Digital membership cards are usually sold as a way to stop printing plastic, which is the least interesting thing about them. The real difference is that a digital card is issued rather than made: something has to decide, at the moment of issue and every time the card is opened, whether this person is a member and until when. That turns the card into a question the record answers, and it means the choice of digital membership card software is really a choice about where the membership lives.
What the software has to know before it can issue anything
To issue a digital card the software needs the member, their tier and the date the membership ends. Products that hold none of those and simply render a design are card generators; they will produce something that looks like a membership card and knows nothing about the membership. The test to apply in a demo is simple: change a member's renewal date and see whether the card changes. If it does not, the card is a picture.
Wallet passes, links and the honest middle
A card can be a wallet pass, a page the member opens on a link, or both. Wallet passes look the most finished and are the most work to keep right, because a pass sitting in a phone has to be updated when the membership changes. A link that opens the current card asks nothing of the member and is always right at the moment it is opened, which for a body that mainly needs proof at a door is enough. Most small bodies are better served by the link, and can add passes later without changing the record.
Digital membership does not mean a members-only website
Bodies conflate two projects. Digital membership is the record and the proof: who belongs, until when, and something they can show. A members-only website with gated content is a publishing project with its own costs and its own reasons to exist. Doing the first well is a month's work; doing the second badly is where most membership software budgets go, and members generally want the card and the renewal to work more than they want a portal.
Questions people ask about digital membership card
What is a digital membership card?
A card issued from the membership record and shown on a phone, carrying the member, the tier and the expiry, and updated when the membership changes. If it is not issued from a record it is a picture of a card, which is a different and much weaker thing.
Do members need an app?
They should not. A card that opens from a link, and optionally saves into the phone's own wallet, asks nothing of a member and works for a membership that is not uniformly young. Requiring a download loses the members least able to prove membership another way.
Can we issue cards and keep our current database?
Sometimes, if the database can be read by whatever issues the cards. It is usually simpler to keep the membership where the cards are issued from, because two systems that disagree about an expiry date produce cards nobody trusts.
What does digital membership card software cost?
It varies with what else it does. On this site the card is part of Duesvo Pro at $35 a month for the whole body, which is one price whether you have 80 members or 8,000; card generators with no record behind them are cheaper and answer a different question.