Guides
Membership community publishing platform guide
Membership community publishing platform choices decide renewal mechanics, dunning paths and disclosure duties, so compare named tools before you commit.
What to take away
- The platform you publish on decides what your renewal, dunning and cancellation paths can look like, so pick it before you price anything.
- Compare named options on member accounts, recurring billing, content gating, export and fee model, not on feature lists.
- Negative-option rules apply to your trial and renewal flow wherever you host it; the FTC sets the federal baseline.
- Keep a reachable member list outside the platform, because a policy change can cut off your renewal notices overnight.
- Test one renewal change at a time and record the result before you expand it.
This article covers platform selection and renewal operations for paid membership communities. It is general business information, not legal, tax or payment-processing advice. Rules depend on your offer, jurisdiction and processor. Confirm current requirements with the FTC, your state attorney general, the IRS, your processor's documentation and qualified counsel. Do this before you launch or change a renewal flow.
The platforms members actually renew on
A membership community publishing platform is the system that holds member accounts, gates content, and takes recurring payments. Most operators stitch two or three tools together rather than buying one.
Platform comparison
Circle
- Best for
- community + content
- Billing
- Stripe built in
- Hosting
- hosted
- Main cost
- monthly + Stripe
Discourse
- Best for
- own database
- Billing
- self-managed
- Hosting
- self or hosted
- Main cost
- labor
Kajabi
- Best for
- curriculum sales
- Billing
- built in
- Hosting
- hosted
- Main cost
- tiered
Mighty Networks
- Best for
- member connection
- Billing
- built-in layer
- Hosting
- hosted
- Main cost
- tiered
Here are the options that come up most in paid-community work, with what each does and who it suits.
- Circle.Hosts courses, spaces, events and member directories, with Stripe billing built in and native Apple Pay and Google Pay. Suits operators who want community and content in one place and are willing to pay a monthly platform fee plus Stripe's processing rate. Check Circle's current pricing page for tiers.
- Discourse.Open-source forum software you self-host or buy as a hosted plan. Suits organizations that want to own the database outright and have someone who can run a server. Self-hosting is cheap in licence terms and expensive in labor.
- Kajabi.Course and membership hosting with pipelines, email and checkout in one product. Suits creators selling a curriculum more than a conversation. Pricing is tiered and published on Kajabi's site.
- Mighty Networks.Community-first structure with courses, events and a built-in payments layer. Suits operators whose product is member-to-member connection rather than one-way content.
- Patreon.Membership tiers attached to a public creator page, with Patreon handling billing and payout. Suits creators whose audience already lives on social platforms and who want low setup cost. Patreon's fee schedule is published and has changed more than once, so read the current version.
- Substack.Paid subscriptions attached to a publication, with a revenue share rather than a flat fee. Suits writers whose main product is the newsletter and whose community is a comment thread.
- Memberful.Adds membership billing and gating to a site you already run on WordPress or another CMS. Suits publishers who want to keep their existing site and bolt on subscriptions.
- Ghost.Publishing platform with native paid subscriptions and Stripe billing. Suits lean editorial operations that want memberships without a separate community layer.
Two patterns matter more than the list. First, whoever holds the billing relationship holds your renewal. Second, whoever holds the member email list holds your recovery path when a renewal fails.
Compare candidates on these points before you commit:
What to check / Why it decides your renewal math
- Who is merchant of record
- Determines who handles chargebacks, tax collection and failed-payment retries
- Dunning controls
- Whether you can set retry timing and the emails sent after a failed charge
- Cancellation path
- Whether members cancel in-product or have to email you
- Data export
- Whether you can pull member emails, payment history and posts
- Fee model
- Flat monthly, revenue share, or processing only
- Access roles
- Whether staff and moderators get separate logins
Renewal math before you pick a tier
Recurring revenue is a function of three things: how many members start, how many stay, and how many failed payments you recover. Platform choice touches the third one directly.
Renewal math
- 400members at start of month
- $15price per member
- 372members at end of month
- 28members lost
Monthly recurring revenue equals active members multiplied by your price. Involuntary churn is the share of members who lapse because a card expired or a charge was declined, not because they chose to leave.
If you start a month with 400 members at $15 and end with 372, you lost 28 members; the useful question is how many of those 28 ever saw a retry email.
Platforms differ on whether they retry a failed charge automatically, how many times, and over how many days. Some send the member a payment-update link; some leave that to you. Ask the vendor for the current behavior in writing, because it changes.
Dunning sequences and where they break
Dunning sequence steps
- Immediate notice after payment fails
- Second notice a few days later
- Final notice before access is paused
- Confirmation when payment succeeds
Three failure modes show up repeatedly.
The notice never arrives, because the member's account email is the one that expired along with the card. The retry fires while the member is asleep in a different time zone. The sequence pauses access on day three, which is faster than most members check personal email.
Test your own sequence with a real declined card before you need it. Send the notices to yourself and time them.
Disclosure duties that follow the platform
Wherever you host the checkout, a free trial that converts to a paid subscription is a negative-option offer. The FTC's guidance on risk-free trials that were not free describes the pattern it looks for: material terms disclosed before billing details are collected, express consent before the first charge, and a simple way to stop recurring charges.
Negative-option disclosure duties
- Disclose material terms before collecting billing details
- Get express consent before the first charge
- Provide a simple way to stop recurring charges
- Check state law duties on top of federal baseline
- Apply truthfulness standard to public creator page claims
State law can add duties on top of the federal baseline. Your platform's default checkout may not satisfy either layer as shipped. Ask your state attorney general's consumer protection office and qualified counsel what your specific flow needs.
If you run a public creator page alongside the paid community, your promotional claims fall under the same truthfulness standard. The FTC's advertising FAQs for small business cover claim substantiation and endorsement disclosure.
Access, export and account security
Member data is the asset you cannot rebuild. Check three things before you migrate anything.
Access and export checks
- Export full member list with emails and join dates
- Export payment status with member records
- Export content, not just member records
- Confirm what happens if you stop paying
- Separate logins per staff member
- Multifactor authentication on every admin account
- Documented process for removing a departing moderator
Can you export the full member list with emails, join dates and payment status? Can you export the content, or only the member records? What happens to both if you stop paying?
NIST's small business quick-start guides give a practical starting point for the security side, including the Cybersecurity Framework 2.0. The relevant habits for a community are unglamorous: separate logins per staff member, multifactor authentication on every admin account, a documented process for removing a departing moderator, and a review of who still has access.
Never share the primary admin password with a contractor. If your platform supports roles, use them. If it does not, that is a reason to look elsewhere.
Costs, paperwork and the SBA checklist
Platform cost is rarely one line. Expect a platform fee or revenue share, a payment processing rate, and possibly a per-transaction fee, a payout delay, and a chargeback fee. Add the labor cost of whoever answers member billing emails.
Cost and paperwork checklist
- Platform fee or revenue share
- Payment processing rate
- Possible per-transaction fee
- Payout delay
- Chargeback fee
- Labor cost of answering billing emails
- SBA guideplanning, launch, management, growth
The SBA business guide organizes the surrounding paperwork into four areas. These are planning, launch, management and growth. It covers registration, permits, insurance and finance. Work through it once and note which items your community actually triggers.
If your community is tied to a nonprofit, dues treatment and unrelated business income are questions for the IRS and a tax professional, not for a platform comparison.
Choosing when you are starting from nothing
If you have no audience yet, the platform question is premature. The membership community startup and market guide covers validating demand and pricing before you commit to a stack.
If you already have an audience, work in this order. List the three platforms whose billing model fits your price point. Run a real declined-card test in each trial. Export the member list from each trial and confirm the file opens. Then choose, and write down what would make you switch.
Common questions
Which platform is best for a paid forum?
Discourse if you want to own the database and have server help. Circle or Mighty Networks if you want community and billing in one product without running infrastructure. The deciding factor is usually who maintains it, not the feature list.
Does the platform handle negative-option compliance for me?
No. The FTC's ROSCA guidance places the disclosure and consent duties on the seller. Default checkout templates may not meet them. Confirm your flow with qualified counsel and your state attorney general's office.
How do I reduce involuntary churn?
Set up a dunning sequence with at least three notices, confirm your platform retries failed charges and on what schedule, and keep a reachable email address for every member outside the platform. Then measure how many lapsed members ever received a retry notice.
What should I check before migrating platforms?
Export the full member list and content from the old system, confirm both files open, and keep them. Then check the new platform's merchant-of-record arrangement, dunning controls and cancellation path before you move anyone.
