How to start a social club.And make it pay for itself.

You need five things to start a social club: one repeatable premise, a schedule you can keep on a bad month, five to ten founding members who will come when the room is small, a place to meet, and one way to tell people about the next gathering, such as a group chat or a free RSVP link. A name, money, a legal entity and software can wait until three or four gatherings have drawn a core that comes back on its own.

• When you start charging, add a way to collect payments, a written cancellation and refund rule, and a conversation with an accountant about taxes.
• If you want the club to be tax-exempt in the US, read the IRS section below before you collect dues.

A social club makes money from its members: recurring dues for belonging, tickets or contributions for individual gatherings, and, for clubs with their own space, joining fees and spending on food and drink. Most small clubs start with per-event payments and add dues once the club meets reliably.

Money coming in is only half of it. A club makes money only when what members pay is more than the room, the food and the tools cost, and for most small clubs the honest aim is to break even; the budget above shows how to check. A US club that wants to be tax-exempt has a further rule: the IRS expects it to be supported by membership fees, dues and assessments, and limits income from nonmembers (see the IRS section below).

SocialLoop handles membership dues and event tickets in one place; the platforms section below compares it with the alternatives.

The typical social club business model is a membership model: members pay recurring dues, monthly or yearly, for belonging and access, and the club spends that money on the gatherings, the space and the people who run it, while per-event tickets cover costs that rise with each guest, such as food. It works when the people who come are the people who renew.

• Pay as you go. No dues; everyone pays for the gathering they attend. Low risk, low income, and nobody is owed anything if a month is skipped.
• Membership. Dues for belonging and priority, with events included, discounted or ticketed on top. Steadier money, and an obligation to deliver every cycle.
• Clubhouse. A private members’ club with its own space charges a joining fee and higher dues, and earns from food, drink and rentals. It carries rent and staff, so it needs many more members to break even.

Whichever shape you choose, count renewals, not sign-ups: a club that keeps its members spends less finding new ones. The dues-or-per-event worksheet above helps you pick the first shape.

Yes, if the club is a tax-exempt social club under section 501(c)(7): the IRS says these clubs are generally required to file an annual return, which is Form 990-N if gross receipts are normally $50,000 or less, Form 990-EZ or 990 if gross receipts are under $200,000 and total assets are under $500,000, and Form 990 above that. A club that is not tax-exempt does not follow these rules, and how its money is taxed depends on how it is set up, so ask an accountant who knows your state. This is a pointer to the IRS’s own pages, not tax advice.

• What makes a club exempt. The IRS lists the requirements: the club is organized for exempt purposes, gives members personal contact with each other, limits its membership, is supported by membership fees, dues and assessments, and does not let its net earnings benefit any person.
• Income from nonmembers. A social club may receive up to 35% of its gross receipts from nonmember sources, including investment income, and no more than 15% from nonmembers using its facilities and services.
• Tax it still pays. Exempt clubs are taxed on unrelated business income, which includes income from nonmembers who are not bona fide guests of members, and investment income. A club with $1,000 or more of gross unrelated business income also files Form 990-T.
• Recognition. Organizations apply for recognition of exemption under section 501(c), other than 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4), by filing Form 1024 electronically.
• Missed filings. An organization that does not file its required annual return or notice for three consecutive years automatically loses its tax-exempt status.
• Your state may have its own registration and filing rules; ask your state’s attorney general or secretary of state.

IRS pages read on October 7, 2026: IRS: social clubs, section 501(c)(7), IRS: Form 990 series, which form to file, IRS: Form 990-N (e-Postcard) for small organizations, IRS: automatic revocation of exemption, IRS: about Form 1024.

Compare three kinds of tool, and keep your current stack on the list as a fourth option: a club management system that replaces all three tools, a membership tool that sits beside Eventbrite and Mailchimp, and an events-and-community platform built around the nights themselves. They differ less in features than in how they charge, how much of today’s setup you have to move, and what a member goes through to join and buy a ticket.

To narrow it down, answer four questions before you book a single demo:

• What is the club’s life: the nights or the membership? If most of the value is the events, put event ticketing and check-in first. If it is the directory, renewals and committees, a club management system fits better.
• Which tool would you keep? If you like your Mailchimp emails, a membership tool that connects to them is the smallest move. If the copying between tools is the problem, choose something that replaces all three.
• How will you grow? A price set by contacts rises with your mailing list; one set by members rises with paying members; a percentage rises with every dollar. The cost table below shows how far apart they land.
• What does a member see? Two co-organizers can learn anything. A newcomer joining from an Instagram link on their phone will not try twice.

If your club is a registered nonprofit, Zeffy is also worth a look: it serves nonprofits only, charges the organization no fees, and is funded by optional tips that buyers are asked to add at checkout. And if one spreadsheet is still clearly the single list of who is a member, you may not need to move yet; the signs you’ve outgrown the stack are in when spreadsheets, email and a ticketing tool are enough. Deciding how to start charging dues in the first place is covered in how a 150-person social club can start charging.

A club collecting $34,000 a year in dues and tickets should expect to pay about $2,000 to $3,400 a year in software and payment fees across the main options, roughly 6% to 10% of what it collects, and most of that is card processing and percentage fees rather than the software itself.

Here is one illustrative year, worked the same way for every option: software, the fees on dues, and the fees on tickets.

• The cheapest lever is not the platform. Every card payment carries a fixed 30¢ in each row, so a member who pays $300 once a year instead of $25 twelve times saves the club $3.30 a year in fixed fees alone: $330 if all 100 switch. Offer a yearly option.
• The rows sort differently at other sizes, because the tools charge in different shapes. ClubExpress grows with active members, WildApricot with contacts in the database, and Join It and SocialLoop mostly with money collected: SocialLoop’s software line is the smallest here, but its 5% fee on dues makes it the most expensive row at $30,000 of dues. Run your own numbers at the size you expect next year, not just today.
• Paying for software yearly lowers that line: WildApricot’s 250-contact plan is $73.80 a month prepaid for a year ($885.60), Join It Starter is $313.20 a year, and SocialLoop Premium is $199.99 a year.
• Read the small print on processing. WildApricot adds a fee to your subscription if you use a payment processor other than its own, and on its own processor American Express costs 3.5% + 30¢ rather than 2.99% + 30¢. Eventbrite charges guests its fees by default unless you choose to absorb them. And Stripe does not return its processing fee when you refund, so a refunded ticket still costs you.

Run one real month of the club through it, not the demo data: someone joins and pays, buys a ticket, has a card fail and cancels; you bring your list in, send a message and check people in; then you follow the money and try to leave. Give the trial a real event, and let your co-organizer do half the tests on their own login.

1. Join and pay on a phone. Send a friend who has never seen the platform the join link. Can they understand the price, pay the dues and get a receipt without downloading an app or calling you?
2. Member price on a ticket. As that member, buy a ticket to a real event at the member price. Note whether it needs a login, a code or a separate link, and whether a non-member could use it.
3. A failed card. In the platform’s test mode, or with your own card, let a renewal fail. Who is told, how many times it retries, and what happens to the member’s access and tickets?
4. Cancel. Cancel as the member. It should be as easy as joining, and you should be able to see the paid-through date.
5. Bring your list in. Import the spreadsheet and your last Eventbrite attendee export. Count the duplicates and the people who would have to sign up again.
6. Send one message. Email members only, then the whole list, and an SMS if you plan to use it. Check who received it and that an unsubscribe in one place stops the rest.
7. Check in a real night. Have your co-organizer run the door at one event on their own phone, with their own login, and see whether attendance lands on each person’s record.
8. Follow the money and leave. Match one payout line by line to the fees in the table above, then export members, payments and attendance and open the files. If you cannot get your data out, do not commit.

Write down every step that needed a workaround or a support message: that list is what the platform will cost you in time every month. Trial lengths vary, and a short one may not include a real renewal, so ask how long you have before you start. SocialLoop has no time-limited trial: its Free plan has no end date and holds a community of up to 50 members, so you can run every test above before choosing a paid plan. For a fuller test plan with the evidence to keep for each step, use the platform trial checklist.