Passport America and its ilk

if you want more developed private campgrounds PA can be a good deal. If your looking at state parks, county parks, FS parks and more undeveloped campgrounds, it may not be worth the cost. We usually stay at state/county/FS parks or remote sites and PA was basically a wash for us over a couple of years. But mostly because of where we like to camp. and in some cases the discount didn't apply during the times we wanted to camp.

Good sam is worth the investment IMHO, since most any private cg gives a good sam discount. Also AARP, AAA or Sr. status will often get you a discount.

It's hard to beat a $5/night cost at a FS campground with the America the Beautiful Sr. pass!

We have only ever joined PA and Good Sam. We travel a lot and frequently move so usually recovered our investment in PA within a couple of weeks. We wouldn't travel without it.
However, we don't travel in the summer or high season so aren't hitting the RV parks when they are full anyway. All those restrictions? If you can cut your RV parking cost in half even for a couple of nights, that's usually paid for your membership right there. Good Sam is less useful. Not sure we'd renew next year. A 10% discount (GS) isn't nearly as interesting as the PA 50% discount, to me.

We've made our money back on PA in one stay, it may take some a little longer, like 2 or 3 stays, but a 50% discount is Very much worth it to me, as long as you read and know the restrictions ahead of time, you won't get blindsided, there are some on here that say there are no PA CG's where they go,with almost 2000 CG's, I find that hard to understand. I read one lady who would not re-new her membership because there were none near where she camped, (she only camped 20 mi. from her house).
It's a tool, we use it in conjunction with Good Sam,& America the Beautiful Senior Pass, between the three, we save a LOT on CG fees.