Starting a private club is mostly a membership business with a hospitality business attached. The room matters, but what keeps the doors open is a list of people who pay every year and keep showing up. Everything below is in the order I'd make the decisions.
1. Decide what kind of club it is
"Private club" covers a lot of ground. The kind you pick decides your fees, your license and who you're competing with.
- Social or city club: a clubhouse, dining, a bar, events. Membership is the product.
- Cigar, whiskey or bourbon club: built around a humidor or a bottle collection, usually with lockers.
- Speakeasy-style membership bar: a bar with a door policy. Members get in, and guests come with a member.
- A members' room inside another business: a lounge in a restaurant, a cigar shop or a hotel.
A gut check: if what people really pay for is a tee time, a gym or a newsletter, you're building a different business, and different software exists for it.
2. Set fees and tiers
Founders overthink this one, because the famous clubs are the only ones anybody writes about. Small clubs publish much more modest numbers. Here are real ones.
| Club | Initiation | Dues | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| City Club San Francisco City club | $800 to $1,200 | $175 to $220 a month | Their page |
| City Club Los Angeles City club | $500 | $372 a month (Executive) | Their page |
| The Drawing Room, Pittsburgh Cigar club | $2,000 | $150 a month | Their page |
| Capital Club, Helena Cigar club | $500 signup fee | $85 a month | Their page |
| Median of 39 cigar lounges Cigar lounges | Usually none | $100 a month or $600 a year | Our pricing guide |
Published prices from each club's or operator's own site, September 2026. Prices change, so check the source.
A few things I'd do regardless of your numbers:
- Keep tiers to three or fewer. A main tier, a premium tier with the locker or the perks, and maybe an associate or out-of-town tier. Every extra tier is a conversation at the door.
- Price the premium tier by what it includes. If the difference is a locker, the lounges in our pricing research charge anywhere from $120 to $1,140 a year more for it.
- Decide monthly or annual on purpose. Annual up front funds the room and keeps people around. Monthly makes it easier to join. Plenty of clubs offer both and discount annual.
3. Decide how people get in
This is the decision that makes it a club. You have three options:
- Open application: anyone can apply, and you approve.
- Sponsored: a current member proposes the candidate, often with a second member seconding them. The classic model, and still the best filter.
- Invitation only: the club reaches out. Great for the founding group, hard to scale.
Whatever you pick, write down who decides (usually a small membership committee), whether there's a cap, and what happens to approved people when you're full. More on the mechanics in applications and nominations.
4. Write the guest policy
Get this wrong and the room fills up with people who don't pay dues. Decide it before opening night, not during it:
- How many guests a member can bring per visit.
- Whether guests pay anything, and whether members can buy extra guest passes.
- Whether the member has to stay with their guest the whole visit. (Say yes.)
- Whether a guest can come back without a member, and how many times before you ask them to join.
Check your local liquor rules here too. Some private club licenses limit who can be served and how guests are handled.
5. Sell founding memberships first
The best move I've seen a club make is selling a founding tier before the doors open. Founding members get a better rate, sometimes a numbered membership or first pick of lockers, and in return they fund the buildout and bring their friends.
Two details worth copying. Put a hard cap on it, and show how many spots are left. And let founding members nominate the next wave, because the people your first 50 bring in will decide what the place feels like.
6. Put the rules in writing
Bylaws or a member agreement: dues and what happens when they're late, the guest policy, conduct, how members can be removed, and the locker rules. Have an attorney look at it. Then make accepting it a step in joining, so nobody can say they never saw it.
7. Pick how you'll run it
A spreadsheet is fine for your first 30 people. Somewhere past that, dues get chased by text and nominations live in someone's inbox. When you look at software, ask three questions:
- Does it handle how people get in, not just how they pay?
- Can you get a flat price with no cut of your dues?
- Does it know about the room: lockers, guests, and a bartender who needs to look someone up?
Parlor was built to answer yes to all three. There's a comparison of the common options on the private clubs page.