Which has better reviews, Blackthorn Events - In-Person and Online Event Management & Registration or AC MemberSmart: Your Key to a 360-Degree View of Your Members?

Blackthorn Events - In-Person and Online Event Management & Registration (5.0★, 273 reviews) and AC MemberSmart: Your Key to a 360-Degree View of Your Members (5.0★, 2 reviews) are essentially tied on rating. Look at review velocity and individual reviewer quotes — both visible on each app's detail page — to differentiate.

Should I choose Blackthorn Events - In-Person and Online Event Management & Registration or AC MemberSmart: Your Key to a 360-Degree View of Your Members?

AC MemberSmart: Your Key to a 360-Degree View of Your Members holds the higher average rating (5.0★ vs 5.0★). That is the one dimension AppRanks can separate them on here — read both apps' detail pages for the feature breakdown and recent listing changes.

Which is faster to set up, Blackthorn Events - In-Person and Online Event Management & Registration or AC MemberSmart: Your Key to a 360-Degree View of Your Members?

Both apps are one-click installs from the Salesforce AppExchange. Blackthorn Events - In-Person and Online Event Management & Registration has the deeper published review base (273 vs 2), which often — though not always — accompanies better-tested setup docs. AppRanks doesn't measure setup time directly: read the recent reviews on each app's detail page for user-reported install experience.

Which works better for small vs large Salesforce AppExchange admins?

Blackthorn Events - In-Person and Online Event Management & Registration typically suits early-stage and growth-mode teams based on its published review base (273 reviews). AC MemberSmart: Your Key to a 360-Degree View of Your Members typically suits early-stage and growth-mode teams based on its published review base (2 reviews). A larger review base generally means the app has been exercised at scale — relevant if you are processing high volume or handling enterprise compliance requirements.

AppRanks

Blackthorn Events vs AC MemberSmart: Your — Salesforce

Blackthorn Events - In-Person and Online Event Management & Registration vs AC MemberSmart

Side-by-side comparison · 24 data points

Blackthorn Events - In-Person and Online Event Management & Registration

5.0·273reviews

Salesforce-native event management, payments, and A2P messaging. 600+ organizations across higher ed, nonprofit, healthcare, government, and corporate run events inside Salesforce. HIPAA-eligible, SOC 2 Type 2, PCI SAQ D.

salesforcepaid

Change

1. Listing metadata

Field-level data

	Blackthorn Events - In-Person and Online Event Management & Registration	AC MemberSmart
Tagline	“Salesforce-native event management, payments, and A2P messaging. 600+ organizations across higher ed, nonprofit, healthcare, government, and corporate run events inside Salesforce. HIPAA-eligible, SOC 2 Type 2, PCI SAQ D. ”222 chars	“Make your member portal a dynamic hub for managing members, renewals and payments, events, job postings, fundraising campaigns, and more. Unify your association’s management with one powerful, customizable, and flexible member management solution. ”248 chars
Description	1109 / 2000 chars55% used	1156 / 2000 chars58% used
Screenshots	—	—
Languages	en	en
Platforms	Salesforce	Salesforce
Developer	Blackthorn.io, Inc.	Advanced Communities
Listed	December 12, 2016

At a glance

8 metrics · auto-computed

Feature comparison between Blackthorn Events - In-Person and Online Event Management & Registration and AC MemberSmart: Your Key to a 360-Degree View of Your Members
Metric	Blackthorn Events - In-Person and Online Event Management & Registration	AC MemberSmart: Your Key to a 360-Degree View of Your Members
Rating	5.0 ★	★ 5.0 ★
Total reviews	★ 273	2
Free plan	—	—
Pricing	paid	paid
Pricing tiers	1 tier	1 tier
Listed features	★ 9	3
Languages	1 supported	1 supported
Listed since	Dec 2016	Jun 2022

AppRanks verdict

Generated from live data on this page

The call

Blackthorn Events - In-Person and Online Event Management & Registration and AC MemberSmart: Your Key to a 360-Degree View of Your Members are evenly matched on rating (5.0★ vs 5.0★) — the differentiator comes down to pricing fit, feature breadth, and which app's interaction pattern suits your team's workflow.

Pricing

Pricing entry tiers: Blackthorn Events - In-Person and Online Event Management & Registration at paid, AC MemberSmart: Your Key to a 360-Degree View of Your Members at paid. Check each app's tier structure for the capacity limits you actually need before deciding — the headline number is the same shape, but the gating shape per tier (seats, usage volume, integrations) varies.

Review base

Blackthorn Events - In-Person and Online Event Management & Registration has the larger user base (273 reviews vs 2), which usually maps to broader integration coverage, faster bug-fix cadence, and a deeper bench of community workflow patterns. AC MemberSmart: Your Key to a 360-Degree View of Your Members's smaller cohort can be an advantage for niche workflows where the bigger app has accumulated bloat.

Who should pick what

Recommended evaluation path: install both apps' free tiers (where available) and run them in parallel on a small cohort for 7-14 days before committing. The data tables below show the per-feature breakdown — for most admins the deciding factor will be a single integration or workflow detail that's hard to compare from listing pages alone.

How this is generated

This verdict is generated from the live marketplace data on this page — rating, review count, pricing tier, and category position all refresh from the canonical Salesforce AppExchange listing every 24 hours. AppRanks does not accept payment to influence comparison outcomes; the methodology is documented on the About page and applies identically to every pair on the site.

Read each app's audit: Blackthorn Events - In-Person and Online Event Management & Registration audit • AC MemberSmart: Your Key to a 360-Degree View of Your Members audit

Last updated	—	—

3. Features

As listed by each developer

Blackthorn Events - In-Person and Online Event Management & Registration

One Salesforce-native platform Registration, payments, messaging, and check-in run natively inside Salesforce. Real-time attendee and revenue data lives on your CRM records and flows into Flow and Experience Cloud.
Trusted at scale 600+ customers process more than $1.5 billion in payments per year through Blackthorn, powering millions of event registrations. Employees globally support Sales, Service, Experience, Marketing, and Data Cloud customers.
Any event type, configured in Salesforce Launch event landing pages, event groups, recurring events, and hybrid, virtual, or in-person formats. Contact and Lead matching keeps the CRM clean. Native Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Webex.
Blackthorn Payments accepts credit cards, ACH, invoices, and multi-currency across 120+ gateways, including Stripe, Authorize.net, and Touchnet. PayLink, Virtual Terminal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay.
Blackthorn Messaging sends A2P 10DLC-compliant SMS from Salesforce: 1:1 attendee texts, bulk campaigns, scheduled sends across text and email, and Text-to-Register triggered by Flow. Every message is logged on the Contact record for reporting and audit.
The Blackthorn Check-In App scans student IDs, central IDs, or QR codes on iOS and Android. Group check-in handles families, teams, and delegations in a single tap. Works offline and syncs when reconnected, with built-in badge printing.
Capture UTM parameters at registration, measure ROI with Campaign Influence, and track session attendance on Attendee, Contact, or Person Account records. Works with all Salesforce Industry Clouds.
Trusted by higher ed (Admissions & Recruitment, Campus Life, Alumni & Advancement), nonprofits (donor events, chapter and local events), and healthcare (patient education, CME courses, clinic events). HIPAA-eligible, SOC 2 Type 2, PCI SAQ D.
Ready for government (community events, town halls, citizen engagement) and corporate (field marketing, customer conferences, partner enablement). Inherits Salesforce sharing, FLS, and audit trails.

AC MemberSmart

Understand Your Members and Develop Meaningful Relationships Manage and Grow Your Community Members Empower your Members with the Self-service Portal
Manage All Types of Events, In-person, Virtual and Hybrid Post New Jobs and Roles via the Job Board Payment processing currently supported by Stripe (Spreedly coming soon)
No integrations needed, and data is safe and secure on Salesforce.com

5. Search rankings

Top 5 keywords · shared rankings prioritized

Keyword	Blackthorn Events - In-Person and Online Event Management & Registration	AC MemberSmart
in-person events	#3	#5
members	#4	#7
member	#1	#12
registration form	#40	#120

7. App details

Long-form description · keyword frequency

Blackthorn Events - In-Person and Online Event Management & Registration

Blackthorn Events is the Salesforce-native event platform on the AppExchange. 600+ organizations across higher ed, nonprofit, healthcare, government, and corporate run event registration, payments, and A2P messaging inside Salesforce with no middleware. Every attendee, session, and payment is a Salesforce record. Registration covers multi-attendee groups, ticketing, waitlists, sponsors, speakers, sessions, custom questions, calendar view, budgets, matching and duplication logic, auto-generated landing pages, member vs non-member pricing, tables and seats, and language translation. Blackthorn Payments accepts credit cards, ACH, invoices, Pay Later, and multi-currency through Stripe, Authorize.net, Touchnet (Transact, CASHNet/Transact Campus), and 120+ gateways. Blackthorn Messaging delivers A2P 10DLC-compliant SMS for confirmations, reminders, and check-in. Native to Experience Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and Data Cloud. iOS and Android check-in app with QR codes and badge printing. Out-of-the-box Salesforce reports and dashboards. SOC 2 Type 2, HIPAA-eligible, PCI SAQ D, GDPR, WCAG, ADA, VPAT.

Top keywords

blackthorn3×2.10%
cloud3×2.10%
salesforce3×2.10%
a2p2×1.40%
check-in2×1.40%
event2×1.40%
messaging2×1.40%
payments2×1.40%
registration2×1.40%
transact2×1.40%

AC MemberSmart

SUBSCRIPTION MANAGEMENT - Manage members, track activities & establish membership processes / structures - Automate the membership processes - Self-service portal for members - Secure payments w/ Stripe - Beautiful UI w/ a responsive design - Auto-complete info for logged-in users EVENT MANAGEMENT - Online & offline events: simple or complex, one-day or multi-day, free & paid - Offer multiple pricing packages - Mobile usability - Event microsites w/ unlimited pages - Internal user license pricing (not dependent on the # of event registrations) - and much more MEMBER DIRECTORY - Member management / tracking - Flexible member sorting - Content personalization options ORGANIZATION DIRECTORY - Display & manage partner / sponsor organizations - Flexible filtering, including by location - Ratings & reviews - Members can contact organizations through the site ECOMMERCE - Custom branded shop - Credit/debit card & offline payment - Manage products & inventory - Order, shipment & tax management JOB BOARD - Flexible, customized filters - Post jobs & volunteer opportunities - Search by jobs & location - Candidates can attach CVs / cover letters

Top keywords

management4×2.42%
event3×1.82%
flexible3×1.82%
member3×1.82%
members3×1.82%
directory2×1.21%
jobs2×1.21%
location2×1.21%

Blackthorn Events - In-Person and Online Event Management & Registration vs AC MemberSmart

Blackthorn Events - In-Person and Online Event Management & Registration

1. Listing metadata

AC MemberSmart

At a glance

AppRanks verdict

2. Pricing & plans

3. Features

4. Categories & rankings

5. Search rankings

6. Activity in the last 90 days

Blackthorn Events - In-Person and Online Event Management & Registration · 6 changes

AC MemberSmart · 0 changes

7. App details

Frequently asked

Is Blackthorn Events - In-Person and Online Event Management & Registration or AC MemberSmart: Your Key to a 360-Degree View of Your Members cheaper?

Which has better reviews, Blackthorn Events - In-Person and Online Event Management & Registration or AC MemberSmart: Your Key to a 360-Degree View of Your Members?

Should I choose Blackthorn Events - In-Person and Online Event Management & Registration or AC MemberSmart: Your Key to a 360-Degree View of Your Members?

Which is faster to set up, Blackthorn Events - In-Person and Online Event Management & Registration or AC MemberSmart: Your Key to a 360-Degree View of Your Members?

See full keyword rankings, install trends, and weekly alerts

More popular comparisons

Which works better for small vs large Salesforce AppExchange admins?

Can I migrate data between Blackthorn Events - In-Person and Online Event Management & Registration and AC MemberSmart: Your Key to a 360-Degree View of Your Members?