How to Set Up Paid Membership Plans in BuddyNext

How to set up paid membership plans in BuddyNext, step by step: turn on memberships, open Plans, set the name, price and status, choose the spaces the plan unlocks, connect Stripe with its webhook, and check the result as a member.

Transcript

In this tutorial you will set up paid membership plans in BuddyNext, so people pay to join your community. You need BuddyNext Pro, and a Stripe account for the payments. It takes about four minutes. There are six steps. Turn on memberships. Open Plans. Set the name, price and status. Choose the spaces the plan unlocks. Connect Stripe. Then check it as a member. Step one. Turn on memberships. In your WordPress admin, open BuddyNext, then Platform, then Features. Under Monetization, switch on Memberships and monetization, and save. It is off until you turn it on, and the Monetization menu appears once it is on. Know this before you switch it on. The ready-made Free plan becomes the default plan, and members who have not paid get only what it grants. Read its perks first, and edit them if free members should keep more. Step two. Open Plans. It is under BuddyNext, then Monetization. Every plan is listed here with its price and its members. A Free plan and a Pro plan come ready made. Click Edit on the one you want to charge for. Step three. Set the name, price and status. Give the plan a name that members will recognise. Set Status to Active. Only active plans are shown on your pricing page. Under Pricing and billing, type the price and choose the billing type. Step four. Choose the spaces it unlocks. Further down the same screen is Spaces this plan unlocks. This ready-made Pro plan already opens every gated space, so the box says Covered by All gated spaces. On a plan without that setting, add each paying-members space by name here. Then save the plan. Step five. Connect Stripe. Open Payment Gateways, in the same Monetization menu, and turn on Stripe. Paste the publishable key and the secret key from your own Stripe account. The money goes straight to that account. Then copy the Webhook endpoint address into Stripe, open How to set this up for the list of events to select, and paste the signing secret Stripe gives you back here. Save the gateway. Without the webhook, renewals, cancellations and failed payments never reach your site. Step six. Check it as a member. Sign in as a member on the free plan, and open the plans page on your site. Each active plan is here, with its price and a button to upgrade. Now open a space that is gated to paying members. Gating a space is done under Monetization, then Paywall, and the next tutorial covers it. The space is locked, with a message that it is for members only, and a button that leads to your plans. That is all six. Memberships turned on, Plans opened, the name, price and status set, the spaces chosen, Stripe connected, and the result checked as a member. Your community can now take payments into your own Stripe account. Next in this series: Lock a space to paying members.