Wild Apricot vs Member Jungle - how we compare

 

Wild Apricot or Member Jungle? Which is best for your club or association? Let's cut through the hype and compare these membership management tools head-to-head. I'll lay out the facts, you decide who takes the crown.

For obvious reasons, namely, I work for Member Jungle, I will not be making recommendations on which I think is best; I will simply provide you with the cold, hard facts of the matter so you can reach your own conclusions. To that end, I promise to leave my pom poms at the door and be as impartial and unbiased as possible.

Today, I am going to take us over the following information about both Wild Apricot and Member Jungle:

• Where Is Each Platform Based?
• How Much Does Wild Apricot and Member Jungle Cost?  
  • Transaction fees
  • Member Limits
  • Data Storage
• Key Features Of Wild Apricot and Member Jungle
• Other Differences Between Wild Apricot & Member Jungle
• How To Decide Between Wild Apricot & Member Jungle?

Where Is Each Platform Based?

Wild Apricot was founded in 2006 in Ontario, Canada, and has been a major player in the membership management field for years. In 2017, Personify bought it and is now known as Personify Wild Apricot. 

Telligence was founded in 1997 in Newcastle, Australia, and in 2016, we started a side project in membership management called Member Jungle. Now, several years later, Member Jungle is much larger than Telligence and has become the primary focus of the team's attention. 

I bring this up for several reasons. Firstly, generally speaking, using a membership management system based in or near your own time zone is better for faster service and better technical support during local business hours. Secondly, where your data is stored is important as it determines which countries' laws and regulations apply to it. Wild Apricot's data is hosted in the USA and is covered by their local data laws. All of Member Jungle's data is stored here in Australia. Australia and the USA have pretty strong data protection laws, but this is something to be aware of when choosing a system.

While discussing data, you should also check how any membership system you are considering will use your and your members' personal data. This isn't region-specific but company-specific. 

You should check to see who they share your data with and if they will sell it to anyone. Systems that use third-party plugins like Wild Apricot often share user data with those third parties. If they share your data with a third party, you should check the third party's terms and conditions to ensure you know what they are doing with your user data in turn. I can tell you that Member Jungle will never sell your user data. However, it is still best practice to review the Terms And Conditions and Privacy Policy of any system you are considering so you can fully understand how they will use your data.

As far as whether Wild Apricot sells your users' data or not, I found this paragraph in their privacy policy.  

“Sales and Sharing of Personal Information. The CCPA defines “sale” as disclosing or making available personal information to a third-party in exchange for monetary or other valuable consideration, and “sharing” as disclosing or making available personal information to a third-party for purposes of cross-context behavioral advertising. While we do not disclose personal information to third parties in exchange for monetary compensation, we may “sell” or “share” the following categories of personal information: identifiers and Internet and network activity information. We may disclose these categories to third-party advertising networks, data analytics providers, or social networking sites for purposes of marketing and advertising and to improve and measure and analyze our ad campaigns. We do not sell or share sensitive personal information, nor do we sell or share personal information about individuals we know are under age sixteen (16).” Wild Apricot Privacy Policy. 

I personally find this a little hard to understand, but to the best of my knowledge, yes, Wild Apricot does sell some parts of your user data, but certainly not all of it. 

As I already mentioned, Member Jungle will not sell your data. 

You can find all this information on Member Jungle here: Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. 

You can find all this information on Wild Apricot here: Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

You can find out more about data selling what it means, here Keeping Your Club’s User Data Private.

Wild Apricot & Member Jungle Full Comparison Breakdown

 

 

How Much Does Wild Apricot & Member Jungle Cost?  

Both Wild Apricot and Member Jungle offer multiple packages at varying prices. Both companies also offer a 10% discount on their prices if you pay annually rather than monthly. 

As of writing, Wild Apricot’s prices start at $54 USD a month and go up to $810 USD a month. You can find all the details on Wild Apricot’s pricing at Wild Apricot Pricing.

As of writing, Member Jungle’s prices start at $79 USD a month and go up to $599 USD a month. You can find all the details on Member Jungle’s pricing at Member Jungle Pricing.

Member Jungle’s price is usually in AUD, but I decided to report it here in USD for an easy comparison with Wild Apricots prices. 

Extra Pricing Considerations 

Besides the upfront monthly costs, there are several other associated costs that you should take into account to get the fullest picture, so let’s get into it. 

Transaction Fees

Wild Apricot fees are 2.9% + $0.30 USD per transaction for customers in the USA or Canada. International transaction fees may apply in addition to gateway fees for customers outside of the US and Canada. AffiniPay may also charge extra fees; please see the Additional credit card fees and AffiniPay for details. 

Member Jungle fees range from 1.2% + $0.55 USD to 0.5% + $0.35 USD per transaction. Please note that the Stripe Gateway Fees apply in addition to the Member Jungle fees. See the Stripe website for details.  Additional fees apply for international transactions.

Member Limits

One very important difference is how each company manages the number of members you can have in your package. 

Wild Apricot has hard limits on the number of contacts you can have in your package. If you exceed that contact limit, you must upgrade to a more expensive package or delete contacts. It's worth noting that Wild Apricot is talking about all contacts, not just members. They describe it on their website: "Everyone in your WildApricot database is a contact. A contact can be a member, an event attendee, a donor, a newsletter subscriber, or any combination of these roles." This means that if a random person simply signs up to receive your newsletter but never joins or pays any money towards your club, they will be counted as one of your contacts and will be counted towards your hard contact limit. 

Member Jungle, on the other hand, only counts members, not contacts. We only count your current, active, and pending members. We do not count people who donate to your club or subscribe to your newsletter in your member counts. We also have no hard limits on the number of members you can have at any level. Instead, you get a certain number of members for free. If you go over that amount, you can choose to upgrade to a more expensive package or just keep your existing package and pay a little extra for your extra members.  

Data Storage

Both systems have a limited amount of data storage that users can access each month, and extra charges apply for additional monthly storage.

Wild Apricot customers have a storage limit of 2GB, and if they exceed those limits, they will be charged extra. At this point in time, Wild Apricot does not publicise how much they charge for additional data, so unfortunately, I cannot tell you. 

On the other hand, Member Jungle customers have a storage limit of 10GB. In the rare event that customers exceed this limit, they are charged an additional $10 AUD for an extra 10GB of data to use that month.

Key Features Of Wild Apricot & Member Jungle

Wild Apricot and Member Jungle are all-in-one membership management systems designed to be the only systems you need to successfully run your club or association. Both systems will be able to provide you with the following: 

• Custom Website
• Mobile App
• Automated Renewal System
• Membership Database
• Digital Membership Cards
• Event Management System 
• Online Store
• Online Payments
• Email Marketing Systems

These are obviously not the only features that either company offers; they are just the main ones. You can see all of Wild Apricots features at Wild Apricot Features and all of Member Jungle’s at Member Jungle Features. 

Both Wild Apricot and Member Jungle are designed to help social clubs, sports clubs, nonprofits, small to medium associations, charities and more. With their multiple packages and optional extras, both systems can cater to small clubs with fewer than 100 and too large professional associations with tens of thousands of members. 

One difference between Wild Apricot and Member Jungle is their mobile app setup. Wild Apricot has two separate mobile apps for members and administrators. In contrast, Member Jungle has a single app for both members and administrators. However, this difference is not significant because Member Jungle's app controls permissions to ensure that members only access the necessary features while administrators have access to the required tools. Essentially, Wild Apricot separates members and administrators before the app download, while Member Jungle does so upon app sign-in. These are just two different approaches to achieving the same goal.

If you want to find out more about the optional extras that either system offers, you can see them at Wild Apricot Add-Ons and Member Jungle Optional Add-Ons.

Other Differences Between Wild Apricot & Member Jungle

There aren’t too many other notable differences between Wild Apricot and Member Jungle on paper; both provide a similar range of features for similar prices, and both systems offer a library of Help articles and other resources. Honestly, the most significant difference I have yet to mention is that Member Jungle and all the websites we host are powered by 100% renewal energy. 

How To Decide Between Wild Apricot & Member Jungle?

If you have looked at all the above, the variations in price, the difference in features, and the difference in data, and are having trouble deciding which system to pick, I have some advice for you. Ignore me, ignore what Member Jungle is saying and ignore what Wild Apricot is saying instead, jump onto social media, jump onto each company's Facebook pages and see what people are saying about each of us in the comments, jump onto reviewing sites like TrustPilot and Capterra and check out what each companies reviews are like. Hopefully, this will provide you with some really good insights into each company free from any salesy nonsense. 

I will link to a few of these places below to get you started:

• Wild Apricot Trust Pilot
• Wild Apricot Capterra 
• Wild Apricot Facebook
• Member Jungle Capterra 
• Member Jungle Facebook 

The links below will allow you to check out the reviews for both the Member Jungle app and the Wild Apricot Apps. 

• Wild Apricot for Members Google Play Store
• Wild Apricot for Admins Google Play Store
• Wild Apricot for Members Apple App Store
• Wild Apricot for Admins Apple App Store
• Member Jungle App Google Play Store
• Member Jungle App Apple App Store

Both Wild Apricot and Member Jungle also offer free trials of their systems, so it may be a great idea to sign up for the free trials and test out each system for yourself. Wild Apricot Free Trial and Member Jungle Free Trial.  

Where To Next? 

Well, that is a detailed and unbiased look at Wild Apricot and Member Jungle, their pricing, features, extras, and much more. Hopefully, this will help make your decision between the two easier. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to either us at Member Jungle or them at Wild Apricot. 

Good luck with your decision, and no matter who you choose, remember there is an ever-growing wealth of helpful articles on the Member Jungle Learning Centre that will help you no matter what challenges you and your club are facing or what system you use.