Paid Subscription Membership

Start a subscription business and get paid every month! By creating a Paid Subscription Membership on your site, your visitors will be able to pay a recurring subscription to become members. You can then give paid members special access to paid-only content.

Paid Membership is perfect for selling recurring content or a subscription product. You can create multiple tiers of membership at different prices, and even set discounts for quarterly or yearly plans.

Note: This feature is only available for Pro Plan & up. On a Pro plan, you can create one paid membership tier. On a VIP plan, you can create five membership tiers.

Contents

• How to Sell Subscription Memberships
• Setting Up Members-Only Pages
• View Member Information in Audience List
• Test Tier
• What Your Customer Sees
• Difference between Registration Methods
• FAQ
  • 1. Can I create coupons for a Paid Subscription Membership?
  • 2. Can I set specific products in my Simple Store to have recurring payments?
  • 3. How does monthly payment recur if the initial payment starts on the 31st of a month?
  • 4. Can I edit the amount of each existing pricing?

 

Difference between PRO and VIP

PRO	VIP
Supports 1 Membership Tier	Supports Up To 5 Membership Tiers

 

How to Sell Subscription Memberships

Before setting up Paid Membership, we recommend you read through Activate the Membership first.

1. Connect your Stripe account

We currently only support Stripe as the payment gateway for Paid Subscriptions. Connect your Stripe account in Settings > Accept Payment first. Make sure your Stripe is "Enabled". See how to connect to Stripe here. 

2. Select Registration Method & Set a price

Then, in your Membership settings, set the Registration Method to Paid Subscription Membership and set a monthly price. 

Note:

• The price will automatically be billed to your members on a recurring basis until they cancel or you cancel the subscription, or until the payment fails.
  • The price is billed every month, quarter, or year.
    
    
• Recurring payments are collected on the same day of the month. For example, if a monthly subscription is started on January 1, it will renew on February 1, March 1, etc.
  
  
• The price must be greater than or equal to US$0.50 in any currency.
  • If the amount is less than US$0.50 equivalent, the payment will fail! Regardless of your selected currency, please make sure the price's USD equivalent is at least US$0.50. 
    
    
• If you have Paid Subscription Memberships, you must keep your Stripe connection active. If you disconnect Stripe, all of your recurring subscriptions will be terminated immediately.

 

3. Add Multiple Membership Tiers (Available for VIP users)

You can create a new tier by clicking the "+ADD TIER" button. You can create up to 5 tiers on one site.

Multiple membership tiers can be reordered by dragging & drop the burger icon on the left. This will change the order they will appear for your customer when they register.

 

4. Delete membership tier

Delete a tier by clicking the 'Delete' button on the bottom right of the edit tier popup if you don't want to sell this tier anymore.

• When you delete a membership tier with the "Free Membership" or "Buy Product to Register" registration method, it will be deleted immediately, and visitors will not be able to select this tier anymore upon registration.
  
  
• When you delete a membership tier with the "Paid Subscription Membership" tier:
  • New visitors will not be able to select this tier anymore upon registration.
  • For any existing members who are still actively paying for the subscription: Their membership will expire after their current billing period, and will no longer be renewed. This tier will become a "legacy tier" which holds any remaining expiring memberships. Once all memberships have expired, the legacy tier will also be deleted.
  • You can click "View legacy tiers" to view these expiring tiers.
    
    
    
    
    
    
• Information about former members will still be kept in the Audience list, labeled as "Former Member."
  
  

5. Manage Subscriptions in Strikingly Orders.

You can view all subscriptions in Orders - Subscriptions. Each subscription has a status:

• Active: The customer has paid successfully, and the subscription is ongoing.
• Canceled: The subscription was canceled by the site owner or members, this subscription will show Cancelled status. The customer is no longer billed, and they will no longer be able to access "paid members only" content.
• Payment Failed: A renewal payment has failed. The customer is no longer billed, and they will no longer be able to access "paid members only" content.

As the site owner, you can manually cancel a subscription on the Subscription Detail page. Upon cancellation, this member will no longer have access to "paid members only" content, and will no longer be billed.

In the Subscription History section, you can see the history of events relating to this subscription, including each payment time.

 

Setting Up Members-Only Pages

Give your customers access to exclusive online content by creating members-only pages. For more details, please see Add Membership to Your Website!

1. On your site editor, click Manage. 

2. Click the gear icon of the page that you want to set as members-only.

• Members only: all free members, paid members, and members with cancelled subscriptions will see this page.
• Paid members only: the paid members with an active paid subscription will see this page.
• Specific tiers: only members of the selected tiers will see this page.
• Members who purchased a specific product: (if you already have a Simple Store on your site), Store customers who purchased a specific product will see this page.
  
  

You can set up existing pages as members-only, or you can start with a new page. All sections will be available for you to add!

 

View Member Information in Audience List

In the Audience list, you can view all your members by clicking the "Members" tab or by applying a custom filter to view only selected membership tiers.

When viewing the details for an Audience contact, in the left sidebar there are ways to edit a user's membership.

• You can delete membership for any member. When you do this, they will no longer be able to log in. If the membership is a paid membership, they will no longer be billed.
  
  
  
  
  
• You can also grant membership to an existing non-member user. When you do this, the user will receive an email with the login URL. You will be able to select which tier you want to grant. If you choose to grant a paid membership tier, this user will not be billed. You can use this to bypass the billing system but still grant specific memberships to specific users. (If you want to grant membership to a new user, you will need to Import contacts manually first.)
  
  
  
  

 

Test Account

When you activate a membership on your site, we automatically create a test account so you can see what your site looks like to a member. You can see the details from your Membership page settings > Log in URL.



To test different membership tiers, you can select a tier for your test account. Then, when you log into your live site using this test account, you'll see your site as if you're a member of that tier.

 

What Your Customer Sees

View this example site: http://paidmembership.mystrikingly.com/ 

1. Register & checkout

• When a visitor opens the registration URL, they will see a popup. If your site has multiple membership tiers, the visitor will be prompted to select a membership tier. The tiers will be listed in the same order that they were configured in your store's Membership settings.
  • If the tier has many payment options (e.g. monthly, yearly), those will be shown as various payment options.
• Note: "Buy Product to Register" tiers will not be shown here, since the visitor must buy an item from the store to gain membership.

Note: Even if your customers cancel the checkout or the initial payment failed, they will have a free membership. In this case, they can begin a subscription via the "My Account" menu on your live site.

 

2. View Subscription in My Account

Your members are able to view their subscription details in the "My Account" menu after logging into your site. They can also cancel anytime.

 

• • When the subscription is canceled, the customer's membership will revert to a free membership, and will no longer have access to the "paid member only" content.
  • A free member will see other paid membership tiers and can subscribe to one from the tiers list.
  • When the renewal payment failed, the subscription will become canceled and will expire immediately. 

 

Difference between Registration Methods

Registration Method		Customer Experience
Free Membership		Anyone can register, no payment is required.
Paid Subscription Membership		A member is required to subscribe & pay for the Paid Membership during the registration.
Buy Product to Register	Buy Any Product to Register	Any customer who buys a product from your store will receive a membership via email.
	Buy Specific Product to Register	Any customer who buys specific products from your store will receive a membership via email.

 

For more details, we recommend you read these related tutorials:

• Add Membership to Your Website!
• Sell Your Online Courses with Membership

 

FAQ

1. Can I create coupons for a Paid Subscription Membership?

Currently, our coupons do not support Paid Subscription Membership. If you need this feature, please let us know via online support.

 

2. Can I set specific products in my Simple Store to have recurring payments?

Unfortunately, no. Currently, our Paid Membership function is tied to our Membership function, and not to our Simple Store, since the recurring payment subscription model works differently than regular store products.

 

3. How does monthly payment recur if the initial payment starts on the 31st of a month?

Example: A $10/month subscription begins on July 31. The customer will be billed as follows:

• July 31 = $10.00
• August 31 = $10.00
• October 1= $10.00
• October 31= $10.00

 

4. Can I edit the amount of each existing pricing?

No, you cannot directly edit the amount of each existing pricing. However, you can uncheck an existing pricing. If you uncheck it, existing members who belong to this pricing will continue to pay, but non-members won't see this pricing and won't be able to purchase it.

If you decide to check the existing pricing again after unchecking it, there won't be any effect on existing members. But the pricing option will become visible to non-members, and they'll be able to purchase it.

Please note, you need to keep at least one pricing option checked at all times.

 

5. Are there any transaction fees for paid membership subscription?

Yes, we use Stripe for recurring payment. The transaction fees for Stripe differ based on your location. Please refer to Stripe's website or contact their support for detailed fee information. Strikingly.com also charges additional fees for using payment gateways. You can find information about transaction fees on your pricing page.

 

6. Can I use Square for paid membership subscription?

No, we currently only support Stripe for recurring payment processing.