WildApricot Reviews

Friendly Website Design and Membership Management System

Comments: With Wild Apricot's assistance, we are able to easily add new events and maintain our website current with our ever-evolving needs. In addition to keeping tabs on emails and contacts. All of the personnel and volunteers of the several non-profit trade associations we oversee are constantly busy. Making a living in this industry is exciting and challenging, and there is never a dull moment.

Pros:

I appreciate not having to ask anyone else to help me run the website or set up events. If you have a basic understanding of computers, you should have no trouble getting about. You can customize your page and report generation in a number of ways.

Cons:

When I have a question about how to use the site, I wish I could talk to a real person. It would be fantastic if there was a real assistance line.

Cost Effective Website and Database

Comments: Overall Wild Apricot is a great tool for associations and/or others who need to process dues payments, event registrations and keep up with your clients.

Pros:

Wild Apricot makes it easy to process registrations for events, dues payments and store purchases in addition to being a website. It is very easy to use. There are user groups that you can join to get help from other users. Also, it is very easy to create a manual invoice for things that I might need a product for or a registration. There is also an app for administrators which is super convenient when to try to look up open invoices, etc. when away from the office.

Cons:

There are several features that should be available that are not. First and foremost there should be the availability within in the software to create a pdf and email it to contacts. The store does not appear to be integrated with the mail database and there are not a lot of reports. When I have orders from my store I have to constantly watch for duplicates. There is also not an email report to run that will search for possible duplicates in the system.

No customer service

Pros:

Comprehensive membership management and membership data.

Cons:

no customer service. I am locked out of our web site and WA does nopt answer.

Best solution for small to medium sized associations

Comments: WildApricot is an excellent solution for managing association memberships and websites. The solution includes basic eCommerce and the ability to build a website with the Wild Apricot CMS - you can also connect easily to other website tools. Members love the easy of managing their own profiles and the other features for member communications.

Pros:

Easy of use, ability to customize the member database easily and the integrated content management system for a professional website.

Cons:

The software does not allow you to determine the membership ID within he system. This creates a challenge for any organization that already has a member number schema.

GAC Review

Comments: If it were not for the support issue, and the reporting, I could give a 9 or 10. Overall we have no issues with the product or the usefullness.

Pros:

It is generally very easy to use and we have really good success with member use.

Cons:

My main issue, and it's a big one for me, is that there is no live support. I just can't accept that there is no way for your company to offer support personel for training or trouble shooting. The other important thing that could really be useful is the reporting. The options are not great and I find it hard to get data in a way that could be useful for our organization.

Expensive Means of Driving Yourself Nuts

Comments: Wild Apricot is difficult to use, to the point where one membership coordinator refused to use it and another is bravely struggling through, but it's been hard. Newsletters are clunky to put together and never come out looking quite like they looked in preview mode. Duplicated members are hard to find. Overall the system is unintuitive and difficult to use.

Pros:

Wild Apricot provides a great deal of hope that you've finally found the magic solution that will do it all. Event RSVPs work well.

Cons:

We were unable to successfully add Wild Apricot widgets to our website (which was not hosted on Wild Apricot's system). I contacted support multiple times and even they couldn't figure out how to fix it. So one of the chief reasons we wanted to use Wild Apricot (so that people could become members online through our website) never worked.

OCEY President

Comments: Converted our website in 2010 from a regular static to Wild Apricot. All of our users quickly adapted to using it. The features of WA allowed us to keep the club running smoothly during the pandemic. Utilizing all WA features has been a contributing factor to our growth.

Pros:

It's flexibility and simplicity. You don't need a degree to use it, it can be learned by almost anyone.

Cons:

Not enough features on using the App, compared to the website. For example, we have a carpool page on the website but unable to see it on the app.

Wild Apricot is great for non-profit membership, event and website management

Comments: It is easy to use if you are tech savvy. If you are not tech savvy, it can be overwhelming. There are tutorials and videos available and many of those are helpful.

Pros:

That it is an one-stop-shop for all things membership & event & website management. Plus, it has all the Finance features, fantastic reporting, and Paypal integration.

Cons:

No way to identify Duplications in the Contact List. We have to manually figure out which contacts to MERGE.

Amazing Website Platform

Comments: I love WildApricot and highly encourage businesses to consider as a viable website product!

Pros:

I loved how easy it is to create and maintain our website, host events, manage payments. I was in charge of the migration to WildApricot and it was a breeze

Cons:

Sometimes the format options for designing webpages and emails could be a little clunky.

Wild Apricot for Non-Profits

Pros:

The best thing is that it is an all-in-one software. So with the backend management system you have a web-site sitting on top of it. It makes everything super simple for us to only have to use one main software.

Cons:

Honestly, nothing. It does take a bit of time to figure it all out and their are limitations of it in terms of website design. But from what you pay for it is a solid software.

This software has lots of features in addition to membership management

Pros:

This software is a one-stop shop for membership management. It also manages your website, event management, payments, subscriptions, members only content, and more!

Cons:

It has a learning curve for setting up, configuration, and for daily administration of the software.

AUTOMATIC ASSISTANT

Comments: MUST use system for all non-profits!

Pros:

Time saver, gives back valuable man-hours to service the program cause

Cons:

Limited to the users creativity.

Database for memberships

Pros:

The customer support was good as its live chat and email. It facilitated a members only database. There is a mobile app and supports mobile payments.

Cons:

It links with Wordpress but has limited other integrations. Does not have advanced social media intergrations.

Company cash cow not in tune with the needs of users in 2023

Comments: Extremely dissatisfying in every respect, the product, the customer service, th e lack of transparency, the company principals and developers are bunkered in where nobody from the public can have direct access to a human. The price increases in the past several years that there have been no innovations on this platform that the customers have been asking form judging by the forum, since 2014, several [sensitive content hidden] ago. Evidently this platform is something that keeps switching hands as every new [sensitive content hidden] tries to milk this cash cow.

Pros:

I don't like anything about it compared to other platforms, I inherited it

Cons:

Complete lack of response to customer needs, the program is inflexible, archaic, no improvements have been made in years and no attention is paid to the user forum where customers have been requesting basic functionality that was available on other platforms in the 1990s. Their support materials - check them out - now all start with an article telling you what the platform CAN'T do. In these, you'll find lists of all the functions that normal platforms a fraction of the cost of this one have been doing routinely since the internet was invented, like, oh...being able to proof the copy of a blog before it goes live, or schedule an event on a calendar to blast out at a specific date and time - a feature that is available on another part of their platform but not in the event module - I could go on for a long time. Customer service is useless, all they do when you finally get them on a chat is send links to articles that describe how customers needing more flexibility can add custom css. Isn't that the developers' job? Or they refer you to their 'partners.' My organization interviewed 4 of their partners. None of them had knowledge of css, or any more access to the staff at Wild Apticot than the general public. Their disregard for the needs of their users is shocking.

Flexible Program Does the Job

Comments: Having some way to keep our membership current and use the program for communication and registrations has been wonderful. We have been satisfied with its performance of these functions. We have not explored many of the newer features which have been added since we first started using this program. Some of them probably would be helpful, but we have not had the manpower with time to explore them enough to employ them.

Pros:

The database for our membership and ability to use it to communicate with those members is most important to our organization. When we were holding in person meetings, the ability to register and pay for events was also important, but since we have not been doing that recently, that part of the program has not been used recently.

Cons:

We have found that we have not been able to use the renewal feature since renewals start with the local clubs and move up to the state organization instead of moving down to the clubs from the state. This means that we must manually update the database. We have explored trying a different method, but no change has been found that works for our members.

Good Product for Non-Profit Management

Comments: The selection of Wild Apricot has allowed a small non-profit working with a hodge-podge of cobbled together "free" solutions to move into the 21st century. Volunteers and board members can work from a unified database rather than multiple, out-of-sync, task-specific spreadsheets. Tasks can be distributed without dis-integrating this data. Web site integration and payment processing allow members, donors and event participants to interact with the organization online, rather than the previous limitation to paper forms and checks. Implementation was straight-forward, if not exactly "simple". Years of old and inconsistent data always complicate a migration. The choice to integrate with the organization's existing WordPress web site rather than fully implement Wild Apricot's built-in CMS also provided some challenges. Support was mostly timely and helpful during the migration and implementation phases.

Pros:

Product is full-featured and the least expensive for a small non-profit on a limited budget. Of particular interest were membership management features, including self-service join, renew, and update. Also critical was event management and integration with membership, since the organization's main publicity and fundraising activity is a large bike ride. Web site integration was also attractive. Good platform for communicating with members and event participants. Payment processing integration for memberships, donations, and event registrations.

Cons:

Lacked QuickBooks integration, although the organization's treasurer at the time did not consider this a needed feature. Lack of volunteer management, though that was not considered an essential feature at the time of review. Web site integration works best when using the built-in CMS. Integration with WordPress, the organization's existing CMS was largely successful. However some issues did arise with the forms for things like memberships, donations, and event registrations, especially on Apple devices.

Excellent Management System for All My Needs

Comments: I began using WA in 2011 for a non-profit managing 90 volunteers and various events and fundraisers. Since then, I have created WA accounts for 3 other non-profits of similar size AND, as of 2017, also created a WA software account to manage my professional association of 1,000 members with great success. I am a huge advocate for Wild Apricot software and how is can effectively manage members/volunteers and manage events/fundraisers/conferences while being a user-friendly, professional platform to market my organizations.

Pros:

The simplicity yet robust nature of this software is awesome. The user-friendly setups and ease-of-use make it an effective tool to help manage various facets of the organization. Many screens are at-a-glance summary overviews while others provide sufficient detail to meet a variety of needs. Many of my volunteers are elderly and they can navigate the system just as ease as a techny-teenager. The system is user-friendly enough that, if you are in it every day, it is not cumbersome and, if you are an infrequent user, it is quite intuitive.

Cons:

While I like many things about the software, I only wish there was a way to (1) track volunteer hours within member profiles and (2) have the ability to use more than one payment system (I have a 501c3 and 501c4 organization with different financial needs) so I wish I could manage both within the same software system. So, those are big wish list items that I hope come along in the future but so far those are manageable through other less than ideal means. Otherwise, on a daily basis, there is very little I have issue with within the software.

Complete, Logical, Reliable, and Quick

Comments: Wild Apricot is one of four web-based systems we use, the others being Quickbooks for accounting, Brivo for physical access control of gates and doors, and Online Exam Builder. Each fulfills a specific role, with very little overlap, but without Wild Apricot at the center life would be much more complicated.

Pros:

With the baseline requirement for membership management completely fulfilled by Wild Apricot, we have found considerable value in the events management features to manage training courses, and the mass emailing features for communications. Of course, solid invoicing and payment processing are also very important. Overall, the user and administrative experience with Wild Apricot is satisfying and very productive. We built or re-engineered our business processes around the capabilities in Wild Apricot, to a significant degree.

Cons:

It takes quite a while to get what look like simple enhancements made to the search and select features within "saved searches". We don't seem to be getting attention, and the enhancements we've requested have been in the queue for over a year. The result of having to wait is that our saved searches are needlessly complex and hard to maintain.

Not Customer Friendly

Comments: Our non-profit has approximately 1500 members we are managing and this was our first attempt at using a membership management tool. The implementation went well and our first year was generally positive. The features they offer are functional but pale in comparison to standalone services. For example the newsletter tool is extremely limited compared to our previous service, MailChimp, to the point where we are considering going back to MailChimp. After the company switched owners recently, the customer service quality has dropped dramatically. A recent forced change of payment systems resulted in our members' automatic subscriptions being canceled without warning, which was not expected or documented. We tried to engage customer support prior to the change but they were not helpful at all. This will likely result in a loss of members and thus income.

Pros:

It offers a large selection of features and can be a one stop shop for membership tools. Although most of the features are not nearly comparable to equivalent stand-alone services, they are functional.

Cons:

Customer support has been quite poor. They dropped telephone support in the last year and did not provide any guidance or assistance to us when they forced a payment system change that affected our members.

Wild Apricot: A Quick and Efficient Event Software

Comments: Our component school district staff members and members of the public who register for programs understand intuitively how to register for our programs. The function most used by staff is the Excel download. Staff are able to easily sort and filter data to invoice schools and other agencies for multiple registrants through our agency finance system as required by law rather than through Wild Apricot's invoicing system. Our Wild Apricot website was once very robust. We have been able to simplify it while using the same template so the site is easier to use and looks much more like our agency site making the flow from one site to another nearly seamless.

Pros:

Our agency hosts many repeated events not only multiple times during the school year but that also repeat year after year. The ease with which events can be duplicated and edited for specific dates allows staff to set up a year's worth of events in just a few hours.

Cons:

We have many users creating events and Wild Apricot has only one events manager. We do have a very talented group but there is still a bit of nervousness since events are unable to be compartmentalized by a user or a department. PayPal payments are collected into one bank account and have to be parsed out after receipt by registrant as to which account the funds need to be deposited. We would like to have payments tied to department accounts for each event and pass that info through PayPal to our Fiscal Department.

Great for member

Comments: Overall, our non-profit has had an amazing experience using Wild Apricot and would highly recommend them/

Pros:

The main reason we went with Wild Apricot was for the membership database. It is great to be able to keep track of all members, and be able to search by category.

Cons:

would love a more step-by-step process for setting up the webpages. This is not my area of comfort

Daily user of Wild Apricot and developer for new Wild Apricot websites and setup for organizations.

Comments: I have participated in moving 20 organizations over to Wild Apricot and use it daily for administrative purposes. It is an awesome platform and would not recommend another to anyone. Hoping they can keep this excellent service going for a very long time. Also, the support team and responsiveness has always been great!

Pros:

Easy, quick, and efficient transition over to Wild Apricot from other website types such as WordPress, Weebly, and other member platforms. Excellent for small to mid-size organizations to consolidate all needed features and tracking/reporting in one place.

Cons:

The only weakness is the choice of new "themes" to help speed up a new website. You can certainly do almost anything you want with the templates... but the ready-made themes make it so much better (and easier). Just need to keep the sample themes up-to-date and competitive with WordPress... so the organizations are happy with the basic choices available when they are deciding to move to Wild Apricot.

Wild Apricot is taking ALL the users for a ride- Using EXTORTION! Not happy!

Comments: BAD!

Pros:

We are able to use PayPal and Stripe- we had recurring payments set up- easy to use those vendors/

Cons:

We are able to use PayPal and Stripe. Now WA want to charge us 20% more a month unless we switch to THEIR preferred vendor. We have auto renew and this will cause us to lose members, and we do not like the format of their vendor. We were given LESS than 60 days notice and basically told " it;s our way or Tuff" Thousand of small non profits are effected. this really stinks.. DON'T USE WA! Terrible customer service

Great Service, no hidden costs and love the database

Comments: Have been with 3 other companies who promised great things for membership-based software and under-delivered. WA's response time for customer service is faster than any of the other 3. Sometimes takes several tries, but with stay with it and the issue is usually solved. Rather than promising many items before the contract is signed, then revealing that you get rudimentary versions and have to pay for the more robust item that you really need, WA is up front with what you get. They accurately answer questions about this type of issue before you sign on with them. They also have a free version limited to a small number of members, which can let you try everything before you totally commit to a fee-based version for a larger organization with more members. The database is faster than any other we have used. They allow a LOT of fields rather than limiting you to an extra 10 or 29 beyond the basic ones needed for a members-only database. As a result we have been able, for the first time, to keep track online of members, contacts, past members, exhibitors, donors, etc., all online without the need for separate offline databases for some of them. With other companies the limited fields means we could do a lot with members records, but could not adequately add or change anything enough to keep track of advertisers, sponsors, exhibitors for our conference, and had problems with trying to identify prospects for members or to track those who dropped their membership. There are a few areas that still are lacking. We currently use Joomla for content management, and find the Joomla templates, content categorizing, and methods of limiting access to be more useful than WA. There needs to be at least one responsive template, since a large number of our members have become more dependent on tablets and phones for their internet content. The report system gives a nice online report, but results are not printable and when downloaded, give you a spreadsheet including every single field in each record rather than the single items you were looking for in the report. WA makes upgrades about twice a year, usually incorporating the most requested improvements. They also make other smaller upgrades in between the main ones. If you can't wait, tweaks are available for a fee through a third party which is familiar with the WA environment. They are the only organization out there who makes me feel that they really DO care about what a non-profit organization might want.

They have changed and not for the better

Comments: Normally does well but we had a event in which we had to send out directions to and the list of registrants disappeared - we had to be put in a que for tech support and when I got to #6 at 4:55 they said I had to e mail and they would get back to me next week. When I first started with handling this the tech support was great and personal not now, it is thru chat and they shout you off supposedly at 5. Also being Canadian, they have different holidays which is frustrating. I managed to trick the system to bring up the list but it took an afternoon of my off time

Pros:

It is a powerful platform to use alskdjmka xmm mc mcmscbhjsdbjbcm mzm mxbmncm

Cons:

It is Buggy to operate - not user friendly