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Searchie Is Now Membership.io: What Changed
Written by people who pay for this software · Pricing and offer terms checked August 2026 · Destination links auto-checked 21 August 2026
We were Searchie customers before 5 September 2024, when it became Membership.io. If you signed up for a searchable video library and are now looking at Member Hubs, community tools and an AI site builder, here is what changed, what did not, and whether we would stay.
The short version
- Same company. Founded in 2019 near Toronto by Stu McLaren and Andrew Ferraccioli.
- Same core technology. AI search across transcripts of every video and audio file remains the defining feature.
- New name, from 5 September 2024. Searchie.io → Membership.io.
- Wider product. Member Hubs, community, payments, learning paths, automations, analytics and the AI Hub Builder now sit around that search core.
- New pricing. Start $49, Grow $119, Scale $219 per month, with unlimited members and 0% transaction fees on every plan.
Why the name changed
Searchie was named after its cleverest trick. Upload your videos, get automatic transcripts, and let people search across everything you had ever recorded — a real problem for anyone with two years of coaching calls that nobody could navigate. It worked, and it attracted exactly one kind of customer: people running memberships.
Those customers kept asking for the same things — a place for members to log in, a community, a way to take payments, tiers, branding. As the company built them, the name stopped matching the product. "Searchie" described a feature; the business people were running on it was a membership. The September 2024 rebrand closed that gap, and the founders' own history — Stu McLaren is best known in the membership world specifically — makes the direction unsurprising in hindsight.
What the platform gained
- Member Hubs: branded homes combining content, community and payments on your own domain, rather than a library you embedded elsewhere.
- Community: algorithm-free discussion with gamification and badges, included rather than outsourced to Circle or a Facebook group.
- Payments and tiers: selling access natively, with 0% transaction fees.
- AI Hub Builder: describe what you sell and get a site structure assembled for you.
- AI Copilot and AI Chat: trained on your own content, answering member questions from your material.
- Learning paths, automations and analytics: the operational layer a membership needs once it has more than fifty people in it.
- SOC 2 Type II compliance, which matters if you sell to organisations rather than individuals.
Then and now
| Searchie (pre-Sept 2024) | Membership.io (2026) | |
|---|---|---|
| Positioning | Searchable video and audio library | Complete membership platform |
| AI search | The product | Still the core feature |
| Member area | Embeds and hubs, lighter | Branded Member Hubs with custom domains |
| Community | Not the focus | Built in, algorithm-free, with gamification |
| Payments | Limited | Native, 0% transaction fees |
| Site building | Manual | AI Hub Builder from a description |
| Published pricing | Roughly $29 / $99 / $199 tiers | $49 Start / $119 Grow / $219 Scale |
| Member limits | Plan-dependent | Unlimited on every plan |
If you are an existing Searchie customer
Nothing needed migrating — this was a rebrand and expansion of the platform you were already on, not a move to a new one. What is worth doing is an audit, because you may be paying twice for things the platform now includes:
- Community. If your members are in a Facebook group or a separate community subscription, the built-in community may replace it.
- Payments and access control. If you take payments elsewhere and grant access manually, that is now native.
- Video hosting. If you still pay a video host, native hosting with transcription covers it.
- Your plan. Legacy pricing is a question for support, not for a comparison article. Ask what applies at your renewal and whether moving to a current plan — with unlimited members and 0% fees — is better value for your numbers.
Honest caveat: we cannot verify what grandfathered Searchie plans cost today or how long they last. That answer comes from Membership.io support, in writing, before your renewal date.
Should you stay?
Stay if you run a membership or paid community with a growing library of recorded content. The platform you have now is materially more than the one you bought, and unlimited members with 0% transaction fees is a structural advantage over per-member pricing elsewhere.
Reconsider if you only ever wanted the search — a private, searchable archive with no members to manage. You are then paying membership-platform prices for a file library, and a simpler tool may be cheaper.
Look elsewhere if you need graded assessments and certificates, if you publish enough video to burn through the media-hour pool quickly, or if you want funnels and email marketing in the same subscription — that is Kajabi's job.
If you are new and just found the name change
You have probably read a review of "Searchie" and wondered whether it still exists. It does, under a name that describes it better, with a wider product and clearer pricing. Start with our Membership.io review for the current feature set and its limits, or the pricing page for what each tier includes.
If you want to test it properly, the offer published at membership.io/99 gives you three months of the Grow plan for one $99 payment instead of $357 — enough time to move a library across and see whether members actually use the search. Terms verified August 2026; confirm at checkout.
Frequently asked questions
Is Searchie the same as Membership.io?
Yes. Searchie.io rebranded to Membership.io on 5 September 2024. Same company, same founders, same AI search technology at the core — a wider product around it and a new name that describes what most customers were already using it for.
Why did Searchie change its name?
The name described a feature, not the business people were running on it. Customers were using Searchie to host memberships — content, community, payments — while the brand still said "search". Membership.io matches what the product became.
Did the AI search go away in the rebrand?
No, it is still the defining feature. Every video and audio file is transcribed on upload and members can search the whole library and jump to the exact moment. That capability is what the rest of the platform was built around.
What happened to old Searchie pricing?
The Searchie-era tiers around $29, $99 and $199 are gone. Current published pricing is Start at $49, Grow at $119 and Scale at $219 a month, with unlimited members and 0% transaction fees on all of them. If you are on a legacy plan, ask support directly what applies at your next renewal — we cannot verify grandfathering terms.
Should I stay on Membership.io after the rebrand?
Stay if you run a membership: the platform now does far more than the tool you signed up for, at a price that includes unlimited members. Reconsider if you only ever used Searchie as a searchable video library and are not running a membership — you may be paying for a platform when you need a file store.
Do I need to migrate my content?
No. This was a rebrand and product expansion, not a new platform — existing content, hubs and members carried over. What is worth doing is a review: hubs, learning paths, community and automations may cover things you currently solve with separate tools.
Keep reading
- Membership.io 3 Months for $99
Grow plan for one payment — the fully verified offer.
- Membership.io Review
AI search, Member Hubs and the gaps you should know about.
- Membership.io Pricing
Start, Grow, Scale and Enterprise — and the media-hour trap.
- Membership.io vs Circle & Skool
Content-first vs community-first platforms, compared.