Memberships

Overview

Memberships let clients pay you automatically every week, fortnight or month in return for classes. You create a membership plan setting out the price, how often it's billed and what it includes; clients sign up from your booking page; and HeyBookMe takes care of the rest - charging renewals, 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) and a membership type (what they get for it). The two are independent - 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 period - 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".

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 billing date - those classes become bookable once the membership renews. 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 the membership renews. A "per week" allowance on a monthly plan simply rolls through the renewal 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".
• 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 billing date.
• Usage is counted by the class date, not the booking date. Booking next week's class today uses next week's allowance.

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 membership card on your booking page. Use the description to sell the plan - what it includes, who it's for, and anything the client should know.
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 charged every billing period. 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 or monthly.
6. Choose the membership type - unlimited, number of classes, or credit - 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 plan, for example), otherwise a member could take a month's worth of classes for one week's payment and cancel.
7. 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.
8. Optionally make the plan private. See private plans below.
9. Optionally set an end date. The date from which new clients can no longer sign up. Leave it blank to keep the plan available indefinitely.
10. 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 sign up

Clients sign up 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 per period, a one-line summary of what's included and your description.
2. Sign in. Clients identify themselves the same way as for bookings, by verifying their email address.
3. Confirm. A confirmation screen names the plan 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 renewals in one step. If they already have a card saved with you, they can use it and the sign-up completes instantly. 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 billing period only - renewals are charged at the full plan price. A 100%-off code still collects the client's card so the first renewal 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 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.
• 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, 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 at each member's first renewal on or after today plus the notice period, so a weekly member may see a few more renewals 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.

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 only (the default) - nobody new can join, but existing members keep renewing as normal.
• Block new sign-ups and stop renewals - each existing membership ends at its first renewal on or after the end date. Members are emailed to let them know, with a link to browse your other plans.

Common questions

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