Free Membership Site
Setting up a free membership site is a great option to give running a membership site a try. However, it is not the best long term strategy and it also lacks the commitment you need to make. The fact is, with a free membership site you will not have expenses and for that reason you might make excuses about why you have not made a good effort at marketing your membership site.
I am a huge fan of keeping costs for your membership site low. That is why I recommend an inexprensive webhost, free membership software and optional tools that are low cost and can be paid off quickly with modest membership.
Of the free options, a truly free membership site can be set up in Ning. However, here is the issue. If the membership site is hosted on Ning, and everyone knows that ning is free, how much do you think subscribers will be willing to pay for it?
If you want to set up a free membership site that charges money and has a higher precieved value, you should take a look at myNetcipia. This is as good and as low risk as it gets. The big disadvantage of this is that they do not disclose the percentage of the sale they take when someone joins, and they do not have an affiliate program built in.
While myNetcipia offers you a free membership site that has no risks, it makes marketing harder to do and after you have built real membership, you may regrete the much higher percentage of the fee that you are paying out.
If you already have a hosting account on a web host like Bluehost, you will probably be able to add a free wordpress blog to your account, a free membership plugin (not automated, but it works) and no additional hosting fees. The only fee I would see in that kind of a set up is the $10 per year domain name.
So you have a lot of free membership sites available to you. Remember your time is worth something, and you do not want to start on one system and change in a few months as it is painful for you and for your members. A free membership site may not be free at all when you factor those things in.
