If you’re exploring digital membership cards and mobile wallets, chances are PassKit and Cuseum are both on your radar. On the surface they can look similar, both mention digital cards, both speak to museums and cultural organizations, but under the hood they’re built for very different things.
This article breaks down those differences so you can decide which one actually fits your strategy. We’ll start with a high-level comparison of focus, scalability, security, and pricing, then dig into what each platform is really built for, how they handle membership experiences, integrations, and compliance, and where each one makes the most sense in practice.
PassKit Vs Cuseum At a Glance
Here’s a quick side-by-side look at how PassKit and Cuseum differ in focus, scale, and flexibility, so you can see which one better fits your digital membership and wallet strategy at a glance.
| Feature | PassKit | Cuseum |
|---|---|---|
| Product Focus | Mobile wallet engagement platform for Apple Wallet & Google Wallet passes (memberships, tickets, loyalty, offers, coupons) used by museums, attractions, venues, and brands across many industries. | A niche membership & engagement application for museums and cultural nonprofits, with digital cards as one part of a narrower, sector-specific toolset. |
| Industry Alignment | Supports museums and cultural orgs alongside retail, hospitality, events, and other verticals. | Designed primarily for museums, zoos, and cultural attractions that want a ready-made engagement stack tailored to that world. |
| Developer APIs | Robust APIs, SDKs, and webhooks built to act as a general-purpose wallet engine for in-house teams and agencies; easy to integrate with CRMs, ticketing, and custom apps. | APIs focused on connecting Cuseum’s own modules and supported museum CRMs; more app-suite oriented than infrastructure-oriented. |
| Enterprise-Grade Security | SOC 2 Type II–certified platform with strong controls, governance, and auditability. | SaaS security and privacy practices aligned to cultural institutions using Cuseum’s applications and integrations. |
| Scalability | Built to run multiple programs and brands at global scale (loyalty, tickets, memberships, offers) and recognized as a Google Wallet Premier Partner, reflecting its ability to support large wallet deployments. | Scales effectively for individual museums and attraction groups that primarily use Cuseum’s membership and engagement tools. |
| Real-Time Pass Updates | Event-driven, real-time updates from your CRM, ticketing, or backend so wallet passes always match current status, expiry, and benefits across channels. | Real-time updates mainly within Cuseum’s ecosystem for memberships and tickets managed inside their platform. |
| Integrations & Ecosystem | Highly flexible: connects via APIs, webhooks, and automation tools (e.g., Zapier/Make) so you can keep your system of record and add wallet on top across many use cases. | Strong, opinionated integrations with common museum CRMs and ticketing systems, ideal if you live primarily inside those tools. |
| Pricing Approach | Usage-based, pay-as-you-grow wallet infrastructure. Great for pilots that later scale across multiple programs, brands, and venues. | Subscription SaaS that reflects the broader bundle of membership, portal, and engagement features in one package. |
| Free Trial? | 45-Day Free Trial (Instant Signup) | Request a Demo |
| Best For | Organizations that want a secure, flexible wallet foundation they control and can reuse across many programs, channels, and even non-museum use cases. | Organizations that want a single, museum-focused membership & engagement platform with more of the experience pre-packaged. |
1. What Each Platform Is Really Built For
Although both platforms talk about digital membership cards, they weren’t designed for the same job. Before digging into features, it’s important to understand the core role each one is meant to play.
PassKit
PassKit is a mobile wallet engagement and infrastructure platform. It’s designed to create, issue, and manage Apple Wallet and Google Wallet passes at scale, covering memberships, tickets, loyalty, coupons, and more across many industries, including museums and attractions.
You plug it into your existing CRM, ticketing, or marketing tools via APIs, webhooks, and integrations, and use it as the wallet “engine” behind your programs.
Cuseum
Cuseum is a niche visitor and member engagement platform built specifically for museums, attractions, and cultural nonprofits. Digital membership cards are one part of a broader suite that also includes a member portal, mobile engagement, SMS, guest pass referral, digital tickets, and AR.
2. Membership Experience & Features
Although both platforms support digital membership cards, they shape the member experience in different ways.
PassKit
Digital membership cards in the wallet
PassKit puts Apple Wallet and Google Wallet at the center of the experience. You design a branded pass with logo, colors, member name, tier, expiry, and barcode or QR, and members store it directly in their phone’s wallet. No separate app is required.
Real-time, event-driven updates
When membership details change, such as renewals, upgrades, lapses, or new benefits, the pass can be updated in real time so what the member sees on their device always reflects their current status.
Flexible distribution and journeys
Passes can be delivered by email, SMS, QR codes, links, or in-app flows. Because PassKit connects to your CRM, ticketing, and marketing tools, cards can be issued and updated as part of your existing join, renew, and visit journeys.
Beyond membership only
The same platform can handle tickets, access, loyalty, and offers, so members can have a single wallet experience that covers admission, benefits, and rewards instead of juggling separate systems.
Cuseum
Museum-focused membership suite
Cuseum provides digital membership cards as part of a museum-focused membership solution, aimed at simplifying how cultural institutions issue cards, manage renewals, and communicate with members.
Member portal and self-service
A key part of Cuseum’s experience is its member portal. Members can log in to download their membership cards and tickets, update their details, and access or share guest passes from one place.
Guest passes, SMS, and engagement tools
Cuseum also offers tools such as guest pass referrals, SMS and text messaging, and mobile engagement features, including optional AR modules. These are designed to help museums drive visits, referrals, and on-site or at-home engagement from within the Cuseum ecosystem.
Overall, PassKit focuses on a wallet-native membership experience that fits into your existing journeys and scales across multiple use cases, while Cuseum focuses on a museum-specific membership experience with more built-in surrounding tools.
3. Integrations & Ecosystem
How each platform connects to the rest of your stack is one of the biggest practical differences between PassKit and Cuseum.
PassKit
PassKit is designed to act as a wallet engine that can sit behind almost any stack. It offers REST APIs, SDKs, and webhooks so your CRM, ticketing system, website, or app can create, update, and manage passes directly.
You can trigger new cards from events like a membership purchase, renewal, or ticket sale, and feed pass activity back into your own systems for reporting and automation.
On the no-code side, PassKit provides native integrations with automation tools such as Zapier and Make. That lets you connect PassKit to thousands of third-party apps like payment processors, forms, spreadsheets, email platforms, and e-commerce without writing code.
It means a museum, venue, or brand can usually keep its existing CRM and marketing tools, and simply “bolt on” PassKit to add Apple and Google Wallet capabilities.
Cuseum
Cuseum’s integrations are more opinionated and museum-centric. Its support and documentation focus on getting digital membership cards working with sector staples such as Tessitura, Blackbaud Altru, Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT, Neon CRM, Spektrix, ACME, and CSV or SFTP imports.
The idea is that membership and ticketing teams who already live in these tools can sync records into Cuseum with as little custom work as possible.
Cuseum also offers a Zapier integration, but it is positioned as an additional option rather than the primary integration model. Most of the guidance is around connecting Cuseum’s own modules to the museum CRMs and ticketing systems it sees most often.
4. Security, Compliance & Trust
Security and compliance are often make or break factors, especially when membership and donor data is involved.
PassKit
PassKit is built as an infrastructure platform with security at the core. It is SOC 2 Type II certified, with controls that cover how data is stored, accessed, monitored, and audited over time. Customer data is encrypted in transit and at rest, access is governed by role based permissions and multi factor authentication, and activity is captured through detailed audit logging.
The platform is designed for high availability and large scale programs, which is why it is used by organizations running wallet passes globally.
Compliance and certifications
PassKit maintains an annual SOC 2 Type II report and runs its program with support from independent auditors and automated compliance tooling. In addition to SOC 2, it provides data processing agreements, regional hosting options, and documentation that teams can use in IT and legal reviews.
PassKit is recognised as a Google Wallet Premier Partner, signalling that it meets Google’s standards for high-quality Wallet implementations and giving organisations extra confidence in choosing it as their wallet infrastructure provider.
Cuseum
Cuseum positions security as a core concern for museums and cultural institutions. It is hosted on AWS data centers that carry certifications such as ISO 27001 and SOC, and it follows AWS guidance around decommissioning, data destruction, and infrastructure hardening.
Data is encrypted in transit and at rest, and the company describes internal practices such as code review, monitoring, and regular updates to address vulnerabilities.
While Cuseum relies on AWS environments that hold SOC 2 certifications, it does not present itself as having its own SOC 2 attestation in the same way an infrastructure provider like PassKit does.
Compliance and data privacy
Cuseum frames its compliance around museum and nonprofit needs. It highlights alignment with GDPR and CCPA, participation in mechanisms like the EU–US Data Privacy Framework and its UK and Swiss extensions, and the Cyber Essentials scheme.
Its data privacy materials emphasise that member data is handled in line with global privacy regulations and that institutions and their constituents can exercise rights such as access, correction, and deletion.
5. Pricing & Commercial Model
Pricing is not just about the number, it affects how easy it is to pilot, scale and justify the platform internally.
PassKit
PassKit uses a usage based, pay as you grow model. There is a 45 day free trial with full access to the portal and APIs and no credit card required. During that period you can design passes, test workflows and even go live without paying.
After the trial, pricing combines a modest platform fee with a volume based fee that depends on the number and type of passes in circulation, for example membership or loyalty versus single use tickets or coupons.
There are no setup fees, no long term contracts and no minimum volume commitment, and billing is monthly. This makes it relatively easy to start with a small pilot and then scale across more programs, venues or brands as adoption grows.
Cuseum
Cuseum follows a more traditional subscription SaaS model. Pricing is quote based and typically structured as an annual license tied to the scope of products you use, for example digital membership cards alone or cards plus portal, SMS and other engagement features.
There is a free trial option for some offerings, but detailed pricing is usually provided as part of a sales conversation rather than a public rate card.
6. Analytics and Reporting
Both platforms offer analytics, but they reflect their different roles.
PassKit
PassKit provides analytics that are tightly connected to how people actually use their wallet passes. Inside the PassKit portal, you can see how many people have enrolled, how many cards have been installed or removed, and how many active passes you have at any given time. You can track performance by day, month, or year and break things down by channel, device type, and wallet provider.
PassKit also lets you monitor key events such as installs, uninstalls, redemptions, and scans, and then surface that data in dashboards or export it for use in BI tools and reports. For teams that already rely on their own CRM and analytics stack, this makes PassKit’s reporting a focused layer that slots into existing measurement frameworks rather than replacing them.
Cuseum
Cuseum offers analytics focused on digital membership and museum KPIs. Its digital membership analytics dashboard tracks adoption of digital cards, usage by membership level, and how different segments are engaging with the program. The goal is to help membership teams understand who has activated their card, how that varies across tiers, and how member communications are performing.
Alongside this, Cuseum publishes content and guidance on membership metrics and KPIs, helping cultural institutions think about renewals, engagement, and growth. For teams that manage most of their membership operations inside Cuseum and museum CRMs, this museum-centric view can be helpful, even if it is more narrowly focused than a general-purpose analytics platform.
7. Support and Documentation
Support and documentation matter a lot when you are rolling out digital cards across a live member base.
PassKit
PassKit maintains a detailed online help center that covers every stage of using the platform, including design, integration, distribution, updates, analytics, and development. There are step by step guides, quickstarts, SDK documentation, and articles aimed at both marketers and developers, as well as resources specifically for agencies working on behalf of clients.
For direct assistance, customers can use the chat, powered by AI and backed by the PassKit support team. PassKit also publishes information about its support standards and encourages customers to treat the relationship as a partnership, with training materials and best practice content to help teams get the most from wallet passes over time.
Cuseum
Cuseum also provides a help center with articles on digital membership cards, mobile apps, the member portal, SMS, and frequently asked questions from both staff and members. This is designed to help membership and visitor services teams configure their setup and respond quickly to common member inquiries.
Why PassKit Is a Better Choice Than Cuseum
PassKit and Cuseum both support digital membership cards, but they play very different roles. PassKit is a wallet infrastructure and engagement platform: it powers Apple Wallet and Google Wallet passes for memberships, tickets, loyalty, and offers across many industries, and plugs into the CRM, ticketing, and marketing tools you already use. With SOC 2 Type II certification and Google Wallet Premier Partner status, it gives you a secure, scalable foundation you can roll out across multiple programs, brands, and venues.
Cuseum is a niche, museum-focused app that bundles digital cards with a portal, guest passes, and engagement tools for cultural institutions. That can suit a single museum that wants an all-in-one bundle and is happy to live inside that ecosystem. But if you want wallet passes to be a strategic capability rather than just a feature in one app, PassKit’s broader scope, stronger security story, and integration-first approach make it the clearer long-term choice.
