Membership pages step-by-step

Membership pages allow you to display membership products to your supporters, so they can purchase them. A membership has a term and can be a single payment for the full amount, or set up as a recurring payment to make a series of payments.

Memberships can either be brand new, asking the supporter to Join, or be renewed, using the Hub page type to manage past memberships and payments for renewals.

We’ll cover the steps to create a Membership page here, linking to additional resources where applicable. 

Before you start

1. This help file assumes basic knowledge of how to use page-builder (i.e. general page settings, plus components such as rows, text blocks and form blocks). 

2. You will require a Gateway before you can use Memberships since the page takes payments from supporters. Please make sure your gateway is set up and fully functional before proceeding.

3. You will need to create Membership types before creating the page. Membership types specify the individual memberships you are promoting, and include descriptions, terms and pricing

4. If you wish to allow for renewals, then you will need to create a Hub gadget. Contact support for more information. 

Create the Membership page

To create the page, go to Pages > Create Page and select Membership under the Fundraising page section.

There are several sections to complete before you start to build the content:

Settings

Like any other page, a Membership page requires various settings to be completed, and you’ll also need to decide which HTML template you are going to use. You can get a summary of these settings here if you need a refresher. 

Donation settings

Since a membership site takes donations, you will need to assign a Gateway to the page (or Gateways) here.

Notification settings

Optionally, you can be notified when someone buys a membership. You can set the email to receive this notification here.

Membership settings

A membership page also requires the following settings:

• Currency – the currency that you will be taking for payment

• Account Format – how the prices will be displayed to the supporter

• Currency Position – where the currency symbol will appear

• Timezone – the timezone of the page

• Hub page – if you want to allow for renewals of previous memberships then you will need to create a Hub page with memberships gadget. You can link to it here (optional)

• Allowed Membership types – you can add or remove the membership types you want the page to promote here

Edit the site in page-builder

When you save the settings, it will open up the page-builder as usual, but you will see four sections at the top. Much will be pre-populated with rows, columns and blocks to make the set-up process quicker.

The four sections are:

Membership list

This is the first section the supporter will see when they go to your membership page. By default it will hold a Membership type list block which will display the membership types you assigned to the page. In each membership type will be the image, title and description as set in the membership types component. There will also be a Join button on each, and if you specified a hub earlier, a Renew button too.

You can add other blocks to this page if you wish, for example a text block to introduce your page.

Membership options

When the supporter chooses their membership type, they will see the Membership options section. By default this contains:

• Membership type details block which has no options and will simply display the membership type’s image, title and description as set in its component

• Membership type options block which will allow the supporter to choose the duration of the membership, via a radio button, from the variants set in its component. You can amend the title give to this input by editing this block

• Additional donation block which, optionally, will allow the supporter to add an additional donation to their first payment. You can set the available options by editing this block

• Promo code block to allow the supporter to apply a promotional code, as set in the membership types component

• A pre-populated form block with fields to collect name and address which can be edited just like a standard form block. It will require a button to submit this page to proceed to payment

Payment

The payment section is displayed once the membership options is complete and submitted. There will be various blocks by default:

• Order summary block which gives useful information back to the supporter about their payment. It will show what the name of the membership they are purchasing, the price, any discounts, any additional donation, and a final total. You can edit this to adjust any label text

• A pre-populated form block with fields to collect card payment details which can edited just like a standard form block. It will require a button to submit this page to submit the page and proceed to confirmation

• Member info block which allows the supporter to add information on who the membership is for. For group memberships, this will display a series of blocks. You can edit the block to amend which fields are requested (first and last name by default)

Confirmation

The confirmation page is displayed when the membership purchase is complete.

Testing and launching the Membership page

Before launching the membership page, you should test (by previewing the page) that it works correctly. You can use a test gateway to do this, and then switch to live once ready. You can then change the status of the page from New to Live and promote the live link as usual. 

Handling submissions

You can click the Quick reports button to view information on memberships purchased. You can also view information via the Memberships gadget in lookup supporters.