linked to one account - I end up having to create a unique account for those families; 3) it does not allow partial payments. As with most membership sites, I have found the website portion to be somewhat clunky and limited, so I have the actual website on a different platform, which is unfortunate.

I will have to think on this one. I guess - the price BUT, you get what you pay for.

Web page builder is not intuitive, lack of new features, poor customer service, no response to any of the registration action items that have been requested for YEARS. I could go on for quite a long time. We have used it for four years now and our team has had enough. I sent an email to them and it took WEEKS for them to respond. They have never made ANY upgrades to the software that are noticeable to the users in the four years we have used the product. They focus all their time on creating content to tell me how to run my organization as opposed to improving their product. They recently sent out a survey requesting feedback which I provided. I told them all the things I am writing now. Their response? No feature improvements but they are raising their prices! We are moving on. Unless you are seriously strapped for money, look elsewhere.

I'm a part time Executive Director of a membership organization. Before Wild Apricot a lot of my time was spent on billing and administration and event registration. Wild Apricot does all of that for me, so all I have to do is address specific questions or issues.

The email functionality is not great. That is literally my ONLY complaint about the software.

It streamlined a lot of processes, including:

- Member database, with automated process for sending out renewal notices and changing a member’s status to Lapsed if they didn’t renew before their membership expired
- Online payments for membership applications, renewals, and events
- Automated emails to let members and potential members know about upcoming events, including appropriate reminders for those who have or haven’t registered
- Ability to send email newsletters and other communications to members and/or potential members, including specific segments of the list
- Discussion forums

The blogging platform is useless and hasn't been updated in years (if ever). No way to organize content by categories, or to moderate comments.