Purple Pushpin vs ClubExpress
Let us start with the part that does not flatter us. If you have fewer than about 350 members, ClubExpress is cheaper than we are, and it is not close. The question is what you need the website to do.
Prices checked September 2026, from ClubExpress’s own live pricing page.
They are cheaper, and here is by how much
ClubExpress charges per active primary member per month, on a sliding scale from 42 cents down to 30 cents, with a $24 monthly minimum. Purple Pushpin is $129 at any member count, up to 10,000 contacts.
| Your members | ClubExpress | Purple Pushpin | Who is cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | $42/mo | $129/mo | ClubExpress, by $87 |
| 200 | $84/mo | $129/mo | ClubExpress, by $45 |
| 300 | $114/mo | $129/mo | ClubExpress, by $15 |
| 500 | $170/mo | $129/mo | Purple Pushpin, by $41 |
| 1,000 | $300/mo | $129/mo | Purple Pushpin, by $171 |
Their published per-member rates. Website packages are a separate one-time purchase on their side; our $2,000 build is one too. Secondary members cost extra on their scale.
If you run a social club, a hobby group, or an alumni chapter and your members find you by word of mouth, stop reading and stay where you are. ClubExpress is a mature product at a genuinely low price and there is no argument we can make that beats 42 cents a member.
The argument is addresses, not money
Here is what a page on a ClubExpress site looks like:
/content.aspx?page_id=4002&club_id=419081&item_id=2362962
That is an individual event. The home page, the member directory and the events calendar are all the same file with different numbers after it. There is no word anywhere in that address describing what the page is about.
We also could not find an XML sitemap on the live ClubExpress sites we checked, and found no structured data — the markup that lets Google display an event with its date and location attached.
For a chamber of commerce this is the whole problem. A chamber’s job is to make its member businesses findable and to fill its events. When someone in your town searches for a plumber, or for what is on this weekend, a numbered address with no sitemap is not what wins that search. You are paying for a directory that the people you built it for cannot find.
What we do instead. Events and member listings get readable addresses. The sitemap maintains itself as you add events. Event and organization markup is published so search engines understand what they are looking at. That is not an add-on; it is what the site is for.
When ClubExpress is the better choice
Your members already know where to find you
Plenty of organizations genuinely do not need to be discovered by strangers. A garden club, a car club, a university alumni chapter, a homeowners association — these have closed, known memberships who arrive by email and word of mouth. If search traffic is not how you grow, the single argument we have just spent this page making does not apply to you, and you should take the cheaper price.
ClubExpress is also the cheaper answer at any size under roughly 350 members even if search does matter, at least on the monthly line. Weigh that honestly against what the directory is for.
One note on their published figures. There is an older ClubExpress pricing PDF circulating that shows lower rates and lists setup fees and card processing rates. The file dates to 2023 and we could not confirm any of it on a current page, so we have used only the live pricing page here. If a number you have seen elsewhere does not match this table, check which document it came from.
The differences that are not about money
- Readable web addresses on every event and member listing, not query strings.
- A sitemap that updates itself when you add an event, so search engines see it.
- The website is included rather than a separate package.
- Your site is WordPress, so any developer can work on it and leaving is an export.
If being found is the point
$129 a month, locked for two years from the day you start, and a $2,000 website build. If your members find you by word of mouth, 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
- ClubExpress’s live pricing page — per-member rates and the $24 monthly minimum, read September 2026
- URL patterns, sitemap and structured data observed directly on live ClubExpress member sites, September 2026
- 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 ClubExpress, email it to us with a link and we will publish the correction.