The case for a seat
Dues are $3,750 a year. Here's the math.
What a seat buys, what it replaces, and how to make the case — to your CEO, your CFO, or yourself.
$312 / month
Roughly one hour of an employment attorney. Less than most companies spend per seat on HR software nobody likes.
What it replaces
You're not buying content. You're buying access to the emerging playbook.
Five or six leaders in the same seat who will tell you the truth, every month, for a year. Here's how that compares to the other ways People leaders buy help.
| Option | Typical cost | What you actually get |
|---|---|---|
| Executive coach | $12,000–$17,000 per six-month contract | One person's perspective, trained on frameworks rather than your job |
| Management consultant | $50,000+ per engagement | A deck, and a team learning your business on your budget |
| Conference | $2,000–5,000 plus travel | Two days, a tote bag, and a stack of business cards |
| Another HR community | Free to $10,000 | A Slack channel with four thousand people in it |
| A seat on the Board | $3,750 / year | Five or six vetted peers in your exact seat every month, plus monthly access to experts you couldn't book alone |
The downside you're insuring against
One conversation covers the seat.
These aren't hypotheticals. They're what members bring to the hot seat — and in every case, someone in the room has already been through it.
- Six figuresA mis-sequenced reduction in force. Wrong order, wrong notice period, one protected-class pattern nobody caught in advance.
- A lost yearA comp rebuild that has to be redone. Bands set against the wrong market, then unwound in front of the people you just told they were fair.
- 18 months of salaryAn exec hire at the top of a 1,000-person org who doesn't work. Plus the drag on everyone underneath them while you sort it out.
- TrustAn AI mandate the company resents. Rolled out before anyone framed what it meant for people's jobs.
The seat costs less than the cheapest version of any of those.
Who's paying
Two ways members do this. Both are normal.
Your company is paying
Most members expense the seat against L&D, executive development, or professional membership budgets. A few things that make it easier to approve:
It's an annual membership, not travel — usually a cleaner line item. There's no travel cost attached to the core product. And the ask sits under most single-signature approval thresholds.
We wrote the approval note for you. Two fields to personalize, then send.
You're paying
Plenty of members fund the seat themselves, on purpose. Some would rather not explain a discretionary line. Some want it to be theirs.
That one matters more than it sounds: the seat is portable. If you change companies, you keep it. A company-paid license wouldn't work that way, and you're going to change companies again.
If your company offers a lifestyle spending account or a professional development stipend, a seat typically qualifies.
Before anyone asks
The questions a CFO will have.
What's the actual time commitment?+–
Seventy-five minutes a month for your board meeting, plus five minutes of pre-work. Expert sessions and dinners are optional. That's it — we deliberately kept the programming light, because every People leader we interviewed said the same thing about their calendar.
What if it isn't a fit?+–
Attend your onboarding call and your first board meeting. If it's not for you, full refund within 45 days. No hoops, no conversation you have to talk your way out of.
What happens if I leave my job?+–
The seat is yours, not your company's. If you change roles, you keep it. If you're between roles, you keep it — you were in the top seat when you joined, and that's the bar. The one thing we'd ask is that you tell your group, because they'll want to help.
Is this a vendor relationship?+–
No. There are no sponsors in the room, no vendors, no fractionals selling into the membership. Nobody is buying access to you. That's most of why the conversations are worth anything.
What does the company get, not just me?+–
Every problem worked on in the room comes back into your organization the following week — with five people's judgment attached instead of one. Members also get benchmarking against comparable companies on comp, structure, and process, without commissioning a survey.
Why is it capped at 350 seats?+–
Because the thing that kills communities is scale. Every leader we interviewed told the same story: it started well, it got big, it got noisy, they left. The cap is the product.
Worth a conversation?
Thirty minutes with the MPL Team. No pitch — you'll know either way.