Choosing Digital Tools for Your Club
Running a club takes more than enthusiasm—it takes coordination.
Whether you’re starting a new group, growing an existing one, or modernizing an established club, digital tools quickly become part of the job. Websites, event listings, member communication, and payments all matter. The challenge isn’t whether to use technology, but which tools actually support a healthy, sustainable group without creating unnecessary work or confusion.
Your time is valuable. You may be looking to reduce manual tasks, make things easier for members, protect privacy, or stay within a tight budget. With so many platforms available, it’s not always obvious which combination of tools fits your group—or when it’s time to move beyond a patchwork of solutions.
This article walks through common options clubs use for websites, communication, payments, and privacy. We’ll look at platforms like Google Sites, and along with tools such as Signal, Discord, PayPal, and Venmo. The goal isn’t to push a single answer—it’s to help you make informed choices based on how your group operates today and where it’s headed.
Bringing Members Together Online
Most clubs start by focusing on visibility: How do prospective members find you?
Smaller or newer groups often turn to platforms like Facebook or Meetup. These platforms are inexpensive and come with built-in audiences. They help prospective members discover your group, see upcoming events, and get a sense of activity without much setup on your part.
However, these platforms also come with limitations. You don’t fully control your group’s data, and you don’t have direct access to member contact information like email addresses or phone numbers. That becomes a serious challenge if you ever want to move off the platform. Many groups find themselves effectively locked in—unable to migrate without losing touch with members.
If you want more control while keeping costs low, another option is to assemble a set of independent tools. For example, you might use Google Sites for a simple website, Signal or Discord for communication, PayPal or Venmo for payments, and Google Forms for membership applications.
This approach can work, especially for small groups—but it comes with tradeoffs.
Low-Cost Tools and Their Tradeoffs
Stitching together separate tools is often inexpensive, but it shifts the cost into time and coordination.
As an organizer, you’re responsible for keeping everything in sync. Members need to understand where to go for what: which site hosts events, where payments happen, how communication works, and what information is private. The experience can feel fragmented, especially for new members.
As groups grow, these friction points tend to compound. What feels manageable at 20 members can start to feel brittle at 100. Confusion increases, manual work grows, and small mistakes—missed emails, lost payments, unclear instructions—become more costly.
To reduce this complexity, some clubs turn to more integrated website platforms like or Wix or Squarespace. These tools offer polished design systems and built-in features such as payments, event listings, and member areas.
While powerful, they are general-purpose platforms. Some features fit clubs well; others don’t. Learning the design tools can take time, and the member and event systems don’t always connect in ways that reflect how clubs actually operate.
Another option is WordPress, which can be less expensive than Wix or Squarespace and offers great flexibility, but it typically requires more technical expertise and ongoing maintenance. Google Sites sits at the other end of the spectrum: simple, inexpensive, and easy to use—but limited in how deeply it can support membership, payments, and interaction.
Regardless of the platform you choose, most clubs benefit from having a memorable domain name. Domain names typically cost $10–20 per year and make it much easier for people to find and remember your group.
Understanding the Costs
At a basic level, most clubs pay for two things online: hosting and a domain name.
Website hosting costs vary by platform. A WordPress site might cost $8–20 per month. Wix and Squarespace typically range from $16 to $39 per month. GroupFlow costs $60–120 per month, depending on group size. Domain names usually cost $12–20 per year.
These numbers are only part of the story. The more important question is what kind of work these tools create—or eliminate—for organizers and members.
Member Communication
Communication is central to group health. How do members learn about events? How do they stay connected between meetings? How do they coordinate logistics, ask questions, or build relationships?
Different members prefer different tools. Older members often rely on email, while younger members may prefer apps or notifications. Ideally, your platform supports multiple communication styles without fragmenting the conversation.
Meetup handles this reasonably well, offering email and mobile notifications tied to events. Facebook does too, but often controls or suppresses messages in ways that are outside your control.
Privacy is another key consideration. Do members see each other’s contact information? Can discussions be limited to members in good standing? Can event conversations stay tied to the event itself?
These questions matter more as groups grow and diversify.
Online Payments
Many clubs charge membership dues, event fees, or both. How easy is it for members to pay—and how much work does payment processing create for organizers?
PayPal is commonly used, but it’s not universally liked, and transaction fees may apply depending on how official your organization is. Venmo is popular, but it requires a dedicated phone number and is difficult to share across a leadership team.
Card-based payment processors like Square or Stripe charge per-transaction fees, typically a percentage plus a flat amount. For example, Square charges 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction.
Platforms like Wix, Squarespace, and GroupFlow include integrated payment processing. This simplifies the experience for members, but usually requires a business bank account and formal setup.
The key question isn’t just cost—it’s whether payments are clearly tied to membership status, event access, and permissions.
Privacy and Access Control
For many clubs, privacy is not optional—it’s foundational.
Members may expect their profiles, discussions, and attendance to be visible only to other members in good standing. When dues expire, access should change automatically. Some events may be public, while others should remain members-only.
When privacy rules are enforced manually across multiple tools, mistakes happen. Integrated systems make it easier to align access, payments, and visibility in a consistent way.
Why Integration Matters
At some point, most clubs reach a tipping point.
When websites, events, communication, payments, and privacy all live in separate tools, the experience starts to fray. Members get confused. Organizers spend more time managing systems than supporting the community. Growth slows—not because people aren’t interested, but because participation feels harder than it should.
This is where an integrated platform becomes valuable.
GroupFlow brings together websites, member management, events, communication, payments, and privacy into a single system designed specifically for clubs. Smaller groups pay $60 per month; medium to large groups pay $120 per month.
Rather than forcing clubs to adapt to generic tools, GroupFlow is built around how clubs actually operate—helping organizers reduce manual work while giving members a clear, cohesive experience.
No single tool is right for every group. But understanding the tradeoffs—and choosing tools that grow with you—can make the difference between a group that struggles to stay organized and one that thrives.
Written by Moxley Stratton, founder of GroupFlow, a platform used by in-person clubs to manage members, events, and payments.
GroupFlow was built around the same decision-making tradeoffs explored here: flexibility, control, and long-term maintainability.