What a city members’ club needs from software
Search for private club software and the results are dominated by golf and country club suites: tee sheets, pro shops, course maintenance, POS and club accounting. Those are essential for a club with a course. A city social club, a members’ house or a dining-led club has a different centre of gravity.
For these clubs, the member relationship is the product. Staff need to know a member’s preferences, guests and occasions before they walk in, run events people actually want to attend, handle requests that reach beyond the building (a table elsewhere, a car, a hotel in another city), and bill all of it cleanly. Most clubs end up with more than one system, so the real question is which one holds the member record.
MyRolodex wrote this guide, and MyRolodex is one of the options. Claims about other products link to each company’s own site or a published source, and every entry includes when that tool is the better choice.
- Member profiles shared by every team: preferences, allergies, family, guests and key dates.
- Events and member marketing: audiences, invitations, RSVPs and guest lists.
- Requests and concierge work, on and off the premises.
- Dues, charges and one clear statement per member or family.
- A member app in the club’s own name.
- Venue operations where relevant: reservations, tables, POS.
The options at a glance
The table compares what each option is built for and where it is strongest for a city or social club. Most clubs combine two of these rather than choosing one.
| Option | Built for | Strongest at | Not the focus | Best fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MyRolodex | Luxury concierge and member service teams | Member profiles, requests, vendors, dues and billing, member app, member marketing | POS, table management, tee sheets | Clubs where member service and concierge are central |
| Clubessential | Private clubs, including golf, city, yacht and racquet | An all-in-one club suite: website, apps, accounting, reservations, POS, CRM | Off-property concierge requests and vendor commission | Clubs wanting one suite for operations |
| Jonas Club | Private clubs | Membership sales pipeline plus POS, tee times and the ClubHouse Online app | Off-property concierge requests | Golf and country clubs, and clubs focused on membership sales |
| SevenRooms | Restaurants, hospitality and membership clubs | Reservations by membership tier, table management, guest profiles, POS spend, email marketing | Off-property requests, member app | Dining-led clubs |
| PeopleVine | Hospitality brands and members’ clubs | Member CRM and portal, integrations with hospitality systems | Off-property request handling and vendor commission | Clubs and hospitality groups with venues |
| General CRM or DIY | Any business | Flexibility and integrations | Club and concierge concepts out of the box | Clubs with in-house admin or builders |
MyRolodex
MyRolodex is a CRM built for luxury concierge and member service teams, and private member clubs are one of the groups it is built for. Member profiles hold preferences, allergies, family, birthdays, loyalty numbers, documents and payment methods, shared across every team. Requests, from a table tonight to a villa next summer, have an owner, a status and an audit history, and emails and texts from staff’s own Gmail, Outlook and phones sync to the right member and request. Vendor rates and commission are logged on each booking.
For the club side, billing covers membership dues by tier, pass-through costs, service fees, cards on file with auto-pay and one statement per member or family, with export to QuickBooks or Xero. Member marketing builds audiences from preferences and history and sends invitations by app, email and text in the club’s name, with RSVPs, guest lists and referrals. The white-label member app runs on iPhone, Android and the web.
When another tool fits better: MyRolodex is not a point of sale, a table management system or a tee sheet. A club whose main need is running restaurants, bars and a course will want an operations suite or a reservations platform, possibly alongside a member CRM.
Clubessential
Clubessential is one of the best-known private club platforms. Its suite covers website, mobile apps, accounting, tee times, reservations, POS, CRM, payments and business intelligence, according to its software listings. Golf and country clubs are its core market, and in 2021 it launched dedicated suites for city and university clubs, yacht clubs and racquet clubs.
When it’s the better choice: a club that wants one vendor for accounting, POS, reservations and member communications, especially one with golf, racquet or marina facilities, will find a fuller operations suite here. Clubs whose members lean heavily on concierge requests outside the building should look closely at how those would be handled.
Jonas Club
Jonas Club Software is the other major private club suite. Its CRM, pitched as a way to track, engage and retain members, focuses on the membership pipeline: prospect records, opportunity stages, an Outlook integration, automated membership marketing emails and dues revenue forecasts. Other modules include POS, The Sheet for tee times, and the ClubHouse Online member app.
When it’s the better choice: golf and country clubs needing integrated POS, tee times and club accounting, and clubs whose biggest CRM need is recruiting new members. A city club whose daily work is servicing existing members’ requests will want to see how that fits in a demo.
SevenRooms
SevenRooms offers a version of its hospitality platform for membership clubs, under the line “Hospitality tools and insights to make every member feel at home.” It covers automatically built guest profiles with preferences and tags, POS spend visibility, reservations and online ordering by membership status, table management, its Private Line for VIP communication, and email marketing to member groups or tiers.
When it’s the better choice: a dining-led members’ club whose core need is tables, covers and food and beverage CRM. Many such clubs run SevenRooms for the restaurant floor and keep a separate system for dues, concierge requests and the member app.
PeopleVine
PeopleVine describes itself as “the Guest & Member Experience CRM for Hospitality Brands.” Its Mews marketplace listing calls it “a Member Experience and CRM Platform” with a member portal that shows bookings, appointments and club activity, and profiles that sync with the Mews property system. It is aimed at hospitality operators, including members’ clubs and groups that run their own venues.
When it’s the better choice: a club or hospitality group with rooms, restaurants and amenities that wants a member experience layer connected to its venue systems. It is a natural shortlist candidate for a city club with a hotel or several venues.
General options: a CRM, a DIY build or spreadsheets
Some clubs run members on Salesforce or HubSpot. Both are capable general platforms; HubSpot offers a free CRM alongside paid hubs. Club concepts such as dues tiers, guest policies and member preferences usually have to be configured, which suits clubs with an admin or a partner to maintain it.
New clubs often start on Airtable, which offers interfaces, automations, portals for outside guests and central permissions, or on spreadsheets. That is a sensible start while membership is small and one person runs it. Once several teams need the same member record, the absence of request ownership, billing and access controls starts to show.
How to choose
First, decide which system is the home of the member record: the place every team reads before a member arrives and writes to afterwards. Then list what your club really runs on. If it is a course, courts or a marina, start with an operations suite. If it is a restaurant floor, start with a reservations platform. If it is service, events and requests, start with a member CRM and connect the rest.
Bring real scenarios to every demo: a member’s birthday dinner with a guest who has an allergy, an invitation to a members’ event with RSVPs and a waitlist, a request for a hotel abroad, and the month-end statement that bills all of it. The right software handles those without anyone re-typing information.