All-In-One Membership System vs Website Plugin: The Ultimate Comparison Guide

Choosing between an all-in-one membership system and a separate website plugin is a critical decision for any organisation's digital strategy. An integrated system offers a seamless user experience, with all functionality, including your club website, managed from a single, centralised platform. This contrasts with a separate membership portal, which, while allowing you to keep your existing site, can lead to content duplication and a less efficient membership management process, impacting your overall operations and future onboarding.

Sometimes, making a decision can be really tough. I have a theory that it's a hangover from hundreds of thousands of years of our early ancestors having to make life-or-death decisions daily, like which of three similar-looking mushrooms to eat. One will get you high enough to hear colours; one will kill you slowly and painfully; and the third will taste surprisingly like beef.

 

 

Honestly, can you tell which is which? I can’t. 

My theory is that, thanks to having to make such serious life-and-death decisions for so long, we humans are prone to really sweating the details when it comes to making a choice.

Well, today we have another decision to make, but thankfully, the consequences are much less severe; there will be no dying or hearing what the colour teal thinks about you today, no matter what you choose.

Instead, today we are looking at the choice between using your existing website with Member Jungle as a membership portal and using the integrated Member Jungle website. So, let’s cover all the pros and cons of both options so you have all the tools you need to choose the best option for you and your organisation.

Keeping Your Website Vs Using Member Jungle’s

So, before we get into the details of your options, let’s actually cover the options themselves. It’s worth noting that neither option benefits us at Member Jungle more than the other; both cost the same amount, and we don’t make more money from one option than the other. So the choice really comes down to what works best for your organisation.

Option one: Use the Member Jungle website that comes as standard with the system. This gives you a seamless, all-in-one experience where your website is just an extension of your membership management system, which is how Member Jungle is intended to be used.

Option two: Keep your existing website and use Member Jungle as a members-only portal. This will mean that your existing website will have a link to your Member Jungle-powered site, which members can use to log in, update their details, renew their memberships, and sign up for events. You can also log in to your Member Jungle membership management system to manage your membership, create events, and much more.

The key thing to remember is that Member Jungle is an all-in-one platform; it cannot be integrated with your existing site as a plugin. Instead, it will sit alongside your current website, giving you the benefits of Member Jungle without changing your current website.

A really simple way to explain these two options is that option one is basically having Member Jungle build you a fancy new house with all the features and designs you want. Option two is having Member Jungle build you a granny flat out the back of your house with all the features you need, just connected via a little undercover path. Either way, you get all the features you need to run your membership organisation better; it’s just about the format.

The Pros Of The Integrated Member Jungle Website

The main benefit of using the integrated Member Jungle website is that it's a proper all-in-one system. It's a single platform where all of the functionality and modules are built to work together from the ground up. This gives you a seamless, unified experience for both your members and your administrators.

The pros of this approach are:

• Seamless Integration: Because all the functionality lives in a single place, it all works together perfectly. Your events, blogs, and member data are all connected, and a change in one place is reflected everywhere else.
• No Content Duplication: An integrated system means you're not duplicating content or working across two different platforms. You simply update your content and your website, your mobile app and members' area are updated instantly.
• Everything in One Place: One of the main reasons people move to a system like Member Jungle is to stop having data in lots of different places. An all-in-one system means all of your member data, reporting, events, and invoices can be found in a single, secure location.
• One system, one login, one payment: A key benefit of Member Jungle is that you only have one system that does everything you need. Which means you only need one login and one payment. No more paying for multiple different systems and jumping between different systems to do everything you need.  

For a closer look at the design options and what you can do with your Member Jungle website, check out How To Get A New Club Website For Your Club.

The Pros of Keeping Your Existing Website

The main benefit of keeping your own website is that it requires less work to get everything set up. All your existing content can stay exactly where it is, and you can just use Member Jungle as a membership portal with little disruption to your existing online presence.

The pros of this approach are:

• Less Disruption: Implementing the membership management system with little disruption to your existing website is a plus for some organisations. 

• Less work: Keeping your existing website means there is less work to be done in setting up your new system, which will make the onboarding process quicker and easier. 

The Disadvantages Of Both

Both options have their own set of trade-offs, and it's important to be aware of them before you make your decision.

The Disadvantages of the Integrated Member Jungle Website

The biggest disadvantage of moving to the integrated Member Jungle website is that it can be some extra work to get all of your content transferred over to your new website. So if you are poor on time, then changing over your website may not be the best option. 

The Disadvantages of Keeping Your Existing Website 

The biggest disadvantage of keeping your existing website is that it can create more work for your committee. You may find that you are duplicating content, which can increase your workload, and it might not provide the best user experience for your members who have to switch between two different sites. You will also have to keep paying for and managing your existing website alongside your Member Jungle membership system.

One of the main reasons that people move to a system like Member Jungle is that they are having trouble maintaining data and have information in lots of different places. Often, a membership organisation can find themselves using lots of platforms, like an external email system, an Excel file for members, a separate online store, and having to invoice via an accounting program. So, moving to Member Jungle but keeping your existing website, while nowhere near as bad as using multiple different systems for email, etc., will still keep your life a bit more difficult than it needs to be.

Which To Choose?

So, now we’ve covered what the options are, along with their pros and cons. You have all the information you need to make the right choice for your organisation.

The choice ultimately comes down to what works best for you and your organisation. Both options are good, and both give you access to the full Member Jungle membership management system. It really just comes down to how much work you're willing to have upfront versus the ongoing work of managing two systems.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the possibility of having to change everything at once, there's some good news: with the Member Jungle platform, you can simply implement different functionality and modules as you need them. This allows for a staged approach to transferring your website across, which is perfect for organisations that have a limited amount of time that can be dedicated to projects.

Some of the ways our customers choose to stagger their implementation include:

• Implementing Membership Management.
• Launching the App to Members.
• Transferring Events and News.
• Transferring Member Resources.
• Transferring website content.
• Changing Domain Names and Launching as one website.
• Starting to utilise other functionality like the store, polls, and gallery one by one over time.

So no matter what you choose or how you want to implement the Member Jungle system, there is a way to do it that will work for your unique organisation. 

Where To From Here?

Well, we have pretty exhaustively covered the pros and cons of switching to a Member Jungle website versus keeping your current one. Though if you do have any more questions, please Contact Us and we will be more than happy to help you with your decision. 

To find out why it’s so important to have a really well-designed website for your organisation, have a look at Why Your Club Needs A Well-Designed Club Website.