StarChapter Reviews

StarChapter

4.2 (602)
Member-Friendly Association & Membership Management Software

Overall rating

4.2 /5
(602)
Value for Money
4.1/5
Features
3.8/5
Ease of Use
3.8/5
Customer Support Software
4.3/5

81%
recommended this app
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602 Reviews

Pearl
Overall rating
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software

Outstanding comprehensive association management system

Reviewed on 2016-01-21

I have used Star Chapter since 2012 for multiple associations I manage. Of all the association...

I have used Star Chapter since 2012 for multiple associations I manage. Of all the association management systems currently available, I found Star Chapter to be the most comprehensive and cost effective online software on the market.

Pros

Star Chapter is user friendly for both members and administrators. Customer support is great and highly responsive to questions or problems. Training and resources for administrators and Board members are excellent. One of my groups consists of a senior chapter, a young professionals chapter and a non-profit 501(c)3 education foundation. They wanted one website for all three organizations with capability to manage each of them. The Star Chapter tech team was wonderful in working with our volunteer Board and communications committee to develop a website "skin" that would function on Star Chapter's system.

Cons

I have some Board members that find it cumbersome to RSVP for a meeting when responding to an email invitation. They would prefer a one click method to indicate if they will attend or not, rather than the multiple steps Star Chapter's system requires to login as a member and register to attend a Board or committee meeting that doesn't require a payment. I have asked Star Chapter to consider changing the system to allow for a "yes" or "no" response when members are responding to a system generated event invitation. We had this with Cvent and it worked extremely well.

Verified Reviewer
Overall rating
  • Industry: Religious Institutions
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Weekly for 1-5 months
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

Membership management software that covers all bases!

Reviewed on 2020-08-13

StarChapter appears to be a very professional software company that has provided a great solution...

StarChapter appears to be a very professional software company that has provided a great solution for organization membership management.

Pros

StarChapter set everything up
The training they provided was comprehensive
The support is excellent. I had a few questions and received a response back within hours or even minutes.
Once you get the hang of how it works, it is easy to make changes
The price is incredible! We are a very small non-profit with a limited budget.
Our users love the software. The admins really like the back end and the information it provides.
Our members love the website and how easy it is to renew membership, sign up for classes and events.

Cons

Reporting is a little weak:
I can find everything I need but it isn't as easy as I think it could be. (That said it could be that I haven't figured everything out yet.)
I can get a list of new members, members that have renewed, and members that have not renewed BUT it does not produce a very attractive output. This would definitely not stop me from recommending this software.

Reasons for Choosing StarChapter

Wild Apricot was getting expensive unless you used their payment processing gateway (which we did not want to do as it would cost us even more as a non-profit organization). Wild Apricot was unpleasant to use both for the member and the administrator. - hard to get reports, hard to see what was happening with member status - new and old. Everyone in my organization hated it!

Switched From

Wild Apricot

Reasons for Switching to StarChapter

Cost and functionality were the key drivers in rejecting other software options. We use PayPal as our payment processor with a non-profit rate for fees. StarChapter gives us the flexibility to continue using PayPal which saves us more than the software costs!
Heather
Overall rating
  • Industry: Education Management
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1-5 months
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 0.0 /10

Horrible customer service and glitchy system

Reviewed on 2021-10-14

Our onboarding experience was HORRIBLE! Zero support, zero expectation management, and the SC team...

Our onboarding experience was HORRIBLE! Zero support, zero expectation management, and the SC team linked our membership page TO THE WRONG WEBSITE > as in, visitors to our membership page were redirected to another chapter that is in our geographic area and is OUR COMPETITOR. When we let our customer service lead know and asked her to fix the error, she responded with a one-word answer - "done".

Pros

I thought we would like that it was an all-in-one solution, but even that isn't worth the headaches of trying to use it.

Cons

Too many pros to list here but this box is requiring more characters . . . it doesn't integrate with any other tools, the website design options are incredibly limited, outdated and stale looking. Check out their website and have a look at the one positive testimonial listed - if you visit that site, you will see they are no longer using StarChapter!

Alternatives Considered

GrowthZone

Switched From

WordPress

Reasons for Switching to StarChapter

I wish we had chosen otherwise! We will be ending our membership immediately and starting over with another solution.

Response from Star Chapter

Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback.

Cindy
Overall rating
  • Industry: Nonprofit Organization Management
  • Company size: Self Employed
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 8.0 /10

StarChapter Review

Reviewed on 2021-01-12

Pros

The features I like best about StarChapter are: ease of administration, swiftness of launch, good value for your money. It's great for smaller associations.

Cons

Reporting is what I like least about StarChapter. Historical information isn't easy to access.

Alternatives Considered

YourMembership

Reasons for Choosing StarChapter

StarChapter was much more manageable and user friendly.

Switched From

WordPress

Reasons for Switching to StarChapter

The cost and YourMembership, although very robust, was much more than AZ Total Rewards needed.

Response from Star Chapter

Thank you for your feedback, we really appreciate it as it helps us improve our product. We are sorry to hear that you're experiencing difficulty with the reports. If you could please enter a support ticket, our team will get in touch with you to get more information.

Debbie
Overall rating
  • Industry: Nonprofit Organization Management
  • Company size: Self Employed
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

Great value and easy to use for chapter associations

Reviewed on 2020-01-30

I've used Star Chapter now for 10 years. Over this time things have gotten much better and easier...

I've used Star Chapter now for 10 years. Over this time things have gotten much better and easier to use. It is important to small chapter associations with multiple volunteers to make something simple they can use, and then actually do use it to get things done. I am the only paid staff person for my associations so its great to have the support and help with my committees.

Pros

Its simple and has the website/database/financials/surveys/emails all in one.

Cons

The email system is not pretty and has too many templates hidden/buried to update. Make it look more like constant contact and I have no more complaints. Love it

Alternatives Considered

Kommo

Reasons for Choosing StarChapter

MemberClicks is a great product but is way too expensive and robust for what we needed/use it for.

Switched From

MemberClicks

Reasons for Switching to StarChapter

Larger more well known company and I already knew how to use it.

Response from Star Chapter

Thank you for your feedback, we are happy to announce that an update to the email functionality and templates will be available soon.

Betsy
Overall rating
  • Industry: Nonprofit Organization Management
  • Company size: Self Employed
  • Used Daily for 6-12 months
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

Great association management system!

Reviewed on 2020-08-04

We now have ONE platform that we use for all our needs. We have ONE list to manage with all our...

We now have ONE platform that we use for all our needs. We have ONE list to manage with all our member info. It's a turnkey system, and has made things much easier for a board that changes every two years. We're very happy with StarChapter!

Pros

This checks all the boxes for us. We needed a platform that let us send comms to our members, manage our membership list (including sending invoices for renewals and new members), manage event registrations, post news articles, allow our members (and non-members for a fee) to post job openings, and more...and this fit the bill! It was affordable, easy to use, the initial set-up was simple (StarChapter is a HUGE help and does a great deal of the work), and we've found their support team to be very responsive and helpful. We're very happy with our switch, and now all our data is managed in one place - which was the ultimate problem we set out to solve with our previous website.

Cons

There are a few little nuances we've discovered, such as not being able to use multi-byte characters (emojis, etc) in subject lines of comms and not being able to export ALL comm data (must be exported individually). I think the biggest thing that could stand to be improved is the comm data - you can get open rate, but that's pretty much it. You can't see what links are clicked on the most, or other data that other email-specific platforms offer. That said, it wasn't a deal-breaker for us.

Alternatives Considered

MemberClicks and Wild Apricot

Reasons for Choosing StarChapter

We needed an AMS platform that allowed us to house all our data in one place and had the capability to manage comms, events, etc.

Reasons for Switching to StarChapter

StarChapter had better reviews, was more affordable, had more functionality, and was easier to use.
Tracey
Overall rating
  • Industry: Marketing & Advertising
  • Company size: 51–200 Employees
  • Used Weekly for 6-12 months
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

Choose StarChapter for a Streamlined, Easy-to-Use, Time-Saving Association Management Software

Reviewed on 2019-08-13

Before StarChapter, we had a website that we built and maintained ourselves. It was outdated and...

Before StarChapter, we had a website that we built and maintained ourselves. It was outdated and hard to administer. We used an email campaign software, an invoicing software, paid hosting fees, used a security software, and tracked attendees at our events in a spreadsheet — it was a bulky way of operating. Our organization looks so professional now! We were able to consolidate all our other systems into one which is such a time saver! I'm not sure we're saving any money, but the time, ease of use and professional image is worth it. I highly recommend that anyone in an association consider StarChapter. I couldn't be happier with a management software.

Pros

StarChapter has streamlined our volunteer organization's processes and saved each of us time — which is important as volunteers! It's eliminated the use of an email campaign system and invoicing system. It has streamlined our communication with the newsletter feature, and contacting members and non-members with the email templates makes our roles simpler. I love that each of our board members are learning how to maintain their own pages through StarChapter's Knowledgebase. Everything you need to know is in there and it's presented in a style that's easy to read, follow and understand. I've had to request support for a couple items that were more complex than what I could handle, and their support team has responded within a day or two to resolve the challenge.

Cons

I've been using the software for about eight months. I think I still have so much to learn — it's a very robust software — yet they do make it easy to use. I just wish I could dedicate more time to really diving in to understand the connections between the modules and how to maximize the software.

Janet
Overall rating
  • Industry: Human Resources
  • Company size: 51–200 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 8.0 /10

StarChapter review from Stateline SHRM

Reviewed on 2022-11-28

Pros

Members are able to renew their memberships, pay for meetings easily. The website management with the event planning flows smoothly. Communicating with members via StarChapter is great as well.Payments using StarPay has worked out well for our chapter too.

Cons

Our biggest complaint is not having immediate customer service with an individual we can talk to available if we have a quick question or are having a problem. Needing to submit a ticket and wait for a response to set up a time and day to talk with a StarChapter representative has taken sometimes 3-5 days.

Response from Star Chapter

Thank you for your feedback, we really appreciate it as it helps us improve our offerings.

Desiree
Overall rating
  • Industry: Higher Education Software
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Weekly for 1+ year
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 8.0 /10

Useful tool for Chapter management

Reviewed on 2019-07-23

Overall, it’s a vast improvement from how we were managing our chapter. However, there are...

Overall, it’s a vast improvement from how we were managing our chapter. However, there are definitely parts that could be better.

Pros

This tool greatly helps us manage our chapter and events by automating processes that we used to do manually. Gone are the days of tracking everything with spreadsheets. New member sign ups and membership renewals are a breeze, we are able to link to a payment gateway and accept payment directly though or website, and best of all, members can update their contact information at any time. Event registration, sign-in, and payment is also easy. And being able to run reports from the software is great.

Cons

It’s difficult to update the website unless you have prior experience. The reporting function is lacking by not being able to include all data that we want. And while sending emails from the software is great, having to manage this or respond using an outside email provider is very cumbersome. It would be better if we could read emails in the software. Also, not being able to create and send continuing education credit certificates through the software is a huge miss!

Reasons for Switching to StarChapter

It has the most components and was one of the more affordable options.
Verified Reviewer
Overall rating
  • Industry: Construction
  • Company size: 1,001–5,000 Employees
  • Used Weekly for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

Star Chapter saved me hours of work

Reviewed on 2022-09-30

Love it and I tell everyone how much time it has saved me overall. Now to train the new board with...

Love it and I tell everyone how much time it has saved me overall. Now to train the new board with some features so they can take on some more website tasks.

Pros

Star Chapter saved me hours of work. With my other website, it took me approx. 10-15 hours a week to maintain and keep updated. Since we moved to Star Chapter, I go in twice a month and make changes, updates and create my meeting email reminders for the following events.

Cons

What I like least is sometimes when updates are made we don't know about it unless we send a message to the helpdesk. For example , newsletters changes to freeform from the previous month and I couldn't figure it out.

Response from Star Chapter

Thank you for taking the time to share your experience, we really appreciate your feedback.

Robert
Overall rating
  • Industry: Chemicals
  • Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
  • Used Weekly for 1+ year
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 2.0 /10

Society membership management

Reviewed on 2022-07-27

Have had a number of issues, looking at changing to something else that is more user friendly.

Have had a number of issues, looking at changing to something else that is more user friendly.

Pros

multi user capable. Everything handled in "one place"

Cons

difficult to maintain web pages. have to edit multiple places to update a page. Switched from accepting PayPal to their own credit card processing application. Does not accept any "foreign" card (any card from outside the US, this mean even Canada. We have a number of Canadian based members who can't be processed. Fees are high than PayPal. Can not accept (swipe or chip) cards onsite, have to manually key them in.

Alternatives Considered

Constant Contact

Reasons for Choosing StarChapter

Was told it could do a lot of things that we later found out were not possible, at least not without major changes to our society operations and procedures

Switched From

Constant Contact

Reasons for Switching to StarChapter

was sold a lot of hype.

Response from Star Chapter

Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback.

Tom
Overall rating
  • Industry: Insurance Software
  • Company size: Self Employed
  • Used Daily for 6-12 months
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 5.0 /10

Constant Contact vs Star Chapter

Reviewed on 2019-07-24

Member management will be better. All board members have access to snapshots of the business...

Member management will be better. All board members have access to snapshots of the business including revenue and meeting attendance.

Pros

Several features for chapter management seemed to be an advantage to Constant Contact. Communications to members, non-members and expiring members seemed to be be better.

Cons

Can't call anyone for support. Users are required to submit an online ticket and wait usually 24 hours to get an answer. This isn't helpful when trying to meet a deadline and run into trouble. Some event registrations don't show up in orders and I must do manual reconcilation of credit card payments (I'm told to avoid this we need to upgrade to PayPal Pro. Constant Contact worked fine with Standard Business PayPal). Requires our NAHU members to create an account and "log in" when registering.

Christie
Overall rating
  • Industry: Hospital & Health Care
  • Company size: 51–200 Employees
  • Used Weekly for 1+ year
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 9.0 /10

Review from a small society

Reviewed on 2021-10-29

We were hindered somewhat by the Covid-19 pandemic and StarChapter was able to help me build some...

We were hindered somewhat by the Covid-19 pandemic and StarChapter was able to help me build some revenue building platforms. The support staff have been great and I think our website is beautiful.

Pros

Integration was easy and the support team did a great job. I felt we received everything we asked for and I am learning how to use the system everyday with the help of the support team.

Cons

Navigating and understanding my way around the website is my biggest challenge but I am new to this and feel that eventually I will get the hang of it.

Response from Star Chapter

Thank you for your feedback, we are glad StarChapter is able to meet your chapter's needs and was able to help during the pandemic.

Josh
Overall rating
  • Industry: Environmental Services
  • Company size: 51–200 Employees
  • Used Weekly for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 7.0 /10

Honest Review

Reviewed on 2021-01-05

Overall it has served us very well. There are many "work arounds". From the perspective of someone...

Overall it has served us very well. There are many "work arounds". From the perspective of someone who has done some software design, the navigation of star chapter is built on the concept the administrators don't want to see or understand the logic behind the scenes. This leads to a lot of confusion and as more and more people are forced to learn computers and programming type of understanding, it makes many navigational tabs very clunky, unnecessary, and confusing. For example, there is a very nice section for "Board Transition" which is somewhat of a hand holding to set up new profiles for board/leadership members and remove old or outdated members. It would be much easier to just have a section that says "Email Routing" where you can see the logic that "[email protected]" routes to "[email protected]". Instead it is a clunky process similar to a turbo tax style of question and answer that is not as easily understood.

Pros

This is great for organizations and non profit that need something simple to get them going. We use this to manage members, as well as host our e-commerce type transactions for events.

Cons

It is a bit clunky and not as intuitive when wanting to do more advanced level organizational management. For example, if a member has not renewed their membership there is a grace period and then the member gets moved to a different list. If that member wants to renew- they have to create a whole new login which adds to confusion when the user expects to just to be able to login and renew their membership. Since starchapter has membership level built into their pricing, it makes it very hard for organizations to keep a seemless record of "active" and "inactive" members. This makes a big difference when doing complex registration or selling of items on the e-commerce site. For example a member may get a certain discount versuses a non member. It is very clunky if a user wants to pay for a membership and get membership pricing of an event registration all at the same time. It is very limited in that logic.

Alternatives Considered

WordPress

Reasons for Choosing StarChapter

We needed event registration and a way to easily and securely do transactions.

Response from Star Chapter

Thank you for your feedback, we really appreciate it as it helps us improve our product.

Celeste
Overall rating
  • Industry: Nonprofit Organization Management
  • Company size: Self Employed
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 8.0 /10

StarChapter as a Platform

Reviewed on 2019-05-13

It’s 100 times better than the Wordpress platform we used previously, especially with regard to the...

It’s 100 times better than the Wordpress platform we used previously, especially with regard to the membership piece. The four pieces of advice I would give are that:

1) it will make your life a lot easier if you have a central person who will be mostly responsible for knowing how to use the platform and doing most of the work on it.
2) If you are switching from an existing membership platform to StarChapter, anticipate that there will be bumps. Not horrible, but it will take a decent amount of time once it launches to get your membership acclimated to the new system and make sure the information is correct. Not everything will transfer over exactly the way you thought it would. Emails will need to be verified before anyone will be able to receive what you are sending. There is some hand holding of the membership during this stage.
3) Take time to get your members and non-members verified so that people are actually receiving your emails.
4) If you can, have a payment portal as part of your StarChapter system.

Pros

There is a learning curve to get familiar with the program, but once you do, it is pretty straightforward and relatively user friendly. It is nice to be able to use one platform for the website, events, and email communications.

Cons

Creating the events and communications can be frustrating from a formatting perspective if you aren’t used to it – but that is the same in most platforms. And also like most platforms, there are some quirks that you end up just working around to get it to do what you want.

It’s hard to keep the bookkeeping 100% accurate, so I wouldn’t utilize StarChapter’s reporting as your only source of financials.

Delyce
Overall rating
  • Industry: Human Resources
  • Company size: 51–200 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 9.0 /10

Review of StarChapter

Reviewed on 2023-02-10

This has really brought our organization to a one-stop shop. We had files everywhere, and when...

This has really brought our organization to a one-stop shop. We had files everywhere, and when people would drop off the board, sometimes we lost information. This allows us to keep it in one place and make the transfer easier for the Chapter.

Pros

It's a total package for our membership organization. It allows one program that can be easily transferred to the new board each year. No need to have separate files.

Cons

Some of the areas for managing the website are not easy to find, but once you have done it a few times, it starts to get easier. It would be nice to see what the regular member sees when adding items.It's hard to get everyone on the board together to train. Individual training is fine, but it is more beneficial together.It would be nice to have a calendar that members could pull up by month and see the upcoming events. And allow us to add events to the calendar that aren't specific to our chapter but interest our members.

Response from Star Chapter

Thank you for your feedback, we appreciate it as it helps us improve our offerings.

Rachel
Overall rating
  • Industry: Construction
  • Company size: 51–200 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 4.0 /10

Overpromised, Underdelivered, But great for all in one use

Reviewed on 2020-10-15

My overall experience is that it is a great one stop shop, but the cons outweigh the pros.

My overall experience is that it is a great one stop shop, but the cons outweigh the pros.

Pros

Starchapter is a great tool if you want everything housed in one place. It is truly a one stop shop. We use this for chapter website, registrations, member management, email forwarders, etc. It is nice to not have to keep up with a ton of different logins and passwords for different things.

Cons

Custom creation is difficult in this software. We were overpromised, and the delivery was not near what we were assured. Customer service is also barely helpful. We get a lot of "we can't do that, but we will tell someone so maybe we can do it eventually."

Meghann
Overall rating
  • Industry: Environmental Services
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 0.0 /10

Good for small associations that don't need much

Reviewed on 2021-04-02

We are not happy with the software. It worked for a while, but the lack of organizational opportunit...

We are not happy with the software. It worked for a while, but the lack of organizational opportunities of the software make it extremely complicated for no apparent reason.

Pros

The layout of the software is fairly easy to navigate.

Cons

The Corporate Member Manager feature is extremely under developed - so much so that customer support doesn't even know how it works. Most of the features are this way as well, making it extremely difficult for admin users.

Alternatives Considered

iMIS

Reasons for Switching to StarChapter

Price was cheaper.

Response from Star Chapter

Thank you for sharing your feedback, we would like the opportunity to investigate your feedback further. If you could please enter a support ticket, we'll work with you to resolve any issues as quickly as possible.

Alicia
Overall rating
  • Industry: Environmental Services
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 3.0 /10

Worthy of review

Reviewed on 2020-02-10

My overall experience is best described as challenging because the interface is not intuitive and...

My overall experience is best described as challenging because the interface is not intuitive and this characterization would also apply to others in our organization. Nearly everyone complains that the back-end is not user-friendly.

Pros

The best aspect of StarChapter is that it is an all-in-one platform to create and track event registrations and memberships while also enabling us to send emails to our database.

Cons

The list of items that I like least include two aspects: membership sign-ups or renewals that get hung-up as pending because the payment didn't go thru, yet the system sends out a notification that there is a new member which suggests everything is good to go. This has necessitated a multi-step process where we have to vet each membership transaction. To help alleviate this problem, we have requested the ability for automatic renewals which is not available at this time. Additionally, the back-end of SC is not very intuitive or user-friendly which means it's challenging to become proficient.

Response from Star Chapter

Thank you for your feedback, we really appreciate it as it helps us improve our product. Our team got in touch with you to provide any necessary help. Let us know if you need anything else.

Pam
Overall rating
  • Industry: Professional Training & Coaching
  • Company size: Self Employed
  • Used Weekly for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 5.0 /10

President of NSA Georgia, Inc.

Reviewed on 2023-02-10

We us the slider design on our home page to present a professional view of what programs we are...

We us the slider design on our home page to present a professional view of what programs we are offering our members and guest. They can register for our association or a meeting and it is our central communication hub.

Pros

Allows members to register and pay online and provides the database from which to send notifications.

Cons

Not dynamic. Very linear in reporting etc. For example, I want to report showing all of the guest for a meeting, not a list by registration date or name. Who said they are coming in person? Not to have to get the report and manipulate the CSV file.

Response from Star Chapter

Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback.

Deanna
Overall rating
  • Industry: Professional Training & Coaching
  • Company size: Self Employed
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 5.0 /10

WNY PGC Review

Reviewed on 2021-01-11

I overall like the website backend functionality and am looking forward to upgrades in the M Series...

I overall like the website backend functionality and am looking forward to upgrades in the M Series frontend and hope for more modern backend features soon.

Pros

I like that all transactions are linked to the member accounts and that emails can be sent directly from the backend of the website and we do not need a secondary platform like constant contact to do so.

Cons

I do not like the unflattering emails. I would like your email capabilities to be like those of Constant Contact with nice templates to choose from and a more user friendly experience. Creating templates is difficult and is not self explanatory. The inability to change the REPLY TO in all instances is horrible as people generally trash emails received from unknown or unidentified users like those that read "info".

Response from Star Chapter

Thank you for your feedback, an update to the email functionality and templates will be available soon.

Marci
Overall rating
  • Industry: Nonprofit Organization Management
  • Company size: Self Employed
  • Used for 1-5 months
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 5.0 /10

Review of StarChapter

Reviewed on 2020-01-30

If I could change to another association management software I would for numerous reasons.
The fact...

If I could change to another association management software I would for numerous reasons.
The fact that you have to submit a ticket and wait for someone to respond per email, then wait to be called is not convenient. Customer service should be readily available, any time, like with Constant Contact.

Fairly recently, Dec. 2, I sent an email, out of frustration, and copied [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN], who sold us the software:
My email -
"We feel like we were misled with the (lack of) training time. There was very limited time to build the site which left us not knowing where to begin. It was emphasized this is a user-friendly system, we disagree. It seems to be a lot of “back end building” in order to achieve front end results. The pages in the system all look alike, making it difficult to distinguish and learn the different sections. We would like to request additional training time, at no additional cost, to set up e-marketing templates and learn how to distribute the e-marketing announcements, to learn how to set up events/registration and to run reports from that event please, thank you."

An apology wasn't offered and nobody picked up the phone to see what could be done to rectify the situation. My request for help was basically answered by telling me training is offered as part of our standard support services and if there is a tool or task in the system that you want some additional training on, just submit a ticket with that request and your availability.

Pros

It provides all features/tasks in one software. Reports providing attendance, profits etc.

Cons

It's not user-friendly or intuitive as promoted. There's numerous steps to completing a task, revisions of different kinds are not in the same screens where things were created, all pages look the same no matter what category is being used (no color coding, no differentiation for easier learning), and a serious lack of graphics.

Response from Star Chapter

Thank you for your review. I'm sorry to hear you had such a frustrating experience, but I really appreciate you bringing this issue to our attention. Please let us know when you are available for a call to further discuss your feedback.

Douglas
Overall rating
  • Industry: Real Estate
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 7.0 /10

StarChapter Recap

Reviewed on 2023-02-10

We have moved several association over to SC and while not perfect, the platform has met most of...

We have moved several association over to SC and while not perfect, the platform has met most of the needs. Development group as been good to work with.

Pros

Being able to make essesntially any updates to the various web pages. Can add page as needed too. Nice having the Knowledge base with videos for those new to SC.

Cons

Group renewals. Members from the same company can't select all at once and make one payment. Can't calculate dues based on unit count: ie: 442 units x $1, 732 units x $1, 84 units x $1. Forum posts should have option to email out automatically and members should be able to reply back to the entire group or click/link to the person/email that did the posting.

Response from Star Chapter

Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback.

Melanie
Overall rating
  • Industry: Nonprofit Organization Management
  • Company size: Self Employed
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

Turned Our Organization Around

Reviewed on 2019-07-30

We have realized exponential benefits since we have transitioned to Star Chapter in 2017. We are...

We have realized exponential benefits since we have transitioned to Star Chapter in 2017. We are much better able to manage our membership records and know what members do not renew so that we can continue to reach out to them for their renewal.

Pros

Ease of implementation, orientation to members, flexibility, ease of using various modules - meeting manager, newsletter, etc. What we were most pleased with was the ability to integrate with PayPal to streamline our dues and meeting registrations. We have seen a huge increase in the retention of members as well as new members since implementing Star Chapter

Cons

The only CON I can think of is not having the ability to pay for multiple members with one payment (i.e. company pays for 2+ individuals) Each member record stands alone and there is no bridge to a company name.

Dawn
Overall rating
  • Industry: Law Enforcement Software
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Weekly for 6-12 months
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 0.0 /10

Lack luster

Reviewed on 2022-07-25

I am not happy with it and wish I had just kept WordPress.

I am not happy with it and wish I had just kept WordPress.

Pros

There really is not one thing that I can say I like about StarChapter.

Cons

There are too many steps to get around. All of the pages on the back end have similar names so half of the time is spent clicking around until you find it. The names of pages can't be changed. We have a long name, so everything is titled on the back end with "National Homicide Investigators Assoc" and it is the same with our forms. It should be able to be shortened to our initials we use NHIA. When we get emails we cant see what it is - Payment, registration, membership application.. I don't need to see the name of our org.. so all of that takes up all the space. In the store if we need to adjust the count, the way you have it set up is so counterintuitive. It would be extremely handy if the store integrated with a shipping site like Pirate Ship so orders could then be sent out seamlessly without having to keep tabbing back and forth between the pages and copying and pasting. We have had to do so many work arounds in order to get this software to work for us. I can't even sum up on here all that I dislike and have a problem with.

Response from Star Chapter

Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback.