StarChapter Features

StarChapter offers good functionality and management for an affordable price. It puts our website and association management into the cloud, where it belongs, and doesn't require a high degree of tech savvy to manage the site or our day-to-day activity.

The lack of a financial interface is PAINFUL, and it has resulted in higher than usual external accounting expense to make sense of what we do.

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I thought we would like that it was an all-in-one solution, but even that isn't worth the headaches of trying to use it.

Too many pros to list here but this box is requiring more characters . . . it doesn't integrate with any other tools, the website design options are incredibly limited, outdated and stale looking. Check out their website and have a look at the one positive testimonial listed - if you visit that site, you will see they are no longer using StarChapter!

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The features I like best about StarChapter are: ease of administration, swiftness of launch, good value for your money. It's great for smaller associations.

Reporting is what I like least about StarChapter. Historical information isn't easy to access.

Thank you for your feedback, we really appreciate it as it helps us improve our product. We are sorry to hear that you're experiencing difficulty with the reports. If you could please enter a support ticket, our team will get in touch with you to get more information.

StarChapter set everything up The training they provided was comprehensive The support is excellent. I had a few questions and received a response back within hours or even minutes. Once you get the hang of how it works, it is easy to make changes The price is incredible! We are a very small non-profit with a limited budget. Our users love the software. The admins really like the back end and the information it provides. Our members love the website and how easy it is to renew membership, sign up for classes and events.

Reporting is a little weak: I can find everything I need but it isn't as easy as I think it could be. (That said it could be that I haven't figured everything out yet.) I can get a list of new members, members that have renewed, and members that have not renewed BUT it does not produce a very attractive output. This would definitely not stop me from recommending this software.

Members are able to renew their memberships, pay for meetings easily. The website management with the event planning flows smoothly. Communicating with members via StarChapter is great as well.Payments using StarPay has worked out well for our chapter too.

Our biggest complaint is not having immediate customer service with an individual we can talk to available if we have a quick question or are having a problem. Needing to submit a ticket and wait for a response to set up a time and day to talk with a StarChapter representative has taken sometimes 3-5 days.

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Star Chapter saved me hours of work. With my other website, it took me approx. 10-15 hours a week to maintain and keep updated. Since we moved to Star Chapter, I go in twice a month and make changes, updates and create my meeting email reminders for the following events.

What I like least is sometimes when updates are made we don't know about it unless we send a message to the helpdesk. For example , newsletters changes to freeform from the previous month and I couldn't figure it out.

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They easy elements of communications, setting up events and sign-up of membership.

It is difficult to see what type of membership is for each person and how much they paid and what they paid. There is no integration for webinars! Adding contacts is also limited and makes it difficult to email all potential leads. Also you should have an app that allows easy QR checkins for attendees. What about a program attached to your meeting that issues certificates that can be easily emailed to the participant.

I use StarChapters for multiple things. Website, Bulk Email, track membership, Meeting registration & so much more. Its easy to use and user friendly even if your not tech savey.

For tickets - You don't have a live chat option. I have to put in a ticket and wait, and hope you get to me quickly. There's no phone number to call when your stuck and need just a little bit of help to keep moving forward.

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It streamlines a lot of the processes we were doing through multiple platforms.

The turnaround time for support. When I'm stumped, I have to fill out a support ticket and it often takes 48 hours to hear back via email. It often isn't what I was asking and then it takes another 48 hours for the correct response. The functionality is usually there but sometimes difficult to find. It would be amazing to actually be able to speak with someone or at the very least, online tech support.

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Software has a great website component - catalog of website pages format and views, flexible build, sleek modern look and great background site security. The website provides a "wow" factor. The Association management portion of the software has many tools for membership management, event management, dues management and email communications functions. All are very helpful. There are a number of on-line resources serving as a knowledge base and their support is wonderful. Most questions are answered within 24 hours. Members also really like the ability to pay dues or make donations or purchases on-line.

As a heritage culture society we had a few membership/group use case issues that the software couldn't really address and there wasn't much guidance on possible workarounds. We needed a few more project hours on our implementation phase (we were turned over to support before we went live). There needs to be a user manual document to further define screen fields as there is great flexibility in the system. While the videos are helpful, they don't provide enough detail for taking the system to beyond a basic level. The other key limitation is the lack of interfacing to financial systems like QuickBooks. While we really like the ability for members to pay dues or buy from store via credit-card, there is double entry for bookkeeping due to lack of interface.

The ease of use that allows us to have a members only section on our website; the quick and straightforward set up and designs for each page on our site; the ability to adapt pages to include accessibility options for folks using screen readers or are hearing impaired.

The communication tool - we've been using Constant Contact for several years and we've found the flexibility both in e-list management and design that CC provides will keep us using that service over StarChapters.

The look and feel of the StarChapter ("SC") website is so much better than what we previously had through the national "mother" association.

Implementation was said to be quick and easy. We had exactly the opposite. Little follow-up, unclear directions, reliance on written tutorials rather than a live body to help us through the process, email contact that was not direct from the implementation person which caused the "system-generated" email to not just get caught in a spam filter but to get lost in a quarantine quagmire. Also, we provided...

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I like the ease of use and connectedness of all of the software segments. The product also gives a lot of functions for the price which makes it an easy sell to our clients from a value standpoint.

Some items are clunky and not as nimble as they could be. I also feel like starchapter has stopped developing enhancements or improvements outside of the website templates that they sell for a fee. I would like to see more robust reporting or the ability to build ad hoc reports, enhanced functionality on the events with regards to promo codes/discounts, adjusting registrant information/substitutions, and more robust functionality with the eblasting system.

Thank you for your feedback, we really appreciate it as it helps us improve our product. We are sorry to hear that you're experiencing difficulty with the reports and some of the functionality. If you could please enter a support ticket, our team will get in touch with you to get more information.

Being able to have a Member Manager page, easier set up for events, invoicing system, and communication platform. These were all pieces missing previously. StarChapter has helped to make almost everything easier.

It can be difficult to update certain things. For example: getting the correct address to appear on invoices (or get it on invoices at all). It needs to be updated in three different places. It would be nice it you could change it in one spot (in settings for example) and have it feed to the others. Also, there seems to be a disconnect on the member login side. When a primary contact renews membership, it doesn't renew anyone else with them. Not sure how to fix that, but it hasn't been a major issue that needs to be addressed yet. Just a convenience thing.

Thank you for your feedback, we really appreciate it as it helps us improve our product. Please enter a support ticket, and our team will get in touch with you to provide any necessary help.

Ease of learning how to do stuff for someone who isn't a technology nerd. Sometimes that means my current intern has to look at the video and then show me, but once the lightbulb goes on, I can do 'most anything.

Some of their training videos have left me wondering what I just watched. That's when I reach out to a digital native / millennial to help me "get it." Or, I submit a job ticket.

StarChapter makes it very easy to track registration and payments for our monthly meetings. Our previous process was for attendees to email one specific person, and all payments were handled on-site at the meeting. We were able to reduce the time commitment for our Registration chair significantly by switching to StarChapter, and we've been able to open up pre-payment for meetings through online credit card payments. This helps to ensure more turnout, since people are more likely to show up when they've already paid. It is also much easier to enable multiple people to work on the site, and those people don't need a background in web development to do important tasks that keep the Chapter running, like posting new meetings and newsletters, and keeping our calendar updated.

My least favorite part of the platform is the text editor, which isn't terribly surprising. If you want to include more than simple text for an event or mailing, you are better off creating the content outside StarChapter and importing an image or attaching a PDF with your content. I think this is a pretty typical complaint with text editors, but it would streamline our processes if we could do everything in one place.

Thank you for your feedback, we really appreciate it as it helps us improve our product.

Allows members to register and pay online and provides the database from which to send notifications.

Not dynamic. Very linear in reporting etc. For example, I want to report showing all of the guest for a meeting, not a list by registration date or name. Who said they are coming in person? Not to have to get the report and manipulate the CSV file.

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Robust tools

Not very intuitive

All in one service, except for financials- quickbooks has been rumored to be added but that was over a year ago and it’s still not working.

Email design and reporting, selecting who you are sending them to is not as good as constant contact.

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We went with StarChapter because it integrates website, membership management and email into one system. StarChapter is based on WordPress, which makes for easier learning for users already familiar with WordPress. Event management is a plus. There's an extensive knowledgebase for help and StarChapter support department is very responsive.

1. The system is so feature rich that there is a substantial learning curve to master the full capabilities. 2. Although webpage editing is based on WordPress' block editor, the content editing and navigation editing is a bit clunky. Fortunately, there is a source code (HTML) option, but StarChapter inserts additional tags based on its CSS. 3. The elimination of 3rd party payment processors in favor of its proprietary (and extra cost) StarPay system means we have to use payment links to the processor instead of keeping everything within StarChapter.

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First, StarChapter has a solid value proposition for a small organization -- competitive with Wild Apricot and similar "value" options. However, biggest selling point is its customer support. Unlike Wild Apricot, StarChapter doesn't outsource set up and has an in-house design team that walks you through the process. (start up cost 1/3rd of what I was quoted to set up a Wild Apricot site!). They were very accommodating and worked hard to create a web layout that replicated our branding image, and were able to integrate some external features. The final product exceeded expectations at launch, and was handled seamlessly.

The steep, steep learning curve and the absence of an on-call service line. Although the set up was excellent, I was not ready to manage the system on my own when we launched. As a result, I really struggled to complete basic tasks, and made lots of errors that resulted in member frustration or confusion. I was able to send in support tickets and get responses - usually within 24 hours, but the damage was often done by the time I got an answer. I think a comprehensive user manual - whether on-line or downloadable, would be really helpful. The knowledge base is very segmented and it's not easy to get step by step instructions when you need them.

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This is great for organizations and non profit that need something simple to get them going. We use this to manage members, as well as host our e-commerce type transactions for events.

It is a bit clunky and not as intuitive when wanting to do more advanced level organizational management. For example, if a member has not renewed their membership there is a grace period and then the member gets moved to a different list. If that member wants to renew- they have to create a whole new login which adds to confusion when the user expects to just to be able to login and renew their membership....

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This checks all the boxes for us. We needed a platform that let us send comms to our members, manage our membership list (including sending invoices for renewals and new members), manage event registrations, post news articles, allow our members (and non-members for a fee) to post job openings, and more...and this fit the bill! It was affordable, easy to use, the initial set-up was simple (StarChapter is a HUGE help and does a great deal of the work), and we've found their support team to be very responsive and helpful. We're very happy with our switch, and now all our data is managed in one place - which was the ultimate problem we set out to solve with our previous website.

There are a few little nuances we've discovered, such as not being able to use multi-byte characters (emojis, etc) in subject lines of comms and not being able to export ALL comm data (must be exported individually). I think the biggest thing that could stand to be improved is the comm data - you can get open rate, but that's pretty much it. You can't see what links are clicked on the most, or other data that other email-specific platforms offer. That said, it wasn't a deal-breaker for us.

StarChapter has streamlined our volunteer organization's processes and saved each of us time — which is important as volunteers! It's eliminated the use of an email campaign system and invoicing system. It has streamlined our communication with the newsletter feature, and contacting members and non-members with the email templates makes our roles simpler. I love that each of our board members are learning how to maintain their own pages through StarChapter's Knowledgebase. Everything you need to know is in there and it's presented in a style that's easy to read, follow and understand. I've had to request support for a couple items that were more complex than what I could handle, and their support team has responded within a day or two to resolve the challenge.

I've been using the software for about eight months. I think I still have so much to learn — it's a very robust software — yet they do make it easy to use. I just wish I could dedicate more time to really diving in to understand the connections between the modules and how to maximize the software.