A Subscription Plan is a recurring membership that members pay you for. It isn't your own Mateflow platform plan. Each plan sets a monthly price, an optional annual price and free trial, and the access group subscribers receive. You build plans in Admin → Monetization → Subscription Plans.
Who can do this: Community owners and admins. · Where: Web (admin console). · Plan: Available when your platform plan includes Paid memberships.
Before you create a subscription plan
- Connect Stripe. Create Plan stays unavailable until your Stripe account can take payments (Charges shows Enabled on the Stripe Connect page). See Connect Stripe and get paid.
- Decide which access group subscribers get. An access group (previously called a member tier) holds the spaces a plan unlocks. If you don't have one yet, you can create it from inside the plan form. See How access groups work.
Create a subscription plan
- Go to Admin → Monetization → Subscription Plans and click Create Plan.
- On the Basics tab, choose the Plan type:
- Access group: members subscribe to join the access group you choose, for example Founders or Investors. Groups aren't ranked, and a member is on one plan at a time.
- Community access (paid signup): visitors must subscribe before they can create an account. You can also add them to an access group. Use it for a paid community; see Make your community paid to join.
- Enter a Plan name and a Short description. Both appear on your pricing page.
- Complete the Pricing, Access & Benefits, and Display & Visibility tabs, described below. A preview shows the plan card.
- Click Create plan.
You can't change a plan's type after it's created. The page lists each type on its own tab: Access group plans and Community access.
Set a plan's price and billing periods
On the Pricing tab, choose the Currency (a new plan starts with your Stripe account's settlement currency), enter a Monthly price, and optionally an Annual price. Leave the annual price empty to offer monthly billing only. The form shows how much the annual price saves.
For a Community access plan, you need at least one of the two prices, and you choose a Default billing period that's preselected on the sign-up page.
Subscription plans are always recurring. To charge once, sell a single space instead; see Sell access to a single space.
Add a free trial to a subscription plan
On the Pricing tab, enter the number of days in Free trial (days). Members aren't charged until the trial ends. Leave the field empty for no trial. Trials can last up to 365 days.
Each member gets a free trial only once in your community. If they've already had a subscription here, on any plan, they're charged as soon as they subscribe again, and plan cards on the web don't show them the trial.
To give one member more trial time later, use Extend Trial on the Subscribers page. See Manage subscribers, payments, and refunds.
Choose what a plan unlocks and list its benefits
On the Access & Benefits tab:
- Member access (Access group plans only): select the access group this plan unlocks. Each plan grants exactly one access group. Click New access group to create one without leaving the form. To change which spaces a group unlocks, go to Admin → Members → Access Groups.
- Access group (optional) (Community access plans only): select an access group that people who sign up with this plan join, or choose None to add them to no group. With None, the sign-up page shows only the plan's own benefits.
- Benefits: click Add benefit, choose an icon, and write a short line for the plan card. Benefits only describe the plan; access comes from the access group.
A Community access plan's Benefits fill the "What you'll get" section of the sign-up page.
Limit subscribers and control a plan's visibility
- Subscriber limit (on Pricing): caps the number of active subscribers. Leave it empty or enter 0 for unlimited. When a plan is full, its card shows Full and members can't subscribe to it.
- Mark as popular (on Display & Visibility): adds a Most Popular badge on the pricing page. On the web pages where people sign up for a paid community or subscribe again, plans marked as popular come first, and the first one shows Recommended. If no plan is marked, none shows Recommended.
- Publicly listed: shows the plan on the pricing page. Turn it off to keep the plan off the pricing page; it then shows Hidden in your list. To let someone subscribe to a hidden plan, send them its direct link, which opens the plan's checkout even while it isn't publicly listed. Click Copy link in the plan's actions menu, or under Direct link in the plan editor, which also shows the Plan ID:. Access group plans have a link; Community access plans and archived plans don't.
- Welcome message: shown on the web to the subscriber right after a successful payment, including when someone joins a paid community or subscribes again. Only the subscriber sees it; it never appears on your pricing page.
Community access plans also have Sign-up page copy, where you can override the displayed price and trial text and add a Tax note and Terms URL.
Offer several subscription plans
Create one plan for each level you want to sell, such as "Basic" and "Pro", each granting a different access group. A member has one subscription at a time and can move between your plans. To change the order members see, open a plan's actions menu and click Move up or Move down.
Edit or archive a subscription plan
Click Edit on a plan card to change its name, description, benefits, subscriber limit, or visibility. The currency, prices, and free trial are fixed once a plan exists. To change them, archive the plan and create a new one, which gets a new direct link; current subscribers keep billing at their original price.
To stop selling a plan, open its actions menu and click Archive. Archiving stops new sign-ups, and existing subscriptions keep billing as normal. To bring a plan back, turn on Show archived and click Activate. Plans can't be deleted.
Related articles
Was this guide helpful?