How much should a small non-profit pay for membership software?
For a volunteer-run organization of a few hundred members, a fair all-in price is one predictable monthly number with no setup fee and no cut of your dues. SorrelSites charges $99 a month for up to 100 active members, $199 up to 300, $399 up to 750, and $699 up to 2,000 — month to month, counting only active members, never every old contact.
4 min read · Updated 2026-08-17
The sticker price is the easy part. What determines your yearly cost is three quieter things: what the tool counts when it charges you, what it skims from the money passing through, and what you pay people to set it up and keep it running.
What does it count?
Some tools charge by contacts — every lapsed member, every one-time event guest, everyone who ever filled in a form. A five-year-old organization can be paying for a database three times the size of its real membership. Ask any vendor: does your price count active members, or everyone I've ever met? SorrelSites counts only members whose membership is currently active.
What does it take from your dues?
Beyond the normal card-processing cost that every organization pays, some tools add their own percentage on top of each payment, and some "free" tools are free precisely because their money comes from somewhere in the flow of payments. Neither is wrong, but it belongs in your math: a percentage of dues is a price, whether or not it appears on an invoice. SorrelSites takes no cut of your dues.
What does it cost in people?
A setup package, paid training, or a consultant to run the move is real money — often more than the first year of subscription. So is the volunteer evening lost to a tool nobody finds easy. When you compare prices, compare the whole first year: subscription, any setup or moving cost, any fees on dues, and an honest guess at the hours.
A fair deal for a small non-profit looks like this: one predictable monthly number, month to month, no setup fee, no cut of dues, and moving in done for you. That is the standard we hold ourselves to — hold everyone else to it too.