A MemberPress alternative for nonprofits

If MemberPress feels like more plugin than your nonprofit needs, Nonprofit Manager is a free alternative built for a different job: tracking who your members are and keeping that list next to your donations, newsletter, and events. Here’s the honest comparison.

They solve different problems

MemberPress is built to charge a recurring fee and automatically lock or unlock content, courses, and downloads the moment payment status changes. That’s real, useful engineering if paywalling content is your model. Nonprofit Manager doesn’t try to compete on that. It tracks members and their level as a status, takes donations through PayPal, Venmo, and Stripe, and keeps everything in one place with your newsletter and events. Most small nonprofits collect dues as a donation at signup, not as automated tiered billing tied to gated pages.

The price difference

MemberPress starts at $399 a year for its Launch plan, which also carries a 4.9% transaction fee on every charge (that fee goes away at the $699 a year Growth plan). Nonprofit Manager’s membership tracking is free, with no per-contact or per-transaction fee of its own.

When MemberPress is the right call

If you’re selling access, a course, or gated resources and need automatic billing tied to what a visitor can see, MemberPress is built for exactly that and does it well. Don’t force a free plugin to do a paid plugin’s job.

When to switch

If your members are really your donors and supporters, and you don’t need a paywall, Nonprofit Manager gives you the member list for free and throws in donations, newsletters, and events. It’s part of the all-in-one plugin for small nonprofits, compared with the rest of the field in our best membership plugin for nonprofits guide.