Memberium vs AccessAlly: Which Is the Winner?

Since my team and I work a lot of Memberium and AccessAlly membership sites for Infusionsoft users, a lot of business owners come to me asking, "Which is the better membership platform?" That's a good question, but the better question is, "Which is the better platform for me?"

Both Memberium and AccessAlly are solid platforms for Infusionsoft users wanting to build a membership program or online courses. However, they each take different approaches that may make one a better solution for some business owners versus others.

Let me explain some of these features to give you insight into which one might be a better fit for you.

Both Memberium and AccessAlly are Wordpress plugins. They provide the plumbing needed to get Infusionsoft and Wordpress talking so you can tag Infusionsoft members and have that control what Wordpress can show them in the membership areas. The member can be configured so they are allowed to login or not. They can be given access to some content and not others based on how they are set up in Infusionsoft.

Both platforms provide you features for building simple access configurations and configurations that are really complicated. I have a lot of people asking, "Can I run hundreds or even thousands of members on these?" The answer is, "Yes."  Both scale, well assuming your hosting provider has the resources needed by the sites.  Though we like to recommend top quality web hosting providers like WPEngine, we have membership sites on both platforms running on less sophisticated environments and they run well without performance issues.

Memberium is the market leader. They've been around for a long time and have a very positive rating with users. AccessAlly has a smaller install base and has also developed a good reputation.  We cannot honestly favor one versus the other here.

Memberium is built as a standalone login management / content protection system. It does not provide a learning management system. Instead what they do is provide good integration with learning management systems like LearnDash and LMSLifter. They have delegated that responsibility to other vendors making it easy to use them in their environments.

AccessAlly Essentials package is similar to Memberium without learning management features. It plays that same guard gate function allowing online members to login and policing the access each member is allowed based on how they are set up in Infusionsoft.

AccessAlly has ventured off to provide additional function Memberium has chosen not to include.  One nice feature is AccessAlly's order form feature. They have some nice order forms that enable you to charge members using Stripe and/or PayPal. Their payment features integrate well with Infusionsoft e-commerce. In many situations, these order forms are a step up from Infusionsoft's native order forms even providing abandon cart handling features which you would otherwise have to build yourself. We've used these order form features and have found them to be very useful.

You can purchase Memberium Standard for $47 a month discounted to $470 if paid annually. AccessAlly Essentials is $99 a month discounted to $990 if paid annually. So AccessAlly is more expensive.

Where Memberium and AccessAlly take very different approaches is when it comes to learning management systems (LMS) for building online courses. Memberium provides really good integration with two popular LMS systems: LearnDash and LMSLifter. Those are two well-established players in the market each with their own strong 3rd party vendors providing a good variety of features online course builders are needing. You can use the LMS systems with Memberium Standard. LearnDash is a $159 a year license.  LMSLifter has a free version with a starting paid package going for $99.

AccessAlly has their own built-in LMS in their AccessAlly Pro feature.  That extends their Essentials package adding that functions that overlap with what LearnDash and LMSLifter offer.  Their Pro package runs $129 a month or discounted $1290 if paid annually.  They are most expensive here when you add up the Memberium and LMS license prices.

If you are a small business owner and are looking for a good platform for building a site with little assistance from an outside consulting team, AccessAlly could be a better option.  They have a lot of tutorials that are easy to follow. They provide a lot of online handholding via a very "wealthy" set of documentation that's all in one place and provided by them.  You don't have to worry about integrations between different products which many first-time site builders appreciate. That also implies you have a single vendor responsible for everything which tends to simplify support issues if you need help.

My concern with AccessAlly's LMS features is that if you are needing features in the future that AccessAlly doesn't provide, you are out of luck. They don't have any 3rd party vendors providing those features.  If you need something they don't offer, you don't have many options to consider. So you could potentially reach a dead end and then need to switch to another platform.

That said, membership site and online course building are not for the lighthearted. My team and I build membership sites and online courses for a living. I'll be fully transparent and admin we benefit when people contact us to build membership sites. However, as easy as AccessAlly makes it for someone building site the first time, at some point, you will likely need someone from the outside to give you a hand. AccessAlly does provide support via their support line and Facebook groups. They do a decent job.

Memberium with either LearnDash or LMSLifter is a good solution. You won't likely run out of features to use. Memberium has a wealth of features. Both LearnDash and LMSLifter has very versatile LMS features. Both have additional 3rd party solutions that expand what they can offer. This additional function makes it a solution that will support you as you grow.  At the same time, it does provide you with features that may require some expert assistance to get working the way you need them to work.

Finally, Memberium's support is unmatched in my experience. We usually get answers via their support email system within hours. That includes support requests on the weekends and in late-night US hours. They never seem to be down. We have extensive experience using LearnDash support and...um...well...not so good.  We don't have experience using LMSLifter support, so I won't comment on that.

Let me know if you have any questions concerning this. I'd be happy to answer them for you.