Almost every membership platform that publishes its pricing charges no setup fee at all, so the honest answer is that setup fees are the wrong thing to shop on. The fees that decide what you actually pay are the monthly plan and the per-transaction cut. PerkClub charges no setup fee, no onboarding fee and no fee for designing your QR codes: plans are £59, £99 and £199 a month by member count, plus 1.5% + 20p per transaction, on rolling 30-day terms. Magic Stamp at £39 a month per site, Loopy Loyalty from $25 a month, Square Loyalty from £25 a month per location and membermojo, free for small clubs with paid plans from £40 a year, all publish no setup charge either. The platforms where setup and onboarding costs tend to appear are the ones that quote instead of publishing, such as Glofox.

What PerkClub charges, in full

So you can compare like for like, here is every figure. Plans are Starter at £59 a month for up to 20 members, Standard at £99 for up to 50, and Max at £199 for up to 100, with a Custom plan beyond that. Every plan carries a 1.5% + 20p transaction fee on member billing, which rises to 2.5% for EEA cards and 3.25% for international or American Express cards. There are no setup fees, no onboarding fees and no fees for designing your QR codes. Optional add-ons are additional sites at £39 a month each, with your first site included in every plan, and Gifts at £19 a month per site. Terms are rolling 30 days with no cancellation fee, and there is no free trial. The live figures are on our pricing page.

What the published alternatives charge to start

Across the platforms a UK independent is most likely to shortlist, the pattern is consistent: a monthly fee, no joining fee.

  • Magic Stamp starts at £39 a month per site for a digital stamp card with a physical stamper.
  • Loopy Loyalty runs from $25 a month for one location to $95 a month for up to ten, priced in US dollars.
  • Square Loyalty starts at £25 a month per location in the UK for up to 500 loyalty visits, rising to £45 and £65 at higher volumes, and is only available inside Square POS.
  • Loyverse gives the point-of-sale away free, with add-ons from £5 a month for unlimited sales history up to £20 a month each for advanced inventory and employee management, per store.
  • RWRD publishes flat plans at £25 and £40 a month, plus £12.50 or £20 for each additional site.
  • membermojo is free for small clubs and societies, with paid plans on a sliding scale from £40 a year for up to 100 members, inclusive of VAT and with no transaction charges of its own. Its 60-day trial needs no card details.
  • Beacon, a UK charity CRM with membership built in, starts at £37 a month, or £33.50 on annual billing, with no platform fees on payments.
  • Glofox does not publish pricing at all. You get a quote, which is also where an implementation or onboarding charge is most likely to turn up.

The costs worth comparing instead

A zero setup fee is easy to offer and tells you almost nothing. Five things decide what a membership platform really costs you over a year.

  • Whether the fee scales with members. A flat monthly fee means the hundredth member costs no more to serve than the tenth. A per-member or revenue-share model gets more expensive precisely as you succeed.
  • The transaction fee, in full. Ask for the domestic rate, the EEA rate and the international and Amex rate, because they are rarely the same number.
  • The currency it is billed in. Several otherwise sensible platforms publish only in US dollars, which turns a fixed cost into a floating one.
  • The contract length. A twelve-month commitment is a far bigger number than any setup fee. Rolling monthly terms are the thing to insist on.
  • Per-site charges. Multi-site pricing varies wildly, so if you run or plan more than one location, price that in now rather than later.

Questions to ask before you sign

Ask any provider these five, in writing. Is there any one-off charge for setup, onboarding, training, design or hardware? What are your transaction fees for domestic, EEA and international cards? Is the monthly fee fixed, or does it move with member count or revenue? What is the minimum term, and what happens if I leave in month two? What does a second location cost? Anything a provider will not answer in writing is the answer.

For the wider market view, our roundup of UK membership software by use case lists published pricing and sources for each platform, and how much membership software costs gives the typical ranges by type of business. The full fee breakdown for PerkClub is on our pricing page, with the detail in our FAQ.