Memberships

Overview

Memberships let clients pay you automatically every week, fortnight, 4 weeks or month in return for classes. You create a membership plan setting out the price, how often it's billed, what it includes and, optionally, how long it runs for; clients join from your booking page; and HeyBookMe takes care of the rest - taking payments, sending receipts and reminders, and applying the membership whenever a member books a class.

Payments are taken through your own Stripe account just like any other booking, so there are no extra subscription-billing fees on top of your normal Stripe charges.

Membership types

Every plan has a billing frequency (how often the client pays - weekly, fortnightly, 4-weekly or monthly), a membership type (what they get for it) and an optional duration (see fixed terms and renewal). These are independent of each other - you can bill monthly for an allowance that resets weekly, for example. The only rule is that a class allowance can't reset less often than the plan is billed.

• Unlimited - any number of eligible class bookings while the membership is active. For example, "Unlimited yoga, £60 a month".
• Number of classes - a fixed number of bookings per period. You choose how often the allowance resets: per day, week, fortnight or month, or once per billing cycle - as often as you like, but never less often than the plan is billed. For example, "2 classes a week, billed monthly".
• Credit - a balance of credit each billing period, spent against class prices. If a class costs more than the credit left, the membership pays what it can and the client pays the rest by pass or card. For example, "£40 of classes each month for £30".
• Membership only - a paid membership with no class bookings included. It never reduces the price of a booking; use the plan's description to say what members get. For example, "Club membership, £10 a month".

How allowances work

• Allowances reset each period and don't roll over. Unused classes or credit are lost at the end of the period.
• A membership only covers classes inside the current paid-for period. A member can't use it to book a class that starts after their next payment date - those classes become bookable once the next payment is taken. They can still book them with a pass or card in the meantime.
• Allowance periods are counted from the day the member joined, not the calendar. Join on the 20th with a "per month" allowance and each period runs from the 20th to the 20th; join on a Thursday with "per week" and each period runs Thursday to Thursday. Nobody gets a full allowance for a partial first week or month. Periods are measured in your organisation's timezone and keep their local time when the clocks change.
• Allowance periods don't restart when a payment is taken. A "per week" allowance on a monthly plan simply rolls through the payment date, so the member always gets exactly one allowance per seven days. If the reset period matches the billing frequency - "per month" on a monthly plan, say - the two line up exactly, which is the same as choosing "per billing cycle".
• "Per month" isn't available on a 4-weekly plan. A calendar month is longer than four weeks, so it would reset less often than the member pays. Choose "per billing cycle" to reset every four weeks.
• Members can always see which period they're in. Their membership card under My memberships shows the current period's dates, how many classes they have left, and their next payment date.
• Usage is counted by the class date, not the booking date. Booking next week's class today uses next week's allowance.

Fixed terms and renewal

Leave a plan's duration blank and memberships run until they're cancelled. Set a duration and each membership runs for that many payments instead - 3 on a monthly plan is a 3-month term, 12 on a weekly plan is a 12-week term. It's a simple way to sell courses and commitments as well as rolling memberships: "12 weeks of beginners' yoga" is a fixed-term plan.

• Terms can be up to two years: 104 weekly, 52 fortnightly, 26 four-weekly or 24 monthly payments.
• Your booking page shows the term after the price, for example "£45 every 4 weeks for 12 weeks".
• Renewing a membership adds another term of the same length. Nothing is charged at the moment of renewal - payments simply carry on at the member's current price until the new end date.
• Each plan has a renewal email setting: how many days before the term ends the member is emailed about renewing. The default is 7 days, and it can be at most half the term. Changing it applies to existing members straight away.

What happens at the end of a term

You choose this once for your whole organisation under Settings > Memberships. The setting in force when a client joins is stored on their membership, so changing it later never alters what existing members signed up to - only memberships started after the change are affected.

• Expire unless renewed (the default) - when the renewal email is due, the member gets a "Membership ending soon" email with a one-click renew link (no sign-in needed), and a Renew membership button appears under My memberships. You can also renew for them from the member's page. If nobody renews, the membership expires at the end of the term with no further payment, and the member is emailed a link to join again.
• Renew automatically unless the member opts out - when the renewal email is due, the member gets a "Membership renewing soon" email with a link to turn off automatic renewal. At the end of the term the next term starts and its first payment is taken as normal. Members can turn automatic renewal off - and back on, while the term is still running - from My memberships or the emailed link, and you can do the same from the member's page. Turning it off means the membership ends with its current term.

Creating a membership plan

1. Go to Promotions > Memberships and click Add membership plan.
2. Enter a name and description. Both are shown on the plan's page on your booking page. Use the description to sell the plan - what it includes, who it's for, and anything the client should know. Any links you add open in a new tab.
3. Optionally add a logo. An image shown on the membership card (JPEG, PNG, GIF or WebP, up to 5MB).
4. Set the price. This is the amount taken at each payment. If you use tax rates, you can assign one here and the booking page will show the price inclusive or exclusive of tax according to your tax display settings.
5. Choose the billing frequency - weekly, fortnightly, 4-weekly or monthly.
6. Optionally set a duration. The number of payments each membership runs for. Leave it blank for memberships that run until cancelled. For fixed-term plans, also choose when the renewal email goes out - see fixed terms and renewal.
7. Choose the membership type - unlimited, number of classes, credit, or membership only - and enter the class count or credit value. For number-of-classes plans, choose how often the allowance resets - per day, week, fortnight or month, or once per billing cycle. You can't pick a reset period longer than the billing frequency ("per month" isn't available on a weekly, fortnightly or 4-weekly plan, for example), otherwise a member could take a month's worth of classes for one payment and cancel.
8. Choose which classes the membership applies to. All classes, or a specific selection of classes, schedules and categories. This works exactly like the restrictions on passes and discount codes. (Not needed for membership-only plans.)
9. Optionally make the plan private. See private plans below.
10. Optionally set an end date. The date from which new clients can no longer join. Leave it blank to keep the plan available indefinitely. See ending a plan.
11. Click "Create plan". Public plans appear on the Memberships tab of your booking page immediately. You can create as many plans as you like.

How clients join

Clients join from the Memberships tab on your hosted booking page or embedded widget. The tab appears automatically as soon as you have a public plan available.

1. Browse plans. Each card shows the name, logo, price (for example "£30 every month", plus the term for fixed-term plans), and a one-line summary of what's included. View membership opens the plan's page, with your description and a checklist of what's included, how often it's billed and, for fixed-term plans, how long it runs and what happens at the end.
2. Join and sign in. Clients click Join and identify themselves the same way as for bookings, by verifying their email address.
3. Confirm. A confirmation screen names the plan, shows what will be charged and when, spells out any fixed term and what happens at its end, and - if you have discount codes enabled - lets the client enter one.
4. Pay. The first time a client takes out a membership with you they're taken to Stripe Checkout, which takes the first payment and saves their card for future payments in one step. If they already have a card saved with you, they can choose to use it and the sign-up completes instantly, or enter a new one. Members can change their saved card at any time from My memberships - see the saved card.
5. Done. The client receives a confirmation email and can see the membership under My memberships on your booking page. You receive a "New membership" email.

Discount codes on memberships

You can restrict a discount code to all memberships or to specific plans. The discount applies to the first payment only - later payments are charged at the full plan price. A 100%-off code still collects the client's card so the next payment can be charged, which makes it a simple way to run a "first month free" offer.

How bookings are covered

Members don't need to do anything special. When they book a class that their membership covers, the price comes down automatically:

• The membership is applied first, then any pass, then card. If the membership only covers part of the price - a credit membership running low, say - the shortfall is taken from a pass if one applies, and anything left is charged to the card.
• A member with several memberships uses them in a fixed order: unlimited first, then number of classes, then credit - oldest membership first within each. So a class allowance is always used before any credit is spent.
• A fully-covered booking skips the payment step altogether. The checkout simply says the class is covered by the membership.
• A class is covered if it's within the plan's class restrictions, starts inside the member's current paid-for period, and there is allowance or credit left. Membership-only plans never cover bookings.
• Cancelling a covered booking returns the class or credit to the membership.
• Every covered booking is recorded in the membership's usage history. You can see it on the member's page, and the client can see it under My memberships.

Editing a plan

From Promotions > Memberships, click a plan to edit its name, description, logo, price, renewal email timing, tax rate, class restrictions, privacy and end date. See the note above about settings that are locked once a plan has members.

Changing the price

By default, changing a plan's price only affects new sign-ups - existing members carry on paying what they signed up at. If you want existing members to move to the new price:

1. Change the price on the plan edit page and tick Apply to existing memberships.
2. Enter a notice period in days. The minimum is 30 days. The new price takes effect from each member's first payment on or after today plus the notice period, so a weekly member may see a few more payments at the old price first.
3. Save. Every affected member is emailed with the new price and the date it applies, and sees the pending change under My memberships.

You can also schedule a price change for a single member from their page - handy if you want to keep one long-standing client on their existing price while everyone else moves. To cancel a scheduled change, set the pending price back to the member's current price. Renewing a fixed term doesn't change the price - the member carries on paying their current price, including any scheduled change.

Private plans

A private plan is hidden from the Memberships tab on your booking page and can only be reached through its direct link, which is shown on the plan page in your dashboard. Private plans are ideal for special offers to selected clients, corporate arrangements, or plans you only want to promote through a particular channel such as a mailing list.

Ending a plan

Membership plans are never deleted, instead a plan is retired with an end date. Use End now on the plans list, or edit the plan and set an end date in the future. A plan that's ended can be reactivated later.

When you end a plan, choose what happens to existing members:

• Block new sign-ups; existing memberships carry on (the default) - nobody new can join, but existing members carry on as normal.
• Block new sign-ups and end existing memberships - memberships that run until cancelled end at their first payment date on or after the end date. Fixed-term memberships end at the first end of a term on or after it, so members keep (and pay for) the term they're in. Members are emailed to let them know, with a link to browse your other plans. The form shows how many active memberships will end.

Common questions

For viewing your members, handling payments, renewals and cancellations, and membership reports, see managing memberships.