Memberships

Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.bellabooking.com/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

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Introduction

Memberships let you offer recurring subscription plans that clients pay for on a regular billing cycle. Each plan includes one or more benefits — percentage discounts, included sessions, or unlimited access to selected services. Billing is handled automatically through Stripe, and clients can purchase, view, and manage their memberships through your online booking portal. This is ideal for building predictable recurring revenue and rewarding committed clients. For example, you might offer a “VIP Monthly” membership that includes 4 facial sessions per month plus 20% off all other services. Note: Memberships is a location-level feature. If you have multiple locations, you enable and configure plans separately for each one.

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Key Features

• Flexible billing cycles: Choose from 9 frequencies — weekly, fortnightly, every 4 weeks, monthly, every 6 weeks, every 2 months, quarterly, every 6 months, or annually
• Customisable benefits: Each plan can include multiple benefits with discount percentages, optional session limits, and service-specific or all-service scope
• Automatic recurring billing: Stripe handles subscription billing, invoice generation, and payment retries automatically
• Online purchase: Clients can browse plans and subscribe through your online booking portal via Stripe Checkout
• Client self-service: Clients view their membership status, session usage, and next charge date in the My Membership portal
• Session tracking: For capped benefits, session counters track usage per billing cycle and reset automatically at renewal
• Pause and resume: Optionally allow team members to pause a client’s subscription temporarily and resume when ready
• Flexible cancellation: Cancel immediately or at the end of the current billing period
• Benefit redemption at checkout: Membership discounts are automatically applied when checking out appointments for matching services
• Terms and conditions: Attach versioned terms to plans — clients accept them at purchase time
• Automated notifications: Email and SMS notifications for activation, payment failures, and cancellation
• Dashboard enrolment: Enrol clients directly from the business dashboard without requiring them to purchase online
• Archive and restore: Archive plans you no longer offer and restore them later if needed

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How Memberships Work

1. You create a membership plan in Memberships — defining the name, price, billing cycle, and benefits
2. The plan is made available for online purchase or offered to clients by your team
3. A client subscribes — either online via Stripe Checkout or enrolled by a team member from their profile
4. After the first payment is confirmed, the membership activates and the billing period begins
5. Benefits apply automatically — when the client checks out for a matching service, the membership discount is applied
6. For capped benefits (e.g., “4 sessions per cycle”), session counters track usage and reset each billing cycle
7. Billing continues automatically on the chosen cycle until the membership is paused, cancelled, or payment fails
8. If a payment fails, the membership moves to a Payment Failed status and the client is notified

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Creating a Membership Plan

1. Go to Memberships in the sidebar
2. Click New Plan
3. Fill in the plan details:
   • Plan name (required): A descriptive name (e.g., “VIP Monthly”)
   • Description (optional): Additional details about what’s included
   • Price (required): The recurring subscription price
   • Billing cycle (required): How often the client is billed
   • Active: Toggle whether the plan is available for enrolment
   • Allow online purchase: Toggle whether clients can subscribe through your booking portal
   • Allow pause: Toggle whether team members can pause subscriptions on this plan from the dashboard
4. Add one or more benefits (at least one required)
5. Click Save

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Benefits

Each benefit defines a specific advantage the plan offers. A plan can have multiple benefits. For each benefit, you configure:

• Label (required): A description shown to clients (e.g., “4 LED sessions per cycle”)
• Discount percentage: The discount applied (0–100%) — required if no session limit is set
• Session limit (optional): Maximum redemptions per billing cycle — leave blank for unlimited
• Services (optional): Which services this benefit applies to — leave blank for all services

Common benefit patterns: You can combine multiple benefits in a single plan. For example, a plan could include “4 facial sessions per month” (100% off, 4 sessions, Facial service) plus “20% off everything else” (20% off, unlimited, all services).

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Billing cycles

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Editing a plan

You can update a plan’s name, description, price, billing cycle, and toggles at any time. When you change the price or billing cycle, the new pricing applies to new enrolments only — existing members continue on their current price until they renew or re-enrol. Benefits can also be updated. If the plan has active members, you’ll see a notice that existing members keep their current benefits until the next billing cycle.

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Archiving a plan

If you no longer want to offer a plan but need to keep it for reference:

1. Open the plan from Memberships
2. Click Archive
3. The plan is hidden from the main list and can no longer be sold

To view archived plans, use the Archived filter on the plans list. You can restore an archived plan at any time. Note: You can only permanently delete a plan that has been archived and has no active members.

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Enrolling Clients

There are two ways a client can get a membership: online purchase or dashboard enrolment.

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Online purchase (client self-service)

Clients can browse and subscribe to plans directly through your online booking portal. This requires:

• Memberships enabled in Settings > Memberships
• At least one active plan with Allow online purchase toggled on
• Stripe payments configured for your location

How it works:

1. The client visits the Memberships page on your online booking portal
2. They browse available plans, viewing benefits, pricing, and billing frequency
3. They click Join and are redirected to Stripe Checkout to complete payment
4. After payment, they see a confirmation page and receive a confirmation email
5. The membership activates once the first invoice is confirmed by Stripe

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Dashboard enrolment (team member)

Team members can enrol clients directly from the business dashboard:

1. Open a client’s profile and go to the Memberships tab
2. Click Enrol
3. Select a plan
4. Review and accept the terms (if terms are attached to the plan)
5. Confirm the enrolment

A Stripe subscription is created and the client’s saved payment method is charged. If the client doesn’t have a saved card, you’ll need to ensure one is on file first.

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Managing Memberships

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Membership statuses

Note: When a membership is active but set to cancel at the end of the current billing period, it displays an Ending indicator. The membership remains fully active with redeemable benefits until the period ends, at which point it transitions to Cancelled.

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Pausing a membership

If the plan has Allow pause enabled, team members can pause a client’s subscription:

1. Open the membership from the client’s profile or the Members list
2. Click Pause
3. The Stripe subscription is paused — no further charges until resumed

While paused, benefits cannot be redeemed. The client’s session counters are preserved. Note: Pausing is managed by team members from the business dashboard. Clients cannot pause their own membership from the online portal — they can only cancel.

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Resuming a membership

1. Open the paused membership
2. Click Resume
3. Billing resumes from the next cycle

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Cancelling a membership

Memberships can be cancelled in two ways:

• End of period: The membership stays active until the current billing period ends, then cancels. Benefits remain available until that date.
• Immediate: The membership cancels straight away. Benefits stop immediately.

For team members:

1. Open the membership from the client’s profile or the Members list
2. Click Cancel
3. Choose whether to cancel immediately or at the end of the current period

For clients (online): Clients can cancel their own membership from the My Membership page on your online booking portal. They choose between ending at the current period or cancelling immediately.

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Benefit Redemption

Membership benefits are applied automatically at checkout when a client’s appointment includes a matching service.

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How redemption works

1. A team member checks out an appointment for a client with an active membership
2. The system checks whether any membership benefits match the services in the appointment
3. If a match is found, the discount is applied automatically
4. For capped benefits (e.g., “4 sessions per cycle”), one session is deducted from the counter

Matching rules:

• Benefits scoped to specific services only apply to those services
• Benefits scoped to all services apply to any service
• If multiple benefits could apply, the system uses the best match — exact service match is preferred over all-services, and higher discounts are preferred

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Session counters

For benefits with a session limit, the system tracks usage per billing cycle:

• Remaining sessions show how many redemptions are left in the current cycle
• Counters reset automatically at the start of each new billing cycle
• If an appointment is cancelled within the same billing cycle, the redeemed session is automatically restored

Clients can view their session usage in the My Membership portal.

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Client Self-Service

Clients manage their memberships through the online booking portal.

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Browsing plans

When memberships are enabled with online-purchasable plans, clients see a Memberships link in the navigation of your booking page. The page shows all available plans with:

• Plan name and description
• Price and billing frequency
• Benefits list with discount details and session limits
• A Join button to start the purchase flow

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My Membership

After subscribing, clients access their membership from the My Membership page (available in the account menu). They can see:

• Membership status and plan name
• Activation date and next charge date (or end date if cancelling)
• Session counters for capped benefits
• Option to cancel their membership

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Members List

Go to Memberships > Members in the sidebar to view all enrolled members across all plans.

• Search by client name or plan name
• View client name, plan name, price, billing cycle, and status for each member
• Click any row to open the membership detail

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Automated Notifications

Three membership-related automated messages can be configured in Settings > Automated Messages: Each message can be enabled or disabled for email and SMS independently. You can customise the message templates using the standard template variables. For more details, see Automated Messages.

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Enabling Memberships

Memberships must be enabled before plans can be created or clients can subscribe.

1. Go to Settings > Memberships
2. Toggle Enable memberships on

When you disable memberships while active members exist, Stripe continues to bill them. You’ll see a message directing you to the Members list to manage existing subscriptions. To configure memberships, see Membership Settings.

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FAQs

Q: Can a plan have multiple benefits? A: Yes. Each plan can include any number of benefits, each with its own discount, session limit, and service scope. For example, “4 included facials per month plus 20% off all other services.” Q: What happens if I change the price of a plan? A: Existing members keep their current price. The new price applies to new enrolments only. Stripe creates a new price object internally — existing subscriptions are not affected. Q: Can a client have multiple active memberships? A: Yes. A client can subscribe to more than one plan simultaneously. Q: What happens when a payment fails? A: The membership moves to Payment Failed status. Stripe automatically retries the payment according to your Stripe retry settings. The client receives a notification if the payment fails. If payment is recovered, the membership returns to Active. Q: Can I offer a trial or introductory price? A: Memberships do not currently support introductory pricing or free trials. All billing starts from the first cycle. Q: Can clients pause their own membership? A: Pausing is currently available to team members only from the business dashboard. Clients can cancel their membership from the online portal. Q: What happens to session counters when a membership is paused? A: Session counters are preserved. When the membership is resumed, the counters continue from where they left off. Q: Do membership discounts apply to add-on charges? A: Membership benefits apply to the base service price. Add-on charges are billed separately at checkout. Q: What happens if an appointment is cancelled after a session was redeemed? A: If the appointment is cancelled within the same billing cycle, the redeemed session is automatically restored to the client’s session counter. A reversal entry is recorded in the redemption history. Sessions from a previous billing cycle are not restored. Q: Who can manage memberships? A: Team members with the Memberships permission can view plans and members. Creating, editing, and enrolling requires the Manage level permission. Q: Can I control which plans are available online? A: Yes. The Allow online purchase toggle is per-plan, so you can offer some plans exclusively through the dashboard while making others available on your booking page. Q: How does billing work with “Monthly” vs “Every 4 weeks”? A: Monthly bills on the same calendar date each month (e.g., the 15th). Every 4 weeks bills every 28 days regardless of the calendar. Choose based on your preference for calendar-aligned or fixed-interval billing.

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To enable and configure memberships, see Membership Settings.