Guide

What contact-based billing really costs

WildApricot doesn't bill you for members. It bills you for contacts— and that difference quietly decides your software budget for years. Here's the math most organizations only do after the renewal invoice stings.

Members vs. contacts: the gap that only grows

Your contact database isn't your membership roster. It's every person who ever touched your organization: current members, lapsed members from five years ago, one-time event attendees, donors, newsletter signups, and anyone who filled out a form on your website. A club with 150 active families routinely carries 400–500 contacts — and every one of them counts toward your pricing tier.

The result: your bill climbs even in years when your membership doesn't. Growth in history is priced like growth in membership.

The current price curve

Month-to-month rates published at wildapricot.com/pricing (June 2026); prepaying annually is about 10% less. A 500-contact plan now costs roughly three times what it did in 2014, after back-to-back increases of about 20% (2021) and 25% (2023).

The fee most treasurers miss

Prefer to keep your existing Stripe, PayPal, or Authorize.net account? WildApricot adds a surcharge to your subscription (historically around 20%) for using an external payment processor instead of their built-in one. Using your own payment relationship can cost you roughly a fifth of your software bill, every month.

The part you're already paying — everywhere

Card processing runs about 2.9% + 30¢ per payment — on Stripe, on PayPal, on WildApricot Payments, on all of them. Take a club collecting $10,000/month across 100 dues payments: that's roughly $320in processing, and it's the same number no matter whose logo is on the dashboard. That money was always leaving. Mybers doesn't ask for a cut of it — your payments run through your own Stripe account, paid out to your bank. The only question worth arguing about is what gets stacked on top.

Notice the part that isn'tthe processing fee. With WildApricot it's a subscription that climbs with every contact, plus a surcharge for bringing your own processor. With Mybers it's a flat subscription — $0 on Starter, $39 on Club, $79 on Pro — and 0% of your dueson every tier. We never take a cut of what you collect, and you're priced by the features you use, never by member count: the same price at 100 members or 50,000. WildApricot's stack only moves one direction, and it counts every lapsed member and stale contact while it climbs.

Figures are illustrative (US card rates, 100 payments of $100). Your processor's exact rate and your payment count move the totals; we'll run your real numbers below.

Why this keeps happening

WildApricot has changed hands repeatedly — Personify acquired it in 2017, Pamlico Capital took over Personify in 2018, and Momentive Software acquired Personify in January 2026. Each transition has come with price increases and, by its users' own accounts, declining support. If history is a guide, the next price letter is already being drafted.

Three ways out

1. Prune your database. Archiving stale contacts can drop you a tier. It buys a year, but the underlying math doesn't change — and you lose your history.
2. Negotiate at renewal. Multi-year prepayment discounts exist. You're still on the same curve, just with a head start.
3. Switch to flat, member-friendly pricing. Mybers has no contact caps on any plan — free tier included — and payments run through your own Stripe account with no subscription surcharge. Our importer moves your members, levels, events, and payment history from WildApricot in one sitting, with a dry-run preview and a 24-hour undo.

Pricing figures reflect publicly listed WildApricot rates and reported increases as of June 2026; verify current pricing with the vendor. Mybers is an independent product and is not affiliated with WildApricot, Personify, or Momentive Software.