Two settings decide who can see your community and how new people become members: visibility (public or private) and the registration mode (open, invite only, approval, closed, or paid). Together they cover what people call signup settings, membership approval, a private community, or a paid community.
Who can do this: Community owners and admins. · Where: Web (admin console). · Plan: The Public option and paid registration depend on your platform plan.
Set your community's visibility: public or private
Your community's visibility controls who can browse content without an account.
- Go to Admin → Settings → General.
- In Visibility & Access, choose one:
- Public: anyone can browse content. Best for open communities.
- Private: content is hidden from non-members, and visitors must sign in.
- Click Save Changes.
If Public shows an Upgrade badge, your platform plan doesn't include public communities, and your community stays private until you upgrade. See Check plan usage and limits.
The same section has two related switches. Allow search engine indexing lets Google, Bing, and others list a public community in search results. A private community is never indexed, so this switch turns off when you choose Private. Maintenance mode shows a maintenance page to non-admin visitors while you work on the community.
Visibility applies to the whole community. Each space also has its own privacy and join policy. See Set a space's privacy and join policy.
Choose a registration mode for new members
The registration mode controls how new people create an account. Existing members can always sign in, whatever mode you choose.
- Go to Admin → Settings → Registration.
- Under Registration mode, pick one:
| Mode | What happens for new visitors |
|---|---|
| Open | Anyone with the community URL can sign up. They verify their email if Require Email Verification is on in Admin → Settings → Security. |
| Invite only | Only people with a valid invitation email can register. Everyone else sees that the community is invitation-only. |
| Approval required | Anyone can apply, but each new account must be approved before the person can sign in. |
| Closed | Registration is disabled. Visitors see "Registration is currently closed". |
| Paid | Visitors must subscribe to a plan before an account is created. |
- Click Save Changes. Mateflow asks you to confirm before switching to Closed, Invite only, or Paid.
An invite-only community is always private. Choosing Invite only makes the community private, and switching visibility back to Public returns registration to Open. In Invite only and Closed mode, you add people with invitations. See Invite members.
Require approval and screening questions for new members
When you choose Approval required, pick an Approval process:
- Standard: people submit an application and you approve it.
- Questionnaire: applicants answer questions before you approve them. A Member Screening section appears. Click Add Question, choose a Question Type (Short Text, Long Text, Single Choice, or Multiple Choice), and turn on Mandatory Answer for required questions.
Applicants fill in the form, click Submit application, and see Application submitted. They're emailed once you approve them. When applications are waiting, the Registration page shows a banner with a Review them link. See Approve requests to join your community or a space.
If you switch away from approval while requests are pending, Mateflow warns you: the requests stay in the queue, but you can't process them unless you switch back. Choose Go to join requests to handle them first, or Switch anyway.
Make registration paid (paid community)
Paid mode puts a paywall in front of sign-up: new visitors subscribe first, then get their account. Before you can save it, you need:
- at least one paid-access plan. If you have none, the page says Create a paid-access plan first.
- a connected Stripe account. If Stripe isn't ready, the page says Connect Stripe before switching to paid mode.
With paid mode selected, the page shows your paid-access plans and whether Stripe Connect is ready. You create and edit the plans in Admin → Monetization → Subscription Plans, not here.
What people see: visitors get a Choose your plan screen ("Subscribe to join" your community) and pay before their account is created. In a paid community, everyone who signs in needs an active subscription or trial, including members who joined before you switched to paid mode. Your team is exempt: owners, admins, moderators, billing admins, and custom roles. People you invite as Mod or Admin sign up without paying. Members without a subscription are asked to subscribe. For the full setup, see Make your community paid to join.
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