> ## 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.

# Memberships

> Create recurring membership plans with automatic billing, benefits, and session tracking for your clients

## 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.

<Frame>
  <img src="https://mintcdn.com/bellabooking/HGINXqxD4v2O7Jyn/images/Memberships.webp?fit=max&auto=format&n=HGINXqxD4v2O7Jyn&q=85&s=acf5e282bb0882da1bb7296fafadf69f" alt="Memberships catalogue showing four active plans with varied billing cycles (Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Annual) and benefit chips for discounts and included sessions" width="1440" height="900" data-path="images/Memberships.webp" />
</Frame>

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.

***

## 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 scope to specific services, whole bundles, or all services
* **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 (or once per term on an instalment plan)
* **Instalment plans**: Let clients pay for a fixed course of services in instalments every 4 weeks over a 4/8/12-week term, with a minimum-term commitment — see [Instalment plans](#instalment-plans-pay-a-package-over-a-fixed-term)
* **Capacity limits**: Optionally cap how many clients can be actively subscribed to a plan at once — see [Capacity limits](#capacity-limits)
* **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 (instalment plans have a minimum term — the current term completes first)
* **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
* **Manual collection**: Enrol members who pay at the till (cash or your own terminal) — Bella tracks renewals due and you record each payment (a 1% platform fee applies, billed on your Bella invoice)
* **Archive and restore**: Archive plans you no longer offer and restore them later if needed

***

## 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 (or once per term on an instalment plan)
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 **Past Due** status and the client is notified

<Note>
  **Benefits belong to the member who pays.** When a member books an appointment
  for their family or guests — a couples massage, a shared-space session, or a
  party — and pays for it, their membership benefits apply to that **whole
  booking**: their discount, included sessions, and deposit waiver cover the
  appointment they're paying for. The attendees' own memberships are **not**
  drawn on automatically — benefits always follow the person paying. This is
  deliberate.
</Note>

***

## Creating a Membership Plan

<Frame>
  <img src="https://mintcdn.com/bellabooking/HGINXqxD4v2O7Jyn/images/MembershipPlanEdit.webp?fit=max&auto=format&n=HGINXqxD4v2O7Jyn&q=85&s=2fb41aa6f84ed849546331828faa79f8" alt="Membership plan editor for VIP Monthly showing the Basics card with name, description, price, billing cycle, and toggles for Active, Allow online purchase, and Allow pause" width="1440" height="900" data-path="images/MembershipPlanEdit.webp" />
</Frame>

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
   * **Maximum active subscribers** (optional): Cap on how many clients can be subscribed at once — leave blank for unlimited. See [Capacity limits](#capacity-limits)
4. Add one or more **benefits** (at least one required)
5. Click **Save**

### Benefits

<Frame>
  <img src="https://mintcdn.com/bellabooking/HGINXqxD4v2O7Jyn/images/MembershipBenefits.webp?fit=max&auto=format&n=HGINXqxD4v2O7Jyn&q=85&s=9822d84ace02b5c23c8ab9b8fa5f0fdb" alt="Benefits configuration showing a single benefit with label, discount percentage, sessions per cycle limit, and service scope selector — plus an alert that 23 active members will be affected by changes" width="1440" height="900" data-path="images/MembershipBenefits.webp" />
</Frame>

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 or bundles** (optional): Which services and/or bundles this benefit applies to — leave blank for all services. Pick individual services, whole bundles, or a mix from the same picker. A bundle-scoped benefit covers that bundle directly — see the note below.
* **Deposit for members** (optional): Override the deposit policy for members on this benefit's services. Leave as **Use default** to inherit the service/location policy, or choose **No deposit**, **Require deposit**, or **Card on file** — see [Deposit for members](#deposit-for-members) below.

**Common benefit patterns:**

| Pattern             | Discount | Session limit | Services          |
| ------------------- | -------- | ------------- | ----------------- |
| Included sessions   | 100%     | 4 per cycle   | Specific services |
| Unlimited access    | 100%     | Unlimited     | All or specific   |
| Percentage discount | 20%      | Unlimited     | All services      |
| Mixed               | Varies   | Varies        | Varies            |

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).

<Note>
  **Scope a benefit to a whole bundle.** A benefit can be scoped directly to one
  or more **bundles** — as well as, or instead of, individual services — by
  selecting them in the same picker. When a bundle-scoped benefit applies, the
  discount or included session covers that bundle at checkout. (Scoping to a
  bundle's individual services still works too; and as always, leaving the scope
  blank applies the benefit to everything.)
</Note>

### Deposit for members

A membership can waive — or change — the upfront **deposit** your members pay when booking the services a benefit covers. This is separate from the discount: a benefit can give a *partial* discount **and** still skip the deposit.

Set it per benefit:

* **Use default** — members follow the same deposit policy as everyone else (the service or location setting).
* **No deposit** — members book the covered services without paying a deposit, even when the benefit only discounts part of the price. Non-members are unaffected.
* **Require deposit** — members pay a specific deposit (a fixed amount or a percentage you set here), overriding the service/location amount.
* **Card on file** — members add a card to confirm their booking, with no deposit charged.

The policy is resolved at booking in the order **membership → service → location**, and it applies everywhere the deposit is read — online booking, the deposit reminder, the pay-deposit link, and the auto-cancel-unpaid-deposit job — so a member is never chased for a deposit their plan has waived. On the appointment, staff see a **"No deposit required — waived by the client's membership"** note, so a membership waiver is clearly distinct from a manual one.

<Note>
  Deposits, like all online payments, require a connected Stripe account. Until
  Stripe is connected, deposits are waived for everyone, so a membership "No
  deposit" benefit has no extra effect until then.
</Note>

### Billing cycles

| Cycle          | Frequency                     |
| -------------- | ----------------------------- |
| Weekly         | Every 7 days                  |
| Fortnightly    | Every 14 days                 |
| Every 4 weeks  | Every 28 days                 |
| Monthly        | Same date each calendar month |
| Every 6 weeks  | Every 42 days                 |
| Every 2 months | Every 2 calendar months       |
| Quarterly      | Every 3 calendar months       |
| Every 6 months | Every 6 calendar months       |
| Annually       | Once per year                 |

### Instalment plans (pay a package over a fixed term)

A **payment plan** lets a client pay for a fixed set of services in affordable instalments every 4 weeks instead of all upfront — useful for a defined course of treatments (for example, "2 Single Process + 1 Blonde+ over 12 weeks"). Choose a **Payment plan** of **4, 8, or 12 weeks** on the plan editor and the plan behaves differently to an ordinary membership:

* **Billed every 4 weeks in instalments.** The **Price** you set is the per-instalment charge; the term total is that price × the number of instalments (a 12-week term = 3 instalments). The editor shows the total and instalment breakdown as you type.
* **Services are granted once per term, not per instalment.** The included sessions are available across the whole term (any time in the 12 weeks) and refresh once, at the start of the next term — they do **not** top up with each instalment.
* **Auto-renews each term.** At the end of the term the plan renews automatically for a new term on the card on file, unless the client cancels.
* **Minimum-term commitment.** The client is committed for the current term and can't cancel partway through. They can switch off renewal at any time — the term's remaining instalments still complete, then the membership ends at the end of the term.

Instalment plans are always billed **every 4 weeks**, can't be paused, and don't use a fixed billing day (they bill on the client's enrolment day) — the editor sets these automatically.

Enrol clients yourself from the dashboard or till, or turn on **Allow online purchase** to let clients join from your booking page. When a client buys an instalment plan online, checkout clearly states the term total, the instalment schedule and the minimum-term commitment, and asks them to acknowledge it before paying.

### 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. The same applies to a plan's payment-plan term: changing it affects new enrolments only, and existing members keep the term they signed up to.

**Collection method (card-on-file vs manual) is not a plan setting** — it's chosen per member at enrolment and can't be edited on the plan or on an existing member. To switch a member between the two, cancel their membership and re-enrol them on the other method.

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.

### Capacity limits

You can optionally cap the number of clients actively subscribed to a plan at once — useful for a founding-member tier limited to the first 50 sign-ups, or a high-touch plan capped to a number your team can actually service.

Set **Maximum active subscribers** on the plan editor. Leave it blank for an unlimited plan (the default).

* **Online purchase is blocked once the plan is full.** The plan stays visible on your booking page with a **"Fully subscribed"** badge — it's never hidden — but the **Join** button is disabled and a new online purchase can't go through.
* **Dashboard enrolment is only warned, never blocked.** If a team member enrols a client (or moves a member onto a full plan) from the dashboard, they see a warning that the plan is at capacity but can still proceed — useful for a VIP exception or migrating clients from a paper system.
* **The plan detail and plans list show "X of Y spots used"** so you always know how full a capped plan is.
* **Lowering the cap below the current number of subscribers is allowed.** Existing members keep their membership; new online joins are simply blocked until the number drops back under the new cap through cancellations.

<Note>
  **What counts as an occupied spot.** A spot is occupied by active members plus
  anyone mid-checkout on an online purchase that hasn't been confirmed yet —
  which closes the narrow window where two clients could otherwise buy the same
  last seat seconds apart. If a client abandons checkout without paying, their
  reserved spot automatically frees up. Paused, past-due, cancelled and expired
  memberships do **not** occupy a spot.
</Note>

<Note>
  **A member returning to a full plan warns your team but proceeds.** Because
  paused and past-due members don't occupy a spot, resuming a paused member,
  recording a manual payment for a past-due one, or retrying a card payment can
  push the plan over its cap if a new member has since filled it. Your team
  sees a warning ("this puts the plan over capacity") but the action still
  proceeds — the client keeps their membership. Consider raising the cap when
  you see this happen. Automatic Stripe payment recoveries (dunning retries)
  work the same way — the recovery isn't blocked, so the client doesn't lose
  their membership over a temporary card issue.
</Note>

### 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.

***

## Enrolling Clients

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

### 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

### 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. Choose how the client will pay — **Card on file** (auto-charge) or **Collect manually**
6. Confirm the enrolment

With **Card on file**, a Stripe subscription is created and the client's saved payment method is charged each cycle. The collection method is chosen **when you enrol the client and is fixed for that membership** — to move an existing member between card-on-file and manual, cancel their membership and re-enrol them on the other method.

Card-on-file needs a card the client has **already saved**. Cards are always added by the client (securely, through Stripe) — **your team can't key one in**. If the client doesn't have a saved card yet, send them the **add-a-card link** (see [Sharing signup & add-a-card links](#sharing-signup--add-a-card-links) below), or let them **buy the membership online**, which saves their card as part of checkout. See also [How Cards Get Saved](/settings/payments#how-cards-get-saved).

### Manual collection (cash, terminal, other)

Choose **Collect manually** when the client prefers to pay at the till — cash, your own EFTPOS terminal, or any other method outside Bella. No card is required:

* The first payment is collected at enrolment and the membership activates immediately
* Each cycle, the renewal appears in the **Renewals due** filter on the Members list, and you record the payment from the member's page once the client has paid
* If a renewal isn't recorded by its due date, the membership moves to **Past Due** and benefits stop until the payment is recorded

<Note>
  A **1% platform fee** applies to each manually collected membership payment.
  Because the payment doesn't go through Bella, the fee can't be deducted from
  it — instead it's added as a separate line item on your monthly Bella
  subscription invoice. You can see fees waiting to be billed at any time under
  **Settings → Billing**, and the fee is shown whenever you enrol a member with
  manual collection or record a payment.
</Note>

***

## Sharing Signup & Add-a-Card Links

Your team can send clients a link to do the money steps themselves — they sign in securely and cards are always handled by Stripe, never entered by staff:

* **Signup link** — on **Memberships**, open a plan's ⋮ menu and choose **Copy signup link** or **Send signup link**. The client opens it, signs in, and subscribes online — their card is saved and auto-charged each cycle. Shown only for plans with **Allow online purchase** on.
* **Add-a-card link** — on a **client**, open the ⋮ menu and choose **Copy add-a-card link** or **Send add-a-card link**. It takes the client to the **Payment methods** page in your online booking portal to save a card. Once saved, your team can enrol them on card-on-file or charge the card from the dashboard.

**Send** opens your Messages composer with the link pre-written — pick SMS or email and send. **Copy** puts the link on your clipboard to paste anywhere. Sending uses the Two-Way Messaging feature; copying is always available.

***

## Managing Memberships

### Membership statuses

| Status        | Meaning                                                                              |
| ------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Active**    | Subscription is active — benefits can be redeemed                                    |
| **Pending**   | Awaiting first payment confirmation from Stripe                                      |
| **Paused**    | Subscription has been paused temporarily by a team member                            |
| **Past Due**  | A card billing attempt has failed, or a manual renewal is overdue — needs resolution |
| **Cancelled** | Subscription has been cancelled (terminal)                                           |
| **Expired**   | Subscription has expired (terminal)                                                  |

**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.

### Recovering a Past Due membership

When a renewal can't be collected, the membership moves to **Past Due** and benefits stop until it's reactivated.

* **Manual-collection memberships** (cash, terminal, other): collect the payment from the client, then open the membership from the **Members** list and click **Record payment** to reactivate it. Overdue renewals are listed under the **Renewals due** filter.
* **Card-on-file memberships**: Stripe automatically retries a failed renewal payment as part of its standard dunning, so most recover on their own once the card clears — there is no separate "collect payment" or "renew" button for card-billed memberships. If the payment still can't be recovered — for example the renewal invoice was voided directly in Stripe — the membership stays Past Due and benefits remain paused; resolve the payment in Stripe, or contact support and we'll reconcile the subscription for you.

Bella also runs an automatic safety net: it checks hourly and moves any membership whose paid period has lapsed (after a short grace window) to **Past Due**, even if a Stripe notification was missed — so a lapsed membership never silently keeps handing out benefits or sits stuck as "Active" but unbookable.

### 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.

### Resuming a membership

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

### 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.

<Note>
  **Instalment plans have a minimum term.** While an instalment (fixed-term)
  plan is inside its current term, the client **cannot** cancel immediately —
  they can only switch off renewal, the term's remaining instalments still
  complete, and the membership ends at the end of the term. Team members can
  still override and cancel a committed term immediately from the dashboard (it
  stops the remaining instalments).
</Note>

**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 — except on an instalment plan within its term, where only switching off renewal is offered (the remaining instalments complete, then it ends at the term end).

***

## Benefit Redemption

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

### 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 or bundles** only apply to those — a bundle-scoped benefit covers a booked bundle, a service-scoped benefit covers that service
* Benefits scoped to **all services** apply to any service
* If multiple benefits could apply, the system uses the best match — an exact service or bundle match is preferred over all-services, and higher discounts are preferred

A benefit's scope is precise: it reaches exactly what it covers, and no more. Because a **bundle** expands at booking into one appointment line per component service, scope decides which of those lines a benefit touches. Add-on charges are never covered by a benefit — membership discounts and included sessions are calculated on the base service price only; add-ons are always paid by the client (see [Service Add-ons](/service-catalog/addons)).

**Worked example 1 — a benefit scoped to a service, inside a bundle.** A "VIP" plan has a benefit scoped to the **Men's Cut** service (20% off). The client books a **Cut & Blow Dry** bundle, which expands into two lines — a Men's Cut line and a Blow Dry line.

* The **Men's Cut** line is discounted 20% — it matches the benefit's scope.
* The **Blow Dry** line is charged in full — it isn't in scope.
* The bundle as a whole is not discounted; only the matching component line is.

**Worked example 2 — a benefit scoped to the bundle itself (must not widen).** A different plan has a benefit scoped to the **Cut & Blow Dry bundle** (20% off).

* When the client books that **bundle**, the discount applies across its component lines.
* When the same client books **Men's Cut on its own** (not as part of the bundle), the benefit does **not** apply — a bundle-scoped benefit never widens to a standalone booking of one of its component services. To discount the standalone service too, add a service-scoped benefit for it.

### 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 (or once per term on an instalment plan — see [Instalment plans](#instalment-plans-pay-a-package-over-a-fixed-term))
* If an appointment is cancelled **within the same billing cycle** (or the same term, on an instalment plan), the redeemed session is **automatically restored**

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

### Members-only services and bundles

A service or a bundle can be made **members-only** — bookable online only by a client who holds a covering active membership. A bundle is members-only when its own members-only flag is set **or** any of its component services is members-only.

* The gate is **a covering active membership**, not any specific plan — so a member with a benefit that reaches the service (or the bundle) can book it; a non-member, or a member whose plans don't cover it, cannot.
* Gating applies to the **online booking portal**. Team members can still book a members-only service or bundle for any client from the Scheduler.
* Members-only gating scopes at the **service** level (covering all its variants and tiers) and at the **bundle** level. It is separate from the discount — a service can be members-only without a discount, or discounted without being members-only.

To make a service or bundle members-only, use the members-only setting on the service or bundle in your [Service Catalogue](/service-catalog/index).

***

## Client Self-Service

Clients manage their memberships through the online booking portal.

### 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

### 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

***

## 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

***

## Automated Notifications

Three membership-related automated messages can be configured in **Settings** > **Automated Messages**:

| Message type                  | When it's sent                                                        |
| ----------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Membership Activated**      | When the first payment is confirmed and the membership becomes active |
| **Membership Payment Failed** | When a renewal payment attempt fails                                  |
| **Membership Cancelled**      | When the membership is cancelled or expires                           |

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](/settings/automated-messages).

***

## 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](/settings/memberships).

***

## 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 scope (specific services, whole bundles, or all services). 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 **Past Due** 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: No. Membership benefits apply to the base service price only — add-on charges are always paid by the client, consistent with packages and per-line discounts. See [Service Add-ons](/service-catalog/addons).

**Q: If a benefit covers a service, is it discounted inside a bundle too?**
A: Yes — but only the matching component line. A bundle expands at booking into one line per component service, and a service-scoped benefit discounts the line for that service and leaves the others charged. A benefit scoped to the **bundle itself** covers the bundle's lines, but does not apply when the same service is booked on its own. See [Benefit Redemption](#benefit-redemption).

**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.

**Q: Is there a waitlist when a plan is full?**
A: Not currently. A full plan shows a "Fully subscribed" badge and blocks new online purchases, but there's no queue to join or notification when a spot opens up — you'd need to check back or ask the business directly.

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To enable and configure memberships, see [Membership Settings](/settings/memberships).
