Offer recurring memberships by creating a membership plan
Memberships are recurring subscriptions to services from your studio. They’re the ideal product for most studios to sell, depending on your business model, because they ensure a continuous revenue stream in addition to helping to build a community of familiar faces in your studio.
The alternative to memberships are credit packs, where users buy a one-off pack of credits which don’t automatically renew at expiry.
In this article we’ll get real geeky about memberships and the seemingly unlimited ways they can be configured in Clovo to allow you to offer the exact product offering your business needs.
Creating a Membership Plan
While logged into Clovo as an owner or admin:
- Go to Products > Plans:
- Click Add Plan
- Configure your plan:
- Choose the duration of the billing period (e.g., fortnightly, monthly, quarterly, yearly).
- Define the number of classes or sessions included in the membership.
- Customise Plan Details:
- Add a description that highlights the features and benefits of the membership.
- Create
Benefits of offering Membership Plans
- Retain Clients: Encourage clients to commit to your studio long-term with membership plans.
- Increase Revenue: Offer discounts and incentives to attract more clients and boost revenue.
- Build Community: Create a sense of belonging and community among your members.
How Membership Booking Windows and Allowances Work
If your membership includes a set number of classes, those classes are counted within booking windows. A class uses the allowance for the window it takes place in, not the day you booked it. This means you can book ahead, but each week or fortnight still has its own limit.
How booking windows work
- Weekly memberships use Monday to Sunday windows.
- Fortnightly memberships use 2-week windows that run Monday to Sunday across both weeks.
- And so on for longer membership billing cycles.
- You can book ahead into future windows.
- Each class counts toward the window its class date falls in.
- Unused classes do not move into the next window.
Your first membership period
If you join on a Monday, your membership is already aligned to the normal weekly or fortnightly pattern.
If you join part-way through the week, we do not expect you to use a full allowance in only a few days. Your first allowance is measured from the day you join until your first renewal date. After that, your membership follows the normal Monday-based booking windows.
This is designed to avoid the unfair situation where someone joins mid-week and only gets a few days to use a full allowance.
Example: Weekly membership
You have a weekly membership with 3 classes per week.
You join on Thursday 6 August.
Your first allowance covers the period from Thursday 6 August until your first renewal date. During that first joining period, you can use up to 3 classes. You are not limited to only the remaining few days of that calendar week.
Once your membership moves onto its regular cycle, classes are counted in Monday to Sunday windows.
For example:
- If you already have 3 classes scheduled in one Monday to Sunday week, you cannot add a 4th class in that same week.
- If you book a class today for next Tuesday, it uses next week’s allowance, not this week’s.
- If you have used all 3 classes this week, you can still book classes that fall in the following week, as long as that next week still has allowance available.
Example: Fortnightly membership
You have a fortnightly membership with 6 classes every 2 weeks.
Once your membership is on its regular cycle, one booking window might run from Monday 4 May to Sunday 17 May. The next window would run from Monday 18 May to Sunday 31 May.
How Future Bookings Work on Memberships
If you book classes in a future booking window, those bookings are treated as credit bookings. This means they are held on the assumption that your membership will still be active when that future window arrives.
A credit booking does not mean an extra payment is taken at the time of booking. It simply means the booking is being reserved against a future membership allowance.
What a credit booking means
- If you book a class in a future week or fortnight, it uses the allowance for the window the class takes place in.
- That future booking is held in advance based on the expectation that your membership will renew as normal.
- If your membership remains active, the booking stays in place and counts toward that future window’s allowance.
Example
You have a weekly membership with 3 classes per week.
If you already have classes booked for this week, you can still book a class for next Monday if next week still has allowance available. That booking is treated as a credit booking until that next membership window is reached.
What happens if you cancel your membership
If you cancel your membership, any credit bookings for classes that take place after your membership ends will be cancelled.
This is because those bookings were being held on the assumption that your membership would renew, and once you cancel, that is no longer the case.
What stays booked
Any bookings for classes that take place on or before your paid-through end date will remain booked.
Example
If you cancel on the 15th, but your membership stays active until the 18th because that is the date you have already paid up to:
- A booking on the 17th stays booked
- A booking on the 18th stays booked
- A booking on the 19th or later will be cancelled if it was a credit booking
Why credit bookings are cancelled when a membership is cancelled
Studios often have limited spaces in class. When a membership has been cancelled, any future bookings that rely on a renewal are removed so those places can be made available to other clients.
If you want, I can also turn this into:
- a shorter in-app help version
- an FAQ version
- a combined article that explains both booking windows and credit bookings together
This means:
- You can book up to 6 classes between 4 May and 17 May.
- If you already have 6 classes scheduled in that 2-week window, you cannot add a 7th class in the same window.
- You can still book classes that fall between 18 May and 31 May, because those use the next fortnight’s allowance.
What you can and can’t book
You can:
- Book ahead into future weeks or fortnights
- Use the full allowance available in each booking window
- Book across multiple windows, as long as each window stays within its own allowance
You can’t:
- Book more classes than your membership includes in a single week or fortnight
- Use next week’s or next fortnight’s allowance to add extra classes to the current window
- Carry unused classes into another window unless your studio offers a separate rollover policy
Why a booking may be blocked
The most common reason is that the class falls in a week or fortnight where you have already used the full allowance, even if you made the booking weeks in advance.
How Future Bookings Work on Memberships
If you book classes in a future booking window, those bookings are treated as credit bookings. This means they are held on the assumption that your membership will still be active when that future window arrives.
A credit booking does not mean an extra payment is taken at the time of booking. It simply means the booking is being reserved against a future membership allowance.
What a credit booking means
- If you book a class in a future week or fortnight, it uses the allowance for the window the class takes place in.
- That future booking is held in advance based on the expectation that your membership will renew as normal.
- If your membership remains active, the booking stays in place and counts toward that future window’s allowance.
Example
You have a weekly membership with 3 classes per week.
If you already have classes booked for this week, you can still book a class for next Monday if next week still has allowance available. That booking is treated as a credit booking until that next membership window is reached.
What happens if you cancel your membership
If you cancel your membership, any credit bookings for classes that take place after your membership ends will be cancelled.
This is because those bookings were being held on the assumption that your membership would renew, and once you cancel, that is no longer the case.
What stays booked
Any bookings for classes that take place on or before your paid-through end date will remain booked.
Example
If you cancel on the 15th, but your membership stays active until the 18th because that is the date you have already paid up to:
- A booking on the 17th stays booked
- A booking on the 18th stays booked
- A booking on the 19th or later will be cancelled if it was a credit booking
Why credit bookings are cancelled when a membership is cancelled
Studios often have limited spaces in class. When a membership has been cancelled, any future bookings that rely on a renewal are removed so those places can be made available to other clients.
