How to Find Competent Membership Site Help
In this course you’ll explore your options when it comes to having your membership site built for you, tested, supported, and beyond!
Your options
There are several different places you could look for different kinds of service providers. This section will explain what you should be looking for.
What kind of contractor do I need?
Most people assume they need to hire a developer to help them set up a membership site.
Although it’s helpful to understanding coding it’s not actually necessary to hire a developer to set up a membership site simply because setting up a membership site typically doesn’t require any development!
All of the plugins, themes, integrations, etc., are usually already built and available, and setting everything up is usually just a matter of following the instructions in each app’s documentation.
But of course, you’d probably prefer not to have to do it all yourself (or maybe even any of it!) And there are a few different kinds of service providers you can engage to help you.
1 – Independent (solo) contractors
These are folks (usually developers, but not always) who can set up and configure a membership site for you and have experience with membership sites in particular (which is important, because there are certain intricacies to setting up a membership site that you only understand with experience).
This is a great choice because it allows you to communicate with just one person, build a professional relationship, and pay a reasonable amount (depending of course on your requirements and the rate at which the contractor works).
2 – Agencies
Most agencies consist of at least a few developers and a project manager. If your project is quite large in scope this may be a good option for you. You would only have to deal with the project manager, and he or she would be responsible for “translating” your requirements for the tech team, and in turn translating their communications to you.
Expect to pay more money to work with a reputable agency, as their costs are “blended” and have to take care of the entire team, their marketing, operations, etc.
It’s also often the case that you have to have a minimum engagement, whether in hours or price, to work with an agency.
3 – Productized services providers
Our MemberFix service is a prime example of a productized offer.
We work with our customers on the basis of tasks. We help you decide and prioritize tasks via our strategy session calls, we action the tasks one by one, and you can request as many tasks as you’d like.
The type of service provider that you ultimately end up hiring will depend on a combination of your needs, preferences, and budget. If you’re not sure which one would be best for you, just leave a comment below this mini-course and I’ll come around to answer.
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Where to find great contractors?
1 – Upwork
Probably the most obvious place to look for help is on a job board site like Upwork.
I hired most of our team members on Upwork using our special process for finding quality workers.
While you have to pay a pretty generous fee to Upwork, you get the benefit of a work diary that takes screenshots of your contractors’ screen while they work, a huge marketplace with lots of providers, a competition element that allows contractors to prove their willingness to work with you, resolution / dispute procedures, and escrow services.
I quite like Upwork to be honest, and I’m happy to pay the fee for their service.
2 – Google it!
There are plenty of contractors and agencies who specialize in membership sites. Googling around can produce some good leads on talented providers.
3 – Qualified contractors listings
Many software providers list “qualified contractors” on their website to give their customers an easy way to work with vetted providers who know that particular software well.
For example, I’m on the list of MemberMouse qualified contractors as I have a long history of working with this particular membership plugin and have many satisfied customers. As a matter of fact, many people find me this way to this day.
There are also membership site communities like the Member Site Academy that have curated contractor lists.
4 – Referrals
If you like the look and feel of a particular membership site where you yourself are a member, you can always reach out to the owner and ask them who helped them with their site.
More often than not they’re happy to recommend their contractors to you!
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How much will it cost?
You’re not going to like this answer but it’s the honest one: costs depend.
They depend on a lot of factors including how ambitious your project is (and hence, how much work is involved in making it a reality), your negotiation and project management skills, and of course the cost of service providers and all of your apps.
I’ve seen people start membership sites for about a $100. And I’ve witnessed customers blow tens of thousands of dollars to build something really complex only to have it sit there collecting dust afterwards.
I would recommend avoiding this latter category and taking a bootstrapping mentality of spending as little as necessary to build your membership site. Especially if you’re not 100% sure that people are going to be willing to pay you money to join that site.
It’s best to take a DIY approach (if you have the time), or have somebody put a minimum viable product together for you, so that you can at least try to sell a few memberships to validate the strength of the idea in the marketplace.
If you’re looking for an “average” cost to start a membership site, it’s usually between a few hundred to a few thousand bucks.
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When will it be ready?
Once again, our favorite answer: it depends!
One thing is for certain. You should plan for the worst, hope for the best, and communicate your expectations and timelines and deliverables to your service provider very clearly BEFORE you engage them for work.
If you leave anything vague, you might wind up running out of money and an incomplete site to show for it.
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Can I hire YOU, Vic?
Sure!
My team and I do all of our work through MemberFix. Please check out the MemberFix landing page, think of any questions you might have, and contact me so that I can clarify anything you might like to know. 🙂
Complete Course
I am building a suite of tech tools for the real estate industry that solve a series of issues for both the broker and the real estate agent. This is a monthly membership program with the ability to add tools and then turn on or off those tools and their monthly fees as needed. Some tools are built (WP), but the home page is in process (sretools.com), but ran into a sticking point with MemberMouse. My current team does not know MM and I am looking for a group that can work with my current team and integrate MM into our design, create the Dashboard the way I want it, etc. Thanks!
Hey Andy,
Sure, happy to help or at least point you in the right direction. Sent you an email. 🙂
Cheers,
Vic
In need of a WordPress website and Member Mouse integration/setup for Selling chicken health education content and monthly membership for premium content. We have logo, homepage copy, sales copy and home page concept/wireframe.
Hi Paul, thanks for your comment. Got your email and will talk with you there. 🙂
Hi there, I have been recommended you via Memberpress. I am running a membership site https://businessclub.lovehair.co.uk/ also using Buddy Boss Platform, Learndash. We have an issue with Stripe returning AJAX errors. This is what they said:
So it seems like it’s working fine, just generating an error because admin-ajax.php is returning a 404 instead of a 200?
This is something their webhost would need to troubleshoot as it’s not an issue that is specific to any plugin it appears.
If the webhost won’t help, I’d recommend MemberFix (Vic Dorfman) for hired help – https://memberfix.rocks/.
I have spoken to WPEngine, who have been helpful setting up staging but pushed me back to Memberpress and now not sure where to go! I am trying to give our members a discount due to COvid-19 so this is time sensitive.
Would you be able to assist asap?
Hope you are keeping well there in this crazy world!
Can you help me set up Discourse Forum and get it working with MemberPress?
And in that help me clarify if a can use my current hosting, SiteGround or something else along with that.
…I have no ideas what a reasonable budget is
I have already sent an email requesting help but have not as yet been contacted back by you
Hi Jen,
I see Marko has already been in touch with you. 🙂
Best,
Vic
I have an existing website conferencekrakn.com – it’s a WordPress site already using MemberPress. The site is not live yet, in final testing, but it is substantially complete. On the signup form (example: https://conferencekrakn.com/register/krakn-100/), I need to to evaluate one field (Mobile Phone Number) against my underlying provider using their API before allowing the signup user to click “Sign Up”. Then upon a valid “Sign Up”, I need to use same API to set up user’s account on my underlying provider’s back end. My service providers API is easy and simple (I can provide documentation). I’d like to speak to someone from MemberFix about doing this work. Thanks — Dave Rickert 502-807-2033
Hi Dave,
I see you’ve already scheduled a chat with my team. 🙂
This is exactly the kind of interesting work we do and are happy to help you with.
Talk soon!
Vic
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