StarChapter Reviews

It is a cost-effective way to manage association information, particularly with officer transitions. It also allows for quick and easy web site updates and various notifications to different member types. It has made membership information management and document retention a breeze as well!

Meeting registration requires multiple steps, which may be a deterrent for members who don't often use a computer or need to take extra steps to pay for an event , etc.

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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.

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 it doesn't integrate with any other tools, the website design options are incredibly limited, outdated and stale looking.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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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.

Having StarChapter manage the backend set up has been nice and I do like the templates that can be created for meetings but I haven't delved into the software enough to see what other things I may like.

We haven't even launched the platform and I'm ready to go back to what we're currently using and I'm not even into the daily use of the system yet.I was provided 1 hour of online training but there is so much to learn that it is just not enough.The KnowledgeBase has been of little value and tech support is only available via email. They do have a ranking system for their email support, so I would "assume" that if you have a high-priority ticket that it would get a quicker response, but my medium-priority tickets have taken 1-2 business days to get a response.

This tool greatly helps us manage our chapter and events by automating processes that we used to do manually. Gone are the days of tracking everything with spreadsheets. New member sign ups and membership renewals are a breeze, we are able to link to a payment gateway and accept payment directly though or website, and best of all, members can update their contact information at any time. Event registration, sign-in, and payment is also easy. And being able to run reports from the software is great.

It’s difficult to update the website unless you have prior experience. The reporting function is lacking by not being able to include all data that we want. And while sending emails from the software is great, having to manage this or respond using an outside email provider is very cumbersome. It would be better if we could read emails in the software. Also, not being able to create and send continuing education credit certificates through the software is a huge miss!

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.

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

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.

Thank you for taking the time to share your experience, we really appreciate your feedback.

Integration was easy and the support team did a great job. I felt we received everything we asked for and I am learning how to use the system everyday with the help of the support team.

Navigating and understanding my way around the website is my biggest challenge but I am new to this and feel that eventually I will get the hang of it.

Thank you for your feedback, we are glad StarChapter is able to meet your chapter's needs and was able to help during the pandemic.

multi user capable. Everything handled in "one place"

difficult to maintain web pages. have to edit multiple places to update a page. Switched from accepting PayPal to their own credit card processing application. Does not accept any "foreign" card (any card from outside the US, this mean even Canada. We have a number of Canadian based members who can't be processed. Fees are high than PayPal. Can not accept (swipe or chip) cards onsite, have to manually key them in.

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Several features for chapter management seemed to be an advantage to Constant Contact. Communications to members, non-members and expiring members seemed to be be better.

Can't call anyone for support. Users are required to submit an online ticket and wait usually 24 hours to get an answer. This isn't helpful when trying to meet a deadline and run into trouble. Some event registrations don't show up in orders and I must do manual reconcilation of credit card payments (I'm told to avoid this we need to upgrade to PayPal Pro. Constant Contact worked fine with Standard Business PayPal). Requires our NAHU members to create an account and "log in" when registering.

Love the ease of ease and the professional facing website and features. Star Chapter customer service is wonderful to work with.

I honestly do not have any. Wonderful software for the price. Has paid for itself in removing the tedious administrative tasks as well as the human error mistakes.

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

There is a learning curve to get familiar with the program, but once you do, it is pretty straightforward and relatively user friendly. It is nice to be able to use one platform for the website, events, and email communications.

Creating the events and communications can be frustrating from a formatting perspective if you aren’t used to it – but that is the same in most platforms. And also like most platforms, there are some quirks that you end up just working around to get it to do what you want. It’s hard to keep the bookkeeping 100% accurate, so I wouldn’t utilize StarChapter’s reporting as your only source of financials.

I like the newsletter feature the most. I can create digital newsletters by template.

The cons for the software are that it doesn't fit with how our association works. The software is more designed for "chapters" of associations as opposed to a single association. We have COMPANIES as members (we are a 506(c)(6) trade association), and staff of those member companies are also considered members. So the billing/invoicing feature doesn't work for us, nor does the online registration...

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It's a total package for our membership organization. It allows one program that can be easily transferred to the new board each year. No need to have separate files.

Some of the areas for managing the website are not easy to find, but once you have done it a few times, it starts to get easier. It would be nice to see what the regular member sees when adding items.It's hard to get everyone on the board together to train. Individual training is fine, but it is more beneficial together.It would be nice to have a calendar that members could pull up by month and see the upcoming events. And allow us to add events to the calendar that aren't specific to our chapter but interest our members.

This software transformed and streamlined our operations. We were able to save money by eliminating other IT platforms. We now can use the ticketing portal to directly sell tickets for our events.

The mass email communication system took us a little while to get used to. Once we did a few communications, it was easy to use.

That it is customizable, I guess. I don't really have much else to say, but can't submit this until I type more characters.

I don't know how to use it. I am expected to do programming, code writing, design layout...I do not know how to do any of this. There is no one to call. I start a project, can't even figure out how to start it, send in a note, the next day someone gets back to me. I mean, it works in theory, but by that time I have moved onto other tasks and find it incredibly challenging to log back in, follow the...

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I like being able to edit any portion of the software at any time. I like that it is a word-friendly software to make the text appealing as well as being able to add images. I also like the payment portal; setting up the customer ticket options gives you the ability to make items required during a registration of an event.

At this time, the only item I do not find easy to navigate through are the reports. The reports are not easy to build or customize for each event. I tend to have to make an extra step in my process to match the entries.

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.

There is a robust backend; however, it is not easy at all and very rigid.

Help is difficult to find and our members hate our website.

Thank you for your feedback, we always strive to respond to support tickets as fast as possible. You can contact StarChapter's Support Advisors during regular office hours by opening a support ticket through the 24/7 live ticket administrators or our ticketing system built into your StarChapter software. We also provide weekly live training as well as online tutorials and instructions. We will also be releasing an update to the communication functionality and templates soon.

StarChapter is easy to implement and use. Their support team is excellent and very responsive. Most of the applications are easy use.

We are a volunteer driven educational organization. We teach classes in person and virtual. Students are able to retain continuing education points for attending our events. StarChapter lightly touches on, but does not manage well, our member's tracking of educational points.

Thank you for being a long time StarChapter user and for taking the time to share your feedback, we really appreciate it as it helps us improve our product.

Being able to make essesntially any updates to the various web pages. Can add page as needed too. Nice having the Knowledge base with videos for those new to SC.

Group renewals. Members from the same company can't select all at once and make one payment. Can't calculate dues based on unit count: ie: 442 units x $1, 732 units x $1, 84 units x $1. Forum posts should have option to email out automatically and members should be able to reply back to the entire group or click/link to the person/email that did the posting.

Event management is a game changer for our chapter. It is clear StarChapter put a lot of thought into managing events from registration, order processing, reporting and payment processing.

With the success of using Star Chapter for our events we are finding areas where different events have a few customization needs such as, different distribution list for invoices and receipts, refund policy, member/non-member registration, and registration wizard instructions.

Thank you for taking the time to share your experience, we really appreciate your feedback.

Cost

Functionality is not great.