Circle and Kajabi were each named in 5 of the 6 answers (83%) when we asked ChatGPT and Gemini to recommend membership site software on 2026-08-03, the two most-cited products in the entire test.
We put six real buyer questions to ChatGPT and Gemini, gave each one a single live web search, and wrote down every product named and every source link behind it. Nineteen different products came up across the six answers. Only Circle and Kajabi reached 5 of 6. The next tier, Systeme.io, Teachable and Thinkific, each landed in 4 of 6 answers (67%).
Below the leaders the field thinned out fast. MemberSpace and Mighty Networks were each named in 3 of 6 answers (50%), and Kartra, Podia and Wild Apricot in 2 of 6 (33%) each. Everything else was a one-off: nine products, from WordPress to Patreon to Skool, appeared in just 1 of 6 answers (17%). Twelve of the nineteen products were named in 2 or fewer of the six answers, so a buyer running these searches meets the same five or six names over and over, plus a rotating cast of single mentions.
How the shortlist changed across the six questions
The shortlist was not fixed. Changing the wording of the question changed who got named, and that is the most useful thing in this data.
The bare "best membership site software" question returned eight names: Kajabi, Systeme.io, Kartra, Circle, Wild Apricot, Podia, Thinkific and MemberSpace. Every one of those eight also showed up in at least one other question, so the plain "best" query produced no exclusive pick of its own.
"Best free membership site software" pulled in two names that appeared nowhere else in the whole test: WordPress and Patreon, each named in that one question (17%). The free answer's full set was Systeme.io, WordPress, Patreon, Mighty Networks, Kajabi, Circle, Teachable and Thinkific. Free is the only place a buyer hears about self-hosted WordPress or a Patreon-style option.
"Most affordable membership site software" brought in three more names unique to it: Zenler, Skool and Weebly, each named in that one question (17%). The affordable set was MemberSpace, Circle, Zenler, Kajabi, Skool, Weebly and Mighty Networks. "Free" and "affordable" barely overlapped, sharing only Circle, Kajabi and Mighty Networks, and each surfaced its own budget names.
"Best membership site software for small teams" returned seven names and added two of its own: Join It and Thrive Apprentice, each named in that one question only (17%). So a product that is invisible on the plain "best" query can still get named the moment a buyer types "for small teams," "free" or "affordable."
The narrowest answer came from "what membership site software should I use," which returned only five products: Teachable, MemberSpace, Squarespace, Systeme.io and Outseta. Squarespace and Outseta appeared in no other question (17% each). And here is the fan-out fact that matters most: neither of the two overall leaders showed up in that answer. Circle and Kajabi were each named in 5 of 6 questions, and the one they both missed was the same one, "what should I use." That single gap is the only reason they scored 5 of 6 instead of 6 of 6.
Where the answers came from
Sixteen domains fed the six answers. Two of them were cited in every single answer: emailtooltester.com and outseta.com, each in 6 of 6. Right behind them, three domains were cited in 5 of 6: the roundup site linodash.com, the community forum reddit.com, and mightynetworks.com.
Community threads carried real weight. Reddit was cited in 5 of 6 answers (83%), YouTube in 3 of 6 (50%), and Quora in 1 of 6 (17%). More than half of the distinct source domains are people talking to each other in threads and videos rather than vendor marketing.
The classic roundup and listicle articles did the editorial heavy lifting: emailtooltester.com (6 of 6), linodash.com (5 of 6) and blog.hubspot.com (1 of 6). These "best membership software" posts are the first thing the assistants reached for. The big review directories, by contrast, were mostly missing. G2 and Capterra did not appear at all. The only directory cited was GetApp, in 1 of 6 answers.
Here is the insight a vendor should not miss. Six of the sixteen source domains are vendors' own websites, and every one of those vendors got its product named. mightynetworks.com was among the five most-cited domains (5 of 6) and Mighty Networks was named in 3 of 6 answers. memberspace.com was cited in 2 of 6 and MemberSpace was named in 3 of 6. circle.so was cited in 2 of 6 and Circle topped the whole board at 5 of 6. Publishing your own comparison content, and getting it indexed, tracks closely with getting recommended.
The counter-case is just as instructive. outseta.com was cited in all 6 answers, tied for the single most-cited domain, yet Outseta the product was named only once (17%). joinit.com was cited in 4 of 6 while Join It was named once, and newzenler.com in 3 of 6 while Zenler was named once. These vendors run comparison-content operations, so their pages get pulled into answer after answer, but those pages name their rivals. Getting cited and getting recommended are two separate wins.
What a vendor here would do to get named
If you sell membership software and want to appear in these answers, the lever is not market share, it is presence in these exact sources. Every named product traces back to the same sixteen domains. A product with millions of users that is absent from EmailTooltester's roundup, Linodash's list and the Reddit threads will not be named, and a smaller product that is present in them will.
This data points to three concrete moves. First, get into the roundups that were cited in every answer, emailtooltester.com (6 of 6) and linodash.com (5 of 6). Second, be part of the Reddit conversation, cited in 5 of 6 answers. Third, publish your own comparison content the way the vendors behind mightynetworks.com (5 of 6) and memberspace.com (2 of 6) do, so your domain sits in the pool the assistants read from. Moving a product from 1 of 6 to 4 of 6 is a presence-and-content problem, and it is trackable week over week.
The full list, counted
| Product | Named in | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Circle | 5 of 6 | 83% |
| Kajabi | 5 of 6 | 83% |
| Systeme.io | 4 of 6 | 67% |
| Teachable | 4 of 6 | 67% |
| Thinkific | 4 of 6 | 67% |
| MemberSpace | 3 of 6 | 50% |
| Mighty Networks | 3 of 6 | 50% |
| Kartra | 2 of 6 | 33% |
| Podia | 2 of 6 | 33% |
| Wild Apricot | 2 of 6 | 33% |
Why Glotier is not on this list
Glotier does not sell membership site software, so we are correctly absent from all six answers, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. We ran this category the same way we run any other: we asked the questions a real buyer asks and counted what came back, product by product and source by source.
That count is the whole product. If you sell in a category like this one, you can run the same check on your own name in about a minute, with no account, and see exactly which of these questions you show up in and which sources decide it.