Purple Pushpin vs StarChapter
Of everything we researched, StarChapter is the platform we respect most. They publish every price including setup, they include a website, and they will not force you onto their payment processor. This is a close comparison, and below about three hundred members they win it.
Prices checked September 2026, from StarChapter’s own pricing page and knowledge base.
The short answer
StarChapter prices by tier, from $79 a month billed annually up to $385 and above, each with a setup fee between $1,169 and $3,041. Purple Pushpin is $129 a month with a $2,000 build.
Because their entry tiers are genuinely cheap and their setup fee is lower than our build, a small chapter pays StarChapter less than it pays us. The lines cross somewhere around their Growth tier. Here is where, over five years.
| StarChapter tier | Their 5-year total | Ours | Who is cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essential, under 50 members | $5,909 | $9,740 | StarChapter, by $3,831 |
| Essential, 150 members / 1,000 contacts | $8,309 | $9,740 | StarChapter, by $1,431 |
| Growth, 300 members / 2,000 contacts | $11,284 | $9,740 | Purple Pushpin, by $1,544 |
| Advanced, 600 members / 4,000 contacts | $15,670 | $9,740 | Purple Pushpin, by $5,930 |
| Pro, 1,200 members / 8,000 contacts | $19,375 | $9,740 | Purple Pushpin, by $9,635 |
Their annual-billing monthly rate times sixty, plus the tier’s published setup fee. Ours is $129 times sixty plus the $2,000 build.
The thing to watch is the contact number, not the member number
Look again at how their tiers are written: 150 members and 1,000 contacts. 300 members and 2,000 contacts. Both ceilings are real, and for most organizations the contact ceiling arrives first.
Contacts are not members. They are everyone who ever registered for an event, everyone who signed up for the newsletter at a trade show, every prospect your board president added last spring. A chapter of 220 paid members can easily be carrying 2,500 contacts, and that is a tier increase driven entirely by successful marketing.
Purple Pushpin does not count members at all. The price is $129 a month for up to 10,000 contacts — newsletter subscribers and past attendees included — and unsubscribed or bounced addresses don’t count. Most chambers never get close.
On payments, they do the right thing
We spend a lot of this site criticizing platforms that take a cut of your dues. StarChapter does not. Their own documentation says:
“You will continue to use your current payment gateway and merchant account until you choose to switch.”StarChapter, eCommerce payment providers
They offer their own processor, StarPay, and they publish its rate: 3.25% plus 40 cents, with an extra 0.05% if you take monthly settlement. That is higher than Stripe’s standard published rate, so it is worth comparing before you switch — but nobody is making you, and saying so plainly is more than most of this market manages.
If you are weighing us against StarChapter, payment terms are not the deciding factor. Both of you can keep your own processor. The decision is about price at your size, and about the contact ceiling.
When StarChapter is the better choice
You are under about 250 members with a modest contact list
The table above is not decoration. At their two Essential tiers StarChapter costs less over five years than we do, and the gap at the smallest tier is nearly four thousand dollars. If you are a small chapter and you are not close to the contact ceiling, they are the cheaper answer and we would rather tell you that here than after you have paid us a build fee.
They have also been doing this for chapters specifically for a long time, they publish everything, and their setup fee buys you a configured site in six to eight weeks. That is a good product honestly sold.
The differences that are not about money
- Every feature at every size. No member count, and the price only moves past 10,000 contacts.
- Your site is WordPress. Any developer on earth can work on it, and leaving means exporting a standard site.
- The price is locked for two years from the day you start, in writing.
- Search matters to us. Readable event URLs, a sitemap that maintains itself, and event markup so Google can read what an event is.
Worth a look if you are past 250 members
$129 a month, locked for two years, and a $2,000 website build. If you are smaller than that, the table above is the honest answer and it is not us.
See the demo → or tell us your renewal date and we will hold a build slot.
Sources
- StarChapter pricing — tiers, member and contact ceilings, setup fees
- StarChapter payment providers — the quoted line about keeping your own gateway
- StarPay — the 3.25% plus 40 cents rate, and the monthly settlement surcharge from their knowledge base
- Our own price is on the pricing page, and the wider market is in what membership software actually costs
If a figure here is wrong, including if you work at StarChapter, email it to us with a link and we will publish the correction.