ChapterDues: one roster, one ledger, one survivable handover · Updated September 8, 2026

What ChapterDues actually does

The setup path the site describes is short: import the roster you already have (a spreadsheet or an export from whatever you were using), set the dues year with its tiers and renewal dates, and let the reminders run. Renewals go out as a three-message sequence rather than one email in March that every member archives unread and nobody mentions again.

Underneath is a single member record with a full edit history, which is the actual product: the roster and the ledger stop disagreeing with each other. Officer access is role-based with permissions, and officer roles carry term end dates, which is a small feature that quietly assumes your entire board turns over on a fixed date every year. It does, and the software knows it.

Events are handled as RSVP tracking linked to the roster, with guest pricing and waitlists on the larger plans, so the event list and the membership list are the same list. Exports exist in the boring, correct places: CSV for the roster, event lists you can hand to a caterer or a venue, and calendar feeds for Google Calendar and Outlook.

The headline feature is the handover report: a summary of the fiscal year with an audit trail, generated for the person who is about to inherit the job and did not volunteer for it with enthusiasm. That is a narrow promise, and narrow promises are usually the ones software keeps.

The pricing, as the site publishes it

Three plans, all billed monthly in US dollars. Small Chapter at $25 per month covers up to 75 members, one dues run with two tiers, the three-step reminder sequence, four events a year with RSVP tracking, two officer accounts and email support within one business day. Chapter at $59 per month (the one the site marks as recommended) raises the roster to 400 members, adds unlimited dues tiers with prorating rules, unlimited events with guest pricing and waitlists, eight officer accounts with role permissions, and includes a roster import and setup session.

Association at $129 per month is the multi-chapter tier: unlimited member records across chapters, chapter-level ledgers with a consolidated view, dues splits between chapter and association, delegate and committee rosters, unlimited officer accounts, a named account contact and an annual data review.

The site states there are no setup fees and no per-member charges, that billing is monthly with no term commitment, and that cancellation takes effect at the end of the paid month with no cancellation fee. It also does the arithmetic for you in its own FAQ: a chapter of 160 members on the Chapter plan pays $708 across a full chapter year. There is no free trial advertised anywhere on the page; what is offered instead is a walkthrough.

What it does not do, which matters more

ChapterDues is not a payment processor and says so directly: dues payments post through the processor your chapter already holds an account with. It tracks who has paid and reconciles against your statements. It does not hold your money, which is the correct architecture for a tool that a rotating cast of volunteers logs into.

It is also not accounting software and not a compliance service. The site runs a blog called The Chapter Ledger with explainers on setting dues prices and on IRS filings (990-N, 990-EZ, 990), and presents that material as informational. Knowing who paid what is not the same thing as filing a return, and the site does not pretend the two are interchangeable.

On data, these are the vendor's own stated commitments, reproduced as such: the chapter owns its roster and its ledger, data is encrypted in transit and at rest, access is limited to named officers, every edit is audited, the full record exports to a spreadsheet at any time without asking, exports stay available for thirty days after a subscription ends, and member contact details are not sold, rented or shared.

The outcome figures on the homepage (a 93% renewal rate for chapters running the three-notice sequence, roughly 11 hours a month recovered per treasurer, a median of $3,180 in recovered dues) are labeled on the site as customer-reported results, averages and medians, not guarantees. That labeling is doing real work, and the numbers are still a vendor counting its own wins. Read them accordingly.

Who this is for, and who should skip it

The audience is volunteers, not staff: treasurers, membership chairs, program chairs and presidents of chapters and alumnae associations, from small circles of around forty members up to state associations coordinating several chapters at once. Nobody in that list has a finance department, and most of them have a day job.

The diagnostic is simple. Can somebody answer "who is paid up today" without opening a spreadsheet and a bank statement side by side and squinting? If yes, you do not need this. If your roster currently exists in more than one file and the two files disagree, that is the problem being sold against.

If your group is eight people and a single group chat, $25 a month is a genuine line item aimed at a problem you do not have. If your chapter rotates its entire board every year and the ledger has never survived two handovers intact, this is aimed squarely at you, and the pitch is less about features than about the annual archaeology you would stop doing.