Mingoal vs Wild Apricot
Wild Apricot is long-established membership software for associations and nonprofits, with a deep member database, renewal and dues workflows, event registration, and a built-in website builder. Mingoal covers a similar membership core with a more modern interface and community layer, but Wild Apricot's association-specific tooling is deeper and it has decades of institutional trust.
What Wild Apricot is
Wild Apricot has served professional associations, nonprofits, alumni groups, and clubs for a long time. It offers a structured member database with custom fields, membership levels with renewal and lapse handling, invoicing, event registration with multiple ticket types, an integrated website and CMS, and email. Its strength is administrative completeness for organizations with formal membership years, dues invoices, and boards that need reports.
Feature-by-feature
“Partial” means the capability exists but is narrower than the other column — the note says how.
| Capability | Mingoal | Wild Apricot | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Structured member database with custom fields | Partial | Yes | Wild Apricot's member records are highly customizable, which associations with formal records need. Mingoal's member record is simpler and more opinionated. |
| Dues invoicing and renewal workflows | Partial | Yes | Wild Apricot handles invoices, lapse grace periods, and offline payment reconciliation. Mingoal does automatic card renewals via Stripe and does not issue formal invoices. |
| Built-in website builder / CMS | Partial | Yes | Wild Apricot includes a full site builder. Mingoal gives you a branded club portal and public pages, not a general-purpose CMS. |
| Modern interface | Yes | Partial | This is subjective, but Wild Apricot's interface reflects its age. Mingoal is a modern responsive app that installs to the home screen. |
| Members-only community feed and chat | Yes | Partial | Wild Apricot has member forums. Mingoal's feed, chat, polls, and gallery are closer to what members expect from a social app in 2026. |
| Selling merch | Yes | Partial | Mingoal includes a product store with variants and inventory. Wild Apricot leans on its store/donation features rather than a full merch catalog. |
| Pricing model | Yes | Partial | Mingoal is a flat monthly plan by member cap, starting free. Wild Apricot prices by contact count, which can climb as your list grows even if paying membership doesn't. |
| Transaction fee on payments | Yes | Partial | Mingoal's fee falls to 0% on the Scale plan. Wild Apricot's payment costs depend on the processor you connect — check their current terms. |
| Association-specific reporting and board tooling | No | Yes | Committee structures, formal membership years, and board-ready financial reporting are Wild Apricot territory. Mingoal has club analytics, not association governance. |
When Wild Apricot is the better choice
Wild Apricot is the better choice for a genuinely large set of organizations. Pick Wild Apricot if:
- You are a formal association or nonprofit with membership years, dues invoices, and a board that expects standard reports. That workflow is what the product was built for.
- You need a full website builder in the same tool. Mingoal gives you a club portal, not a CMS for a multi-page organizational site.
- You take payments offline — checks, bank transfers, cash at meetings — and need them reconciled against member records. Mingoal assumes card payments through Stripe.
- You need deeply customizable member fields, membership levels, and application-and-approval flows.
- Institutional continuity matters. Wild Apricot has been around a long time and has an established partner and consultant ecosystem.
Pricing math, worked through
A 600-member alumni association collecting $60/year dues from 500 members (about $2,500 a month). Mingoal’s side of this is exact; the Wild Apricot side is described as a model rather than a number, because published rates change and a stale figure would be worse than none.
On Mingoal Scale
- Plan
- $99/ month
- Processed that month
- $2,500
- Transaction fee (0%)
- $0
- Total cost to the club
- $99
- Revenue the club keeps
- $2,500
The Scale plan covers up to 1,000 members and unlimited events a month. At 0%, every dollar collected stays with the club.
On Wild Apricot
Wild Apricot prices by number of contacts in your database, in bands, with the tier stepping up as your contact list grows — including non-paying contacts. Payments run through your chosen processor at that processor's rates. Check wildapricot.com/pricing for current bands.
How to switch from Wild Apricot
- 1Export your Wild Apricot contact and member database, including membership level, status, and renewal date.
- 2Map Wild Apricot membership levels onto Mingoal membership tiers. Do this before importing — it's much harder to fix afterwards.
- 3Import members via Members → Import. Bring across only real members first; dormant contacts can follow later, and leaving them out keeps you under a lower member cap.
- 4Set renewal dates deliberately. Card renewals in Mingoal start when a member subscribes, so decide whether to honor remaining time on the old membership year with a free grace period.
- 5Rebuild your event calendar and any recurring meetings, then move your public site's membership links to the new club portal and run a single renewal cycle in parallel before switching off.
Common questions
Is Mingoal a fit for a formal association?
It depends on how formal. If you need membership years, dues invoices, offline payment reconciliation, committee structures, and board reporting, Wild Apricot is built for that and Mingoal is not. If your association is really a club that meets, runs events, and collects dues by card, Mingoal will feel considerably lighter.
How do the pricing models differ?
Wild Apricot prices by contact count, so a large list of lapsed or non-paying contacts can push you into a higher band. Mingoal prices by active member cap — 50 on the free plan, then 200, 500, and 1,000 on the $19, $49, and $99 plans — plus a transaction fee on payments that reaches 0% on Scale.
Can I import my Wild Apricot member database?
Yes. Export contacts and members as CSV from Wild Apricot and import them under Members → Import. Map membership levels to Mingoal tiers first so people land on the right tier rather than needing manual correction afterwards.
Does Mingoal handle offline or check payments?
Not natively. Mingoal's membership and ticketing flows assume card payment through Stripe. If a meaningful share of your dues arrive as checks or cash that need reconciling against member records, that is a strong reason to stay on Wild Apricot.
Try Mingoal with your next event
The Free plan covers 50 members and 4 events a month, with no card required. Run one event alongside Wild Apricot and compare on your own club rather than on a comparison page.