Introduction
Memberships let you earn recurring revenue by giving learners ongoing access to a bundle of courses for a repeating fee, instead of a one-time course purchase. This article explains how memberships work, what you need before using them, and the key concepts, so the rest of this collection makes sense.
What a membership is
A membership is a recurring plan a learner subscribes to. While their subscription is active, they get access to the courses you have included in that membership. When it ends (cancelled or expired), that access is removed.
The structure has three layers:
Membership: the offering itself (name, benefits, category, free trial).
Pricing plans: one or more plans under the membership, each with its own price and billing cycle (for example, a monthly plan and a yearly plan).
Inclusions: the courses a subscriber gets access to.
So the model is: Membership → Pricing plans (how they pay) + Inclusions (what they get).
Where memberships live
Memberships sit under Products → Memberships in the left-hand menu.
Before you can use memberships
Two requirements are worth knowing up front, because they commonly block first-time setup:
Memberships is a Prime-plan feature. It is available from the Prime plan and above. On lower plans you will see an upgrade prompt instead of the module.
How access works
All membership plans are recurring (ongoing fees). There is no one-time membership.
A membership can grant access to bundled courses (and, conceptually, events and exclusive content). In the admin screens, you attach courses to a membership.
When a learner's membership is cancelled, they keep access until the end of the current billing cycle; when it expires, access ends.
Two-phase setup
Setting up memberships happens in two stages, which the next articles follow in order:
Enable memberships for your organization once (a one-time setup that names your membership area and its landing page).
Create membership plans, each through a three-step wizard: Basic Details, Pricing Plans, and Inclusions.
Permissions
Access to memberships is controlled by permissions. Broadly: viewing needs manage-read, creating needs create-write, editing needs manage-write, and changing a plan's active status needs manage-delete. Admins have full access. If you cannot see a button described in these articles, you may not have the required permission.
What's next
Start with Enabling Memberships (First-Time Setup) to turn the feature on for your academy.