Membership Plans
Use this page to create the plans people join — recurring memberships and punch cards.
Quick steps
- Go to Memberships, click Manage Plans, then click New Plan.
- Type a Plan Name and pick a Plan Type: Recurring membership or Class pack / punch card.
- Under Pricing, enter the Price ($). For a recurring plan, pick the Billing Interval (Weekly, Monthly or Annual) and any Free Trial Days. For a punch card, enter the Number of Visits (Punch Card).
- Optional: under Access & Benefits, set class limits, guest passes and a shop discount for members.
- Leave Active (visible and available for enrollment) ticked and click Create Plan.
Changing a plan's price later doesn't change what current members pay. They keep the price they joined at.
Common questions
Can I make a free plan? No. The price must be more than zero. Use a small amount instead.
How do I stop selling a plan without upsetting its members? Open the plan and click Deactivate. It disappears from new signups, and the members already on it carry on as before.
Why can't I delete a plan? A plan can only be deleted when nobody on it is active or on a free trial. Deactivate it instead.
When is the joining fee charged? The Setup Fee ($) is charged once, with the member's first automatic card payment. If your store doesn't bill memberships automatically through Helcim, collect it at the counter.
More detail: the plans list
A plan is what somebody joins. There are two kinds:
- Recurring membership — billed every week, month or year until it is cancelled.
- Class pack / punch card — bought once for a set number of visits, which are used up one at a time.
Open them from Memberships → Manage Plans.
The Plans List
The page is titled Membership Plans — "Create and manage membership tiers for your facility".
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Search | Matches the plan name, the program or the tier key. |
| Billing, Status | Narrow the list to one billing interval, or to active or inactive plans. |
| State, Tier | Only shown when at least one of your plans is tagged with a region or a tier key (golf passes use these). They only offer values your plans actually use. |
| Apply / Clear | Run or reset the filters. |
| Table / Cards | Two ways to view the same list. The table shows Plan, Billing, Price and Subscribers (plus State and Tier when you use them); the cards show the price, the description and the subscriber count. |
| New Plan | Create a plan. |
| Discounts, Signup Form | Shortcuts to Membership Discounts and Signup Questions. |
In the table, Billing reads Weekly, Monthly or Annual for a recurring plan, and 10-visit pass (or however many visits it holds) for a punch card. A grey Inactive badge marks a plan that has been switched off — active plans carry no badge.
Subscribers counts members who are active or on a free trial. Demo signups are not counted.
More detail: every field on a plan
Creating a Plan
Click New Plan and fill in the sections.
Plan Details
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Plan Name | Required, and must be unique in your store. It is what members see. |
| Color | A colour dot used beside the plan across the admin, and the header colour of the plan card on your public page. |
| Description (Optional) | Shown on the public plan card. |
| Plan Type | Recurring membership or Class pack / punch card. Choosing a punch card hides the billing and class-limit fields and shows the punch-card ones instead. |
| Program / Discipline | Free text such as Grappling, Kickboxing or Combined. Shown under the plan name in the list. |
Geographic Targeting (optional)
Leave this blank unless your pricing changes by region.
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Country | United States or Canada. |
| State / Province | Tagging even one plan makes the public membership page ask visitors to pick their region first, then show only that region's plans plus any untagged ones. |
| Tier slug (deeplink key) | A short key such as platinum, so a link from your marketing site can scroll straight to that card even when the plan names carry region suffixes. |
Use the same spelling of a region across all your plans — "Florida" everywhere, or "FL" everywhere.
Pricing
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Price ($) | Required, and must be more than zero. |
| Billing Interval | Weekly, Monthly or Annual. |
| Every X Periods | 1 means every month; 3 means every three months. |
| Free Trial Days | Days before the first charge. Leave at 0 for none. |
| Setup Fee ($) | A one-off joining fee, taken with the member's first payment. |
| Cancellation Fee ($) | What a member owes for leaving early. Recorded for you to collect at the desk. |
The joining fee is charged once, along with the member's first payment — so on a free trial it lands when the trial ends, not on the day they join. The amount is fixed when they enrol, so changing a plan's fee later never alters what an existing member was signed up for. Someone enrolled at the desk without a card pays it when their card is set up, which may be days later. Punch cards never carry one.
It rides along with the member's recurring payment at Helcim. If your store bills memberships another way, the fee is recorded against the member but nothing charges it — take it at the counter.
The cancellation fee is never charged to a card. When you end a membership early, the amount is recorded on the member as Owed, and you collect it at the desk and mark it collected — see Cancelling. Nobody is billed for leaving during a free trial, for letting a membership run to the end of a period they already paid for, or when a duplicate membership is deleted.
For a punch card you get two different fields instead:
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Number of Visits (Punch Card) | How many visits the pack contains. |
| Expires After (days) | Counted from the day they buy it. Leave blank for no expiry. |
A punch card is a one-off purchase, so any trial days on it are ignored — otherwise a $0 checkout would hand over the whole pack for free.
Access & Benefits
Only shown for recurring plans.
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Max Classes Per Week | Shown on the plan and on the public plan card. When staff enrol this member in a class from the admin, a class that would go over the limit is refused with Weekly class limit reached. Leave blank for unlimited. |
| Max Classes Per Month | As above, per calendar month (Monthly class limit reached). |
| Guest Passes Per Month | How many guests this member may bring each calendar month. This one is enforced: the member's page refuses a pass once the month's allowance is used. |
Retail/POS discount for members decides what the member saves when they buy something at your register:
- Wholesale Pricing Tier (preferred) — link the plan to a shared pricing tier. When set, it overrides the percentage below.
- Plan-specific discount % — tick the box and enter a percentage to use instead.
Once one is set, ringing a sale up with that member attached takes the percentage off the cart subtotal automatically. The member must be on the sale, and their membership must be active (or on a trial) and not expired.
Advanced, Display Order and Status
Advanced: Stripe Integration (Optional) holds a Stripe Price ID for stores billing through Stripe. Leave it blank otherwise.
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Display Order | Lower numbers come first, in the admin and on your public page. |
| Active (visible and available for enrollment) | Untick to retire a plan without deleting it. |
Click Create Plan.
More detail: editing, deactivating and deleting
Editing, Deactivating and Deleting
Open a plan to see its status, price, subscriber count, a Plan Benefits summary and the list of Subscribers (with Enroll Member beside it, which opens enrolment with this plan already chosen).
In the Subscribers list, click a name to open that membership. A live membership that is set not to renew says Won't renew under its end date, the same as on the Members list.
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| Edit | Change any field. |
| Deactivate / Activate | Hides the plan from new signups while leaving current members on it untouched. |
| Delete | Only offered when no member on the plan is active or on a trial. Otherwise you get Cannot delete a plan with active subscribers. |
Every member is billed the price recorded when they enrolled. Change the plan price and existing members carry on at their old rate — the member's page says so, and offers a Move to the current $X button to bring that one member onto the new price. See Members.
More detail: troubleshooting
Troubleshooting
| Problem | Solution |
|---|---|
| Price must be greater than 0 | Free plans are not supported. Use a nominal amount, or a punch card. |
| Name has already been taken | Plan names must be unique within your store. A retired plan still holds its name. |
| Cannot delete a plan with active subscribers | Move or cancel those members first, or just deactivate the plan. |
| The plan isn't on my public page | It must be ticked Active. If any of your plans carry a region tag, visitors must pick a region first, and an untagged plan shows in every region. |
| A punch-card member was never billed again | That is correct — a punch card is bought once. It never gets auto-billing. |
| Members aren't getting their shop discount | Check the plan has a pricing tier or a plan-specific percentage, the customer is attached to the sale, and their membership is active and not past its end date. |
More detail: best practices
Best Practices
- Keep the number of plans small. Every extra plan is another row on the public page and another thing to keep priced correctly.
- Use the Program field when you run more than one discipline — it shows under each plan's name in the list, and search matches it.
- Deactivate, don't delete. Deactivating keeps the history of everyone who was ever on the plan.
- Set Display Order deliberately so your best-value plan is not buried at the bottom of the public page.
What's Next?
- Members — enrol people onto these plans.
- Membership Discounts — family, staff and other cheaper rates.
- Online Signup — how these plans appear to the public.