Pros And Cons Of Using A CMS For Your Membership Manager
Most of the good content management systems out there have add-on components that allow you to use them as a membership site manager. They will let you process payments and co-ordinate members, issue passwords, and take care of all the admin tasks associated with a membership site, either free or paid. But there are positives and negatives associated with using them. In other words, they may not be the solution for everyone.
On the plus side, they are pretty low cost. In fact, if you have some technical expertise, they are completely free. They can be pretty confusing to set up on your own however, even for webmasters with some experience. Fortunately, there are many video tutorials, such as this Joomla membership site tutorial, that are available for a low, once-off cost.
Content management systems, even when you pay for a tutorial, still represent one of the cheapest options for those that want a flexible membership manager. In fact, if you compare what Joomla can do, with the addition of forums, content management, messaging between members, file download management, a newsletter option, and many other features, they compare well to the high end membership scripts.
Many of these high end membership managers are hosted - They range from $1500 plus $80 a month, or about $200 per month, or $3995 upfront for equivalents such as subhub, visiongate, and memberspeed. Of course, if you don’t want to do any work in setting up your membership site manager, then these are a better option. Even with a video tutorial, there is still some work to be done. And if you’re venturing into unknown territory, it can still seem frustrating at times. It helps to go through things slowly, and give yourself time to learn the process.
Once the content management system is configured as a membership site manager, things become a lot easier. It just becomes a matter of uploading your content, and getting on with the development of your site. It really is a question of time and money - whether you in fact have the money to outlay on one of the more expensive options, or whether you need a budget version that still has the power of these more expensive managers.
