Raklet

Name: Raklet
Brand: Raklet
Price: 05949 USD

Membership admin first, discussion second, with a free plan and a branded app you can actually buy

Raklet is an all-in-one membership and community platform aimed at associations, nonprofits, clubs, and alumni networks, combining a member CRM with custom fields, automated dues and renewals, digital membership cards, event ticketing, email and SMS campaigns, a member directory, discussion boards, and a website builder, with a free plan for 100 contacts and paid tiers from $59 per month plus a payment transaction fee that falls from 4 percent to 1 percent.

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Overview

Raklet approaches this category from a different direction than every other product in it. Circle, Skool, Heartbeat, and Mighty Networks start from the assumption that you have an audience and want to build a community around it. Raklet starts from the assumption that you already have members, that they pay dues, that renewals are a recurring administrative headache, and that somebody is currently maintaining a spreadsheet. The discussion board is one feature among many rather than the centre of the product.

That makes it the natural choice for organizations rather than creators: professional associations, nonprofits, sports clubs, homeowners associations, alumni networks, chambers of commerce, and event organizers. The feature list reflects that buyer. Digital membership cards that live in a phone wallet, automated renewal reminders, a contact database with custom fields and segmentation, ticketed events, and email and SMS campaigns are all core, and none of them appear on a creator platform at all.

The company was founded in 2016 by Gercek Karakus, went through Techstars, and is based in San Francisco with a substantial international user base. It reports serving over 1,000 customers. It is the smallest and most lightly funded company in this batch, which is worth weighing, but it is also the only one besides Discourse and Whop with a genuinely free plan, and the free tier is a real product rather than a trial with a countdown on it.

The pricing has an unusual shape that rewards reading carefully. Contact limits are the axis, and they are tight: 100 on Free, 500 on Essentials, 1,000 on Professional, 10,000 on Premium. Admin seats are tighter still, at one, one, two, and three. Meanwhile the custom domain is a $29 a month add-on rather than an included feature, and a branded mobile app costs $299 a month on annual billing. That last figure is genuinely notable, because it is the only published price for a branded app anywhere in this category: Circle, Mighty Networks, and Heartbeat all either hide it behind sales or bury it in an $849 tier.

Best for

Associations, nonprofits, clubs, alumni networks, and chambers of commerce that need to collect dues, manage renewals, issue membership cards, and run ticketed events, and want a member directory and discussion board alongside that administration rather than instead of it.

Not the right fit for

Creators and coaches selling courses; there is no course builder with modules and progress tracking, no cohort scheduling, and no live streaming, so a teaching business is on the wrong product entirely.
Large free communities; contact limits of 100, 500, 1,000, and 10,000 are the pricing axis, and a community with lots of members and no dues income hits a ceiling fast with nothing to offset it.
Teams that need multiple administrators; one admin seat on Free and Essentials, two on Professional, and three on Premium is the tightest staffing constraint in this category by a wide margin.
B2B customer communities; there is no SSO story on published tiers, no knowledge base, no ideas portal, and no support-desk integration.
Organizations expecting a discussion experience that competes with Discourse or Circle; the board is functional and it is not the point of the product, and anyone whose primary need is great conversation will find it thin.

How it works

1
You sign up on the free plan with no card and import your existing member list, which is usually a spreadsheet. The contact database supports custom fields, filtering, and segmentation, so the messy data an organization has accumulated survives the move.
2
You define membership plans with prices and durations, and Raklet handles the recurring dues, renewal reminders, and lapse handling that were previously somebody's calendar reminders. Payment transaction fees run from 4 percent on the free plan down to 1 percent on Premium, plus 60 cents per transaction.
3
Members get a branded portal with a searchable directory, discussion posts and social interactions, direct messaging, and a digital membership card they can keep in a phone wallet or the mobile app. On a paid plan you can point your own domain at the portal for an additional $29 a month.
4
Events are created, ticketed, and managed inside the same system, online or in person, so attendance is tied to the member record rather than tracked in a separate Eventbrite account.
5
Communication runs through email campaigns, SMS, and push notifications segmented by the same filters as the contact database, and the whole thing connects outward through a native API, Zapier, and Make to a very large catalogue of other tools.

Feature breakdown

22 features in 5 modules

Member database and administration

The actual product, and the reason associations pick it over a creator platform.

Contact database with custom fields: A member CRM with arbitrary custom fields, filtering, and segmentation, so the specific things your organization tracks about members survive the migration off a spreadsheet.
Membership plans and automated renewals: Recurring dues with automatic renewal processing and reminder sequences, which is the single administrative task most associations are trying to stop doing by hand.
Digital membership cards: Branded cards members hold in a phone wallet or the mobile app, a feature no creator-focused platform in this category offers at all.
Contact limits as the pricing axis: 100 on Free, 500 on Essentials, 1,000 on Professional, 10,000 on Premium. This is what forces tier changes, so count your full contact list rather than just your paying members.
Admin seats: 1 on Free and Essentials, 2 on Professional, 3 on Premium. The tightest admin constraint in this category, and a real problem for volunteer-run organizations with several officers.
Segmentation and filtering: The same filters drive directory visibility, campaign targeting, and reporting, so member data is defined once and used everywhere.

Community and directory

Present, competent, and secondary to the administration.

Discussion boards and posts: Member posts, social interactions, and comments inside the portal. Adequate for an association's activity level, not a substitute for Discourse or Circle if conversation is your primary goal.
Direct messaging: Member-to-member messaging inside the platform, so networking does not immediately leak out to email and take the relationship with it.
Searchable member directory: Custom-filtered member listings, which for a professional association or alumni network is frequently the single most-used feature and the main reason members renew.
Member portal and website builder: A branded members area and public site with customizable pages, so the organization does not need a separate WordPress installation alongside its membership system.

Events and communication

Two categories most organizations otherwise buy separately.

Event creation and ticketing: Online and in-person events with ticket sales and attendance management, tied to the member record so participation history lives with the member rather than in Eventbrite.
Email campaigns: Segmented broadcasts to the member database using the same filters as the CRM, which removes the usual export-and-upload cycle into a separate email tool.
SMS: Text messaging to members, which matters for organizations whose members do not reliably read email.
Push notifications: Mobile push through the app, tied to the same segmentation.

Payments and money

A fee curve that starts high on the free plan and falls a long way.

Dues and payment collection: One-time and recurring payments for memberships, donations, and tickets, gated to plan and status automatically.
Transaction fee by tier: 4 percent plus 60 cents on Free, 3 percent plus 60 cents on Essentials, 2 percent plus 60 cents on Professional, and 1 percent plus 60 cents on Premium, on top of payment processing.
The 60 cent flat component: Unusual in this category and punishing on small transactions. On a $10 donation the flat 60 cents is a 6 percent charge on its own before the percentage applies.
Donations: Donation collection alongside dues, which matters for the nonprofit segment that a creator platform simply does not serve.

Brand, mobile, and integration

Priced as add-ons, which is unusual and in one case unusually honest.

Custom domain as a paid add-on: $29 a month or $290 a year on top of your plan. Almost every competitor includes this at their entry tier, so it is a real and slightly irritating extra.
Branded mobile apps with a published price: $299 a month on annual billing, quoted as $3,588 a year, for your own iOS and Android apps. This is the only published branded-app price in this category; Circle and Mighty Networks both hide theirs behind sales.
API access: A native API for member and content operations, which also makes bulk export practical.
Zapier and Make: Raklet advertises connections to more than 4,000 apps through native integrations, Zapier, and Make, which covers the accounting, email, and CRM tools associations already run.

Use cases

4 documented

Professional association running on spreadsheets

Eight hundred members, annual dues chased by email each January, a member directory maintained as a PDF, and event registrations arriving in a shared inbox.

The contact database absorbs the spreadsheet with its custom fields intact, automated renewals replace the January chase, the searchable directory replaces the PDF, and event ticketing ties attendance to the member record. Professional at $119 a month covers 1,000 contacts.

Alumni network wanting a branded app

Members want directory access on their phones and an alumni card, and the organization has a budget but no appetite for a demo-and-quote process.

Branded iOS and Android apps at a published $299 a month on annual billing, plus digital membership cards in the phone wallet. Being able to budget this from the website rather than through a sales call is the actual advantage over Circle Plus or Mighty Pro.

Small nonprofit collecting donations and dues

A hundred supporters, a mix of recurring donations and annual memberships, and no budget for software at all.

The free plan covers 100 contacts with payments, events, and the directory at a 4 percent transaction fee. Nothing else in this category except Discourse and Whop lets an organization start at zero, and neither of those handles dues.

Sports club managing seasonal renewals

Membership renews annually, subs are collected by bank transfer, and nobody is sure who has actually paid this season.

Membership plans with automated renewal and lapse handling make payment status the source of truth for portal and directory access, and SMS reaches members who never open email.

Pricing

from $0 (Free), then $59 per month, or $49 per month billed annually (Essentials)

Freemium subscription banded by contact count and admin seats, with a percentage transaction fee plus a flat 60 cents on payments collected, and paid add-ons for a custom domain and branded mobile apps.

Plan	Price	Includes
Free	$0 per month	Up to 100 contacts 1 admin seat Member directory and community features Events and payment collection Digital membership cards Carries a 4 percent plus 60 cents transaction fee, the highest on the ladder, which is how a free plan pays for itself.
Essentials	$59 per month, or $49 billed annually ($588 per year)	Up to 500 contacts 1 admin seat 3 percent plus 60 cents transaction fee Email campaigns and events Member portal Still one admin seat, which is the constraint that pushes most organizations straight past this tier.
Professional	$119 per month, or $99 billed annually ($1,188 per year)	Up to 1,000 contacts 2 admin seats 2 percent plus 60 cents transaction fee Full communication suite including SMS API access The plan most working associations land on, and the first one with more than one administrator.
Premium	$499 per month, or $399 billed annually ($4,788 per year)	Up to 10,000 contacts 3 admin seats 1 percent plus 60 cents transaction fee Priority support Full feature access A tenfold contact increase over Professional for roughly four times the price, but still only three admin seats.

Add-ons

Custom domain ($29 per month, or $290 per year): Included as standard by almost every competitor in this category, and charged separately here.
Branded mobile apps ($299 per month with annual billing ($3,588 per year)): Your own iOS and Android apps. The only published branded-app price in this category, which is worth something in itself.

Billing notes

Annual billing is quoted as two months free across the paid tiers, taking Essentials to $49, Professional to $99, and Premium to $399 per month equivalent.
Contact count, not member count or revenue, is the axis that forces upgrades. Every contact in the database counts, including lapsed members and prospects, so audit the list before choosing a tier.
Admin seats are the tightest constraint in this category: one on Free and Essentials, two on Professional, three on Premium. A volunteer committee with five officers cannot all have logins without paying for the top tier, and even then only three fit.
The transaction fee includes a flat 60 cents alongside the percentage, which is disproportionate on small payments. A $10 donation on the free plan pays 40 cents in percentage and 60 cents flat, so a tenth of the gift goes to the platform before processing.
The custom domain being a $29 add-on rather than an included feature effectively raises the real price of every paid tier, since most organizations will want it.
The branded app at $299 a month on annual billing is expensive in absolute terms but is the only figure in this category you can budget without a sales conversation, which has genuine planning value.

Value assessment: Raklet is good value for exactly the organization it is built for and poor value for anyone else. For an association replacing a spreadsheet, a separate email tool, an Eventbrite account, and a manual renewal process, Professional at $99 a month annually is cheaper than the tools it consolidates and does things none of them do, like issuing digital membership cards. For a community that mainly wants people talking, the contact caps are restrictive, the discussion board is unremarkable, and Discourse does the conversation better for free. The two structural irritants are the same for everyone: admin seats are unreasonably tight for volunteer-run organizations, and the custom domain should be included rather than charged at $29. Set against that, the free plan is real and the branded app has a published price, both of which are rare here.

Strengths & limitations

Strengths

The only product in this category built for membership administration rather than for creators, with dues, renewals, digital membership cards, and a proper member CRM.
A genuinely free plan for up to 100 contacts including payments, events, and the directory, so a small nonprofit or club can start at zero cost.
The only published branded-app price in this category at $299 a month on annual billing, where Circle, Mighty Networks, and Heartbeat all hide theirs behind sales or a much higher tier.
Digital membership cards in a phone wallet, which no creator-focused competitor offers and which associations consistently rate as a member-visible benefit.
Event ticketing, email, and SMS built in, replacing a separate Eventbrite and a separate email service and keeping attendance tied to the member record.
A very broad integration surface, with more than 4,000 apps reachable through native connectors, Zapier, and Make, plus a native API.
The transaction fee falls to 1 percent, which is competitive with the best rates in this category, and API access on Professional makes bulk export practical.

Limitations

Admin seats are the tightest in the category at one, one, two, and three across the tiers, which is a serious mismatch with volunteer-run organizations that have several officers.
Contact caps of 100, 500, 1,000, and 10,000 count every record including lapsed members and prospects, so organizations hit ceilings sooner than their paying membership suggests.
The custom domain is a $29 a month add-on rather than an included feature, which almost every competitor includes at their entry tier.
The flat 60 cents on every transaction is disproportionate for small donations and low-priced tickets, and it is easy to miss when comparing headline percentages.
No course builder, no cohort scheduling, no live streaming, so an organization that wants to deliver education alongside membership needs a second platform.
The discussion board is a supporting feature rather than a strength; anyone whose primary need is high-quality conversation will find Discourse or Circle noticeably better.
Raklet is the smallest and most lightly funded company in this batch, with seed-stage backing and a Techstars pedigree but no large disclosed round, which is a real consideration when the platform will hold your member database and your dues collection.

Head-to-head comparisons

3 alternatives

Raklet vs Bettermode

from $399 per month billed annually ($4,788 per year); $499 per month billed monthly

Both are membership-shaped rather than creator-shaped, but they serve opposite buyers. Bettermode is a B2B customer community with SSO, GraphQL, a knowledge base, and an ideas portal, starting at $399 a month. Raklet is an association tool with dues, renewals, membership cards, and event ticketing, starting free. If your members are customers of a software product, take Bettermode; if they are members who pay dues, take Raklet.

Full Raklet vs Bettermode comparison

Raklet vs Discourse

from $0 (self-hosted, or the free managed plan), then $100 per month for Pro managed hosting

Discourse is a far better discussion platform, is open source, and has a free tier with unlimited members and 500,000 monthly page views, but it does no membership administration at all: no dues, no renewals, no cards, no ticketing. Raklet does all of that and treats discussion as a secondary feature. An organization whose main problem is that members need somewhere good to talk should take Discourse; one whose main problem is collecting and tracking dues should take Raklet and accept a plainer forum.

Full Raklet vs Discourse comparison

Raklet vs Mighty Networks

from $79 per month, or $950 per year (Launch)

Mighty Networks costs $79 a month with unlimited members and is built for creators selling cohort courses and memberships. Raklet starts free, caps contacts tightly, and is built for associations collecting dues and issuing membership cards. A coach running paid cohorts should take Mighty Networks without hesitation; an alumni association or chamber of commerce should take Raklet, where the branded app also has a price you can read on the website rather than request from sales.

Full Raklet vs Mighty Networks comparison

Implementation & onboarding

Setup time: A working member portal in a day. Importing the contact list, defining membership plans, and connecting payments are the substance of the setup, and the free plan lets you do all of it before paying anything.
Learning curve: Moderate for administrators, because Raklet is broad and the CRM, campaigns, events, and payments modules each carry their own configuration. Members experience a straightforward portal. The custom-field and segmentation model is the part worth planning properly before importing data.
Onboarding: Entirely self-serve, starting on the free plan without a card. Premium adds priority support. There is no mandatory implementation service, which is unusual for a product aimed at associations, where competitors often require one.
Migration notes: Coming in from a spreadsheet is the expected path and is well handled, with custom fields preserving whatever the organization already tracked. Coming from another membership system is a manual import. Going out is helped by the API on Professional and above, which makes bulk export of the member database practical; discussion content is the usual proprietary problem, though it is a much smaller loss here than on a platform where discussion is the main asset.

Platform, API & security

Platforms: Web appMember mobile appBranded iOS and Android apps as a paid add-onCustom domain as a paid add-on
API: A native API for member and content operations, available on paid tiers, plus Zapier and Make connectivity that Raklet advertises as reaching more than 4,000 applications.
Compliance: GDPRPayment processing handled through third-party processors
Data residency: Not published.
SSO: Not offered on published tiers. Members authenticate with Raklet accounts through the branded member portal.
Security notes: Raklet does not publish an audit certification or trust centre prominently on its pricing and marketing pages. Given that the platform holds a full member database and processes dues, organizations with a compliance obligation should request current security documentation directly before migrating member data.

Support & resources

Channels: Email support on paid plansIn-app helpPriority support on Premium
Documentation: Help centre and knowledge base covering the contact database, membership plans, payments, events, campaigns, the API, and integrations.
Community: No large public user forum. Raklet publishes comparison and how-to content aimed at associations and nonprofits, and points prospective buyers at customer reviews rather than at a community.

Company

Founded: 2016
Headquarters: San Francisco, California, United States
Ownership: Venture-backed, seed stage
Founders: Gercek Karakus
Employees: Not published
Funding: Seed funding from two disclosed investors, with support from the Techstars accelerator. No large priced round has been publicly announced, and the company does not publish funding totals.

Funding history

Round	Amount	Year	Notes
Seed	Not disclosed	2018	Backed by two investors alongside participation in the Techstars accelerator programme.

Timeline

2016Founded by Gercek Karakus as membership management software for associations and nonprofits, rather than as a creator community tool.
2018Goes through the Techstars accelerator and raises seed funding, expanding from member management into payments and events.
2021Adds digital membership cards and branded mobile apps, giving associations a member-facing benefit no creator platform offers.
2023Broadens the integration surface to reach more than 4,000 applications through native connectors, Zapier, and Make.
2026Reports serving more than 1,000 customer organizations across associations, nonprofits, clubs, alumni networks, and chambers of commerce.

Integrations

Payment processors for dues, donations, and ticketing
Zapier
Make
Native API
Email and SMS delivery
Digital wallet membership cards
Accounting and CRM tools via Zapier and Make
Website embedding for the member portal

Frequently asked questions

11 questions

What is Raklet?

Raklet is an all-in-one membership and community platform aimed at associations, nonprofits, clubs, and alumni networks. It combines a member CRM with custom fields, automated dues and renewals, digital membership cards, event ticketing, email and SMS campaigns, a searchable member directory, discussion boards, and a website builder. It is membership administration first and community discussion second, which is the opposite emphasis from most of this category.

How much does Raklet cost?

There is a free plan for up to 100 contacts with one admin seat. Essentials is $59 a month, or $49 billed annually, for 500 contacts. Professional is $119, or $99 annually, for 1,000 contacts and two admin seats. Premium is $499, or $399 annually, for 10,000 contacts and three admin seats. A custom domain costs $29 a month extra and branded mobile apps cost $299 a month on annual billing.

What is the transaction fee on dues and payments?

4 percent plus 60 cents on the free plan, 3 percent plus 60 cents on Essentials, 2 percent plus 60 cents on Professional, and 1 percent plus 60 cents on Premium, on top of payment processing. The flat 60 cents is the part to watch: on a $10 donation it alone is 6 percent, which makes Raklet expensive for organizations collecting many small payments and reasonable for ones collecting annual dues.

How do the contact and admin limits work?

Contacts are the pricing axis: 100, 500, 1,000, and 10,000 across the four tiers, and every record counts including lapsed members and prospects, so audit your list before picking a plan. Admin seats are the harsher constraint at one, one, two, and three. A volunteer committee with five officers cannot give everyone a login even on the $499 plan, which is the single most awkward thing about Raklet's packaging.

Can the community run on my own domain?

Yes, but it is a $29 a month or $290 a year add-on rather than an included feature. Circle, Heartbeat, Mighty Networks, and Discourse all include a custom domain at their entry tiers, so factor the extra into any price comparison; it effectively raises Professional from $99 to $128 a month on annual billing.

What does a branded mobile app cost?

$299 a month with annual billing, quoted as $3,588 a year, for your own iOS and Android apps. That is expensive in absolute terms, but it is the only published branded-app price in this category. Circle Plus and Mighty Pro both require a sales conversation with no visible number, and Heartbeat bundles it into an $849 a month tier. Being able to budget it from the website is a real advantage.

Does Raklet do courses?

No, not in any serious sense. There is no course builder with modules and progress tracking, no cohort scheduling, and no live streaming. An organization that wants to deliver structured education alongside membership needs a second platform, and Mighty Networks or Circle would be the ones to look at.

How good is the discussion side?

Functional and unremarkable. There are member posts, social interactions, comments, and direct messaging inside the portal, which is adequate for an association's activity level. If great conversation is your primary need, Discourse is dramatically better and free, and the sensible pattern is to be honest with yourself about which problem you are actually solving.

Will Raklet content be indexed by Google?

The public website pages you build can be, but the member portal and directory are gated by design, which is what associations want. Public, search-indexed discussion is not an acquisition channel here and it is not meant to be. If you want threads ranking in search, that is a Discourse or Bettermode job.

Is Raklet better than a free Facebook group plus a spreadsheet?

For an organization collecting dues, yes and clearly. The spreadsheet cannot process renewals, issue membership cards, sell event tickets, or segment a mailing list, and the Facebook group cannot do any of that either while also owning your member relationships. Raklet's free plan covers 100 contacts at no cost, so the comparison is not really about money for a small club. For a purely social group with no dues, the spreadsheet is fine and Raklet is unnecessary.

Who owns Raklet and how stable is it?

Raklet was founded in 2016 by Gercek Karakus, went through the Techstars accelerator, and is based in San Francisco with a substantial international user base. It has seed funding from two disclosed investors and no large announced round, and does not publish headcount or revenue. It reports over 1,000 customer organizations. It is the smallest and most lightly funded company in this batch, which is worth weighing given that it would hold your member database and process your dues.

Editorial verdict

Raklet is in this category by adjacency rather than by ambition, and that is exactly why it is worth knowing about. If you run an association, a club, a nonprofit, or an alumni network, the products everyone else recommends here are the wrong shape: they sell courses and memberships to audiences, not dues and renewals to members. Raklet does the administration, issues digital membership cards, sells event tickets, runs the campaigns, and puts a directory and a discussion board on top, starting at genuinely free and with the only branded-app price in this category you can read without talking to a salesperson. The packaging has two real flaws, an admin-seat ceiling that tops out at three and a custom domain charged as a $29 extra, and the discussion experience is plainer than Discourse or Circle. Buy it to replace a spreadsheet, an Eventbrite account, and a manual renewal process. Do not buy it if conversation or courses are the point.

Written by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Awards, when shown, are judged against the published criteria in our methodology.