Every space has two access settings: its privacy (who can find and read it) and its join policy (how people become members). Use them to build open spaces, members-only or paid areas (a paywall on one space), and hidden invite-only groups.
Who can do this: Community owners and admins, and space admins. Space moderators can't change these settings, but they can review join requests. · Where: Web (the space's Manage panel, also reachable from Admin → Community → Spaces), and the iOS and Android apps. · Plan: Available on every platform plan. Selling access also needs payments set up; see Sell access to a single space.
Space privacy options: Public, Private, and Secret
A space's privacy (shown as Visibility) decides who can discover the space and read its content.
| Visibility | What it means |
|---|---|
| Public | Anyone can find and read this space, and anyone can join it. |
| Private | People can discover the space, but only members can read it. Joining goes through approval. |
| Secret | Hidden from discovery and readable by members only. People get in through invites. |
Each option is a preset. Picking one also sets whether the space is Discoverable and its join policy: Public uses Anyone can join, Private uses By request, and Secret uses By invitation only. If you change the join policy afterward, the policy shows a Custom badge.
In a Chat Space, you can pick Public only when you create the space. For an existing Chat Space, the Public option is unavailable because chat messages are members-only.
Change a space's privacy
- Open the space's Manage panel in one of these ways:
- On the space's page, click the gear icon (Manage) in the header.
- In the sidebar, open the space's ⋯ menu and click Manage space.
- Go to Admin → Community → Spaces, open the space's ⋯ menu, and click Manage.
- Click Access Policy.
- Under Visibility, choose Public, Private, or Secret.
- Click Save Changes.
In the app: open the space, tap ⋯, tap Manage space, then tap Access & permissions.
To change several spaces at once, select them in Admin → Community → Spaces, click More, then Change privacy. Changing spaces to Public clears their paid configuration, so you'll need to set up paid access again to resume selling.
Choose a space's join policy
The join policy decides who can become a member of the space. In Access Policy, open Advanced and set Who can become a member:
- Anyone can join: people join with one click.
- By request: people send a request, and it appears under Join Requests in the space's Manage panel for space admins and moderators to approve. See Approve requests to join your community or a space.
- By purchase: people pay, or hold a qualifying access group, to join. Prices and access groups are set under Private Access Flow (next section), which only appears for Private and Secret spaces, so make the space Private or Secret before you sell access.
- By invitation only: people join through invite links. When you switch to this, Mateflow asks you to confirm; pending join requests stay until you handle them, and existing paid members aren't affected. If you haven't created any invite links yet, a warning appears. Create links from the Invite button on the Members page of the Manage panel.
Some combinations aren't offered:
- Chat Spaces can't use By invitation only.
- Course Spaces don't have a join policy. Joining a course is driven by enrollment, and a course's visibility and pricing are set in Access & pricing instead. See Control who can access a course.
- In a Public space where neither posting nor replying is limited to members, membership grants nothing, so no join button is shown.
Set up request or paid access for a private or secret space
Private and Secret spaces also show Private Access Flow, where you pick the Access mode:
- Request: you review each applicant. Turn on Require applicant message to ask applicants why they want to join.
- Payment: people unlock the space by paying. Under Payment mode, choose Buyout (One-time) for a one-time price, or Access Group and then the Access groups that unlock this space.
- Hybrid (Request or Payment): people can either request access or pay to unlock it immediately.
Private and Secret spaces can also use Smart Tease. Turn on Enable smart tease to show a limited, blurred preview and a call to action before someone joins, and set the Preview post limit.
How access groups unlock a space
Members who hold any access group selected under Access groups that unlock this space get access automatically. Access groups (previously called member tiers) can also unlock a space from the access group's own settings; the space's Access Policy notes how many more groups unlock it that way. See How access groups work.
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