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Monetization overview

The pieces for charging inside your community (products, billing options, plans, add-ons, coupons and downsell), how they connect, the order to create them in, what selling costs, and which one to use in each case.

Memberfy charges inside the community: members choose, pay by PIX, boleto or card without leaving your address, and access turns on and off by itself as payments come in. The money lands in the community's balance and leaves through a payout to your bank account. This article is the map: what each piece is, how they fit together, and where to start.

Where it lives

Everything is under Administration › Monetization, in seven tabs, in this order:

TabWhat it holds
DashboardThe financial panel: total revenue, available for payout, held, pending, the latest transactions and the Request Payout button
PaymentsWhere the money goes: Business Information, the bank account and the payout history
ProductsWhat you sell once: a recorded course, a ticket, a one-off mentoring session
PlansThe subscription tiers and the add-ons of each one
OptionsThe recurring ways to pay for a plan: Monthly, Annual
CouponsDiscount codes
FeesThe platform fee and the calculator

Who subscribes to what lives in Members › Subscriptions, with the community's other people. See Subscription management.

Who can open Monetization: owner, admin and finance. The first two create and edit; finance only views. See Roles and permissions.

The pieces

PieceWhat it isExample
ProductSomething sold once, paid in full or in up to 12 installmentsThe "Excel from scratch" course for R$ 297, the ticket to the annual meetup
Billing optionA recurring way to pay, with a price and an intervalGrowth · Monthly at R$ 129; Growth · Annual at R$ 1,188 in up to 12 installments
PlanA subscription tier that groups billing options and says what the member getsThe Growth plan, with Monthly and Annual
Add-onAn extra that only plan holders can buy, billed together with the planCoworking Extension, R$ 450 a month
CouponA discount codeLANCAMENTO20: 20% off the first charge
DownsellThe discounted last chance for whoever skipped an add-onCoworking at 10% off for as long as the subscription lasts

Plus two pricing rules for monthly and annual billing options:

How the pieces connect

SubscriptionBilling option (Monthly)Billing option (Annual)→Plan→The plan's add-ons→Downsell
One-off saleProduct→Store or direct link
AccessPlan or product→Unlocked spaces
DiscountProducts and options→Coupon

In the API, a plan is a subscription group, and a billing option is a product of type SUBSCRIPTION. On screen, the names are the ones in the table above.

The order to create them in

Each piece uses the one before it, so order matters:

  1. Payout setup: submit the Business Information and the bank account for review. While it runs, steps 2 to 5 can be done as drafts; publishing and selling wait for approval. See Business information.
  2. Billing options, one per way to pay (Monthly, Annual).
  3. The plan, ticking the options from step 2.
  4. The add-ons, as monthly options outside any plan, ticked in the plan's Add-ons (upsell) section.
  5. The downsell for each add-on, in the plan itself.
  6. Access: spaces with Subscribers visibility, or Private unlocked for the plan.
  7. Coupons, whenever you want.

See also Creation order, which shows the same sequence in the API.

While the community can't sell yet, a notice at the top of Monetization says where the review stands (not submitted, under review with the expected answer date, rejected with the reason, or sales suspended after editing approved information) and takes you to the Business Information through the Open Business Information button. See The notice in Monetization.

Which one to use

I want to…Use
Charge a monthly fee for access to the communityA plan with a Monthly option
Offer monthly and annual, with a discount on annualA plan with two options; the pricing page shows the savings on its own
Have tiers (Starter, Growth, Business)One plan per tier
Lock subscribers in for a termA monthly option with a contract length
Sell the whole year by card, in installmentsAn annual in installments option
Sell a standalone courseA product that unlocks the course space
Sell an extra only to existing subscribersAn add-on on the plan
Give a launch discountA coupon
Win back whoever skipped the extraA downsell

A complete example, with numbers

A community using Memberfy's own catalog:

PlanMonthlyAnnual
Starter (up to 100 members)R$ 64R$ 588 in up to 12 installments (R$ 49 a month)
Growth (up to 1,000)R$ 129R$ 1,188 in up to 12 installments (R$ 99 a month)
Business (up to 5,000)R$ 389R$ 3,588 in up to 12 installments
Scale (up to 20,000)R$ 649R$ 5,988 in up to 12 installments

Add-ons: Coworking Extension (R$ 450 a month) and Planning & HR Extension (R$ 950 a month) on every plan; +2,000 members pack (R$ 99 a month) on Scale only.

Someone subscribes to Growth Monthly with the Coworking Extension: they pay R$ 129 + R$ 450 = R$ 579, in a single payment. The platform fee is 6.99% of R$ 579 (R$ 40.47) plus R$ 2.49 once per order: R$ 42.96. The community keeps R$ 536.04.

What selling costs

The platform fee is 6.99% + R$ 2.49 per charge, the same for PIX, boleto and card, and it applies to every sale and every renewal. Each payout costs R$ 3.67. On each product, you choose who pays the fee: the community or the buyer. See Platform fee.

What happens after a sale

  1. The payment is confirmed (instantly for card and PIX; when it clears, for boleto).
  2. Access to the plan's or product's spaces is unlocked.
  3. The buyer gets the confirmation email, and the community gets the sale notice.
  4. The sale goes into the statement and, after the payment method's waiting period, becomes available for payout.

See Checkout, Balance and statement and Payouts.

Checklist before you promote it

  • Payout setup approved: Business Information and bank account with Approved status under Monetization › Payments.
  • Billing options set to Active, with at least one payment method ticked.
  • Plan with its options ticked, and a description and benefits filled in.
  • Spaces that only payers should see set to Subscribers, or Private unlocked for the plan.
  • Test the /pricing page with a member account: the plan shows up, the prices match, the total is right.
  • Who pays the fees checked on each option: the screen's default is Buyer.
  • A test coupon, if you're going to use coupons, validated at checkout.

Common errors and how to fix them

What happensWhyWhat to do
The plan doesn't show up on /pricingThe plan has no active billing option, or it is inactiveActivate the option and check the plan
Payment configuration has not been set up for this communityPayout setup hasn't been approved yetFinish your Business information
To publish and start selling, the community needs approved business information…The Business Information isn't approved (or it was edited and went back to review)What you created stays as a draft. Submit it for review and publish after it's approved
This product has no payment method enabled. Contact the community.No method is ticked on the optionTick PIX, card or boleto under Payment & Pricing
The checkout total is higher than the priceWho Pays the Fees? is set to BuyerChange it to Organization if the community should absorb the fee
The subscriber paid and can't see the spaceThe space isn't unlocked for the planEdit the space: Private with the plan under Who gets in, or Subscribers
I can't delete a planIt has billing options attached or active subscriptionsRemove the options and wait for the subscriptions to end, or just deactivate it

Frequently asked questions

Do I need an account with a payment gateway? No. Payment processing is Memberfy's: you register your details and a bank account, and that's it.

Can I charge in dollars? Each plan has one currency, and all its options use it. The default is the Brazilian real.

Can a community have a free part and a paid part? Yes, that's the most common setup: Members spaces open to everyone, and Subscribers or Private spaces for those who pay.

Can finance create a coupon? No. Finance sees coupons and how they're used; creating and editing belongs to the owner and admins.

Can I change a plan's price later? The new price applies to people who subscribe afterward; existing subscribers keep the price they signed up at. To avoid surprising anyone, create a new option and deactivate the old one.

Can one person have two plans? They can subscribe to more than one plan, each billed separately. For an extra on top of a plan, the right way is an add-on, billed together.

Where do members pay? On the community's pricing page, /pricing. Each plan also has a direct link, /pricing/<plan>.