I have used Wild Apricot for about a year. If you are needing a very simple AMS that is not too expensive this might work for you. You don't have a lot of customization options. The meeting/event module is mediocre. It does not import well into Quickbooks. You cannot bulk print invoices. You have to print them one at a time and it is a painstaking task as several steps are involved. There is not an option to print statements. This AMS is geared towards everything being online, which is not a bad thing except not all my members like to do everything online.
I'm on the BOD of an association that is currently using Wild Apricot to do our billing only. We are not using it as our website but we are considering that in the future. I was able to set up the billing and hook it into our existing website, which is WordPress.
THe customization was a little quirky, but I was able to figure out the templates and widgets. It only took me a couple of hours to totally revise the two or three pages we needed to set up our billing and member benefits pages.
Wild Apricot is okay if you are an organization with limited needs. However, if you need to track membership data, need an attractive and compelling event site, and an audit trail for financial transactions, stay away from this product.
I work for an association management company who currently has 5 accounts with Wild Apricot. We've been customers with them for almost ten years. To be honest, the only reason we stayed customers (apart from cost, which is at the lower end of the scale) is because I'm an applications engineer and I was able to create a multitude of workarounds to make Wild Apricot more robust.
My main issue with Wild Apricot isn't totally their fault - I run a trade organization where my members are businesses. Wild Apricot can be utilized that way, but it was clearly not intended to do so.
Lack of integration with Quickbooks is an issue.
Having said that, it would probably work well for a professional organization or other individual/family membership organization.
As a Wild Apricot consulting partner, we have implemented Wild Apricot for 20+ associations and clubs. Wild Apricot we find is a great mix of both ease of use, affordability and a good fit for smaller sized associations and clubs. We also find it can be used in unusual situations like condo owner associations where there is less around membership management and more around community building.
Wild Apricot is the only affordable solution for our association that enables us to have a shared directory and knowledge center for all our members across the county AND individual websites for the multiple chapters our members belong to. We can do it because of the flexible, easy to use gadgets that enable us to use a single database but build a robust site with multiple levels of navigation. We got a little help at the beginning but now handle the system on our own, adding new Chapters as we grow.
I have been so impressed with all that it can do and the changes/enhancements they continue to make. Sometimes they tell me I can't do something, and we are both happily surprised to find out the system can!! There is lots of power in a simple user friendly way.
We went with Wild Apricot because at the time it had everything we needed on the surface. We went through the 30 day trial, created the website, and bit the bullet at paid for a year.
We have found Wild Apricot to be a good fit for our organization. We are fairly small with about 100 members and 10 events annually. The integrated communications is helpful and easy to use. The website is fairly easy to set up, though it helps to know a good deal of CSS if you want to modify the templates. There seems to be enough flexibilty in the event settings to accomodate our event types. I'd recommend it for smaller organzations that have limited technical skills on staff or among their volunteers.
