Buy Me a Coffee is best known for allowing creators to receive one-time support, but what if you could get support every month? That’s where memberships come in! Setting up different membership levels allows you to turn your income into something steady and reliable. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know about Buy Me a Coffee memberships and how to make the most of them.

Whether you're offering behind-the-scenes updates, personalized shoutouts, or any other unique perks, setting up a membership is easy and flexible. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you get started:

Log in to your Buy Me a Coffee account, head to your dashboard, and find the Membership tab. Click on Enable Membership to begin setting up your first membership level.

Choose a name that stands out and represents the perks of this membership level. Decide on the monthly and yearly subscription fees for your membership. Ensure the price reflects the time and effort you put into the rewards. Upload a relevant image to make your membership page visually appealing. This adds a personal touch and grabs attention.

In your own words, explain what your membership includes. Be clear about what supporters will get when they subscribe. The description helps potential members understand what they’re signing up for, so make it informative and engaging.

You can choose rewards from our reward library or, if you're providing something unique, write a short description of each reward. You can add as many rewards as you want.

This option allows you to decide the number of people who can join a particular membership level. It's handy in two scenarios:

If you have a Discord community, this option allows you to connect your Buy Me a Coffee account with your Discord server and offer special roles to your members as a reward. It’s a great way to give members access to exclusive channels, special badges, or other perks within your Discord community.

The welcome note is a message that will be visible to your members after they complete their payment. This is where you can show your appreciation, inform your new members about what’s coming, and leave them excited about their membership experience.

The right side of the page will show real-time updates as you set up your membership level. When everything looks good, and you’re happy with your setup, click the Create button to finalize your membership level.

Here are a few more settings to customize how your membership page works and how much information you want to share with your supporters. These options are all about transparency and convenience, and turning them on can help make your membership page more appealing to potential members.

This option lets new members pay upfront for a whole year of membership instead of going month-to-month. It’s convenient for supporters who prefer paying once, and it helps you secure a steady income for a longer period.

Turning this on shows how many people are currently subscribed to your membership. This can help build trust and credibility. When potential members see that others have already joined, they might be more inclined to sign up.

This feature shows your monthly earnings, which can also help create a sense of progress and growth for your supporters. When they see how their contributions are adding up, it can motivate them to continue supporting you.

A Membership Giveaway is a great way to build momentum and manifest interest in your membership levels. Setting up a Buy Me a Coffee membership is simple, but getting people to join can be challenging. That’s why we recommend offering a few giveaways to let people experience the perks firsthand.

The best part? You can set the expiry date to as short as 7 days, giving members a quick taste of the benefits.

For more information on how to send invites and manage your giveaways, check out our article "What is a Membership Giveaway?"

You can easily make changes to any part of your membership level at any time. Whether you’re adjusting the name, price, image, description, or anything else, choose from the membership levels, click on edit, and once you're happy with the updates, click the Update button to save the changes.

Pausing stops billing for current members and prevents new sign-ups. It's a great option if you need a break from creating content or delivering rewards. You can pause for a set period (1, 3, or 6 months), and billing will resume once the pause is over. You can also unpause it anytime before the period ends.

Unpublishing stops new members from joining, but current members can still receive content and be billed. You might choose to unpublish a membership when you don't want any more members to join, either because you've reached a limit or for other reasons. You can always go ahead and publish it again later.

Deleting is permanent. It removes the membership entirely and can’t be undone. You can only delete it if there are no active members or posts. This is best when you no longer need the membership level. Use this if you’ve stopped offering this level and want to remove it.

We also offer a lifetime membership option, which allows supporters to become members forever with a single payment.

Memberships renew either monthly or yearly. For example, if someone subscribes on January 1st, 2024, and it's set to renew monthly, the subsequent payments will happen on February 1st, March 1st, and so on. This continues automatically unless the member or creator cancels or if the card doesn’t have enough funds.

If the card lacks balance, the system will try up to three more times. If the payment still fails, the membership is canceled. The same process applies to yearly subscriptions.

Members can cancel their membership at any time, but if they cancel right after subscribing, the payment will still go through. They’ll continue to have access to all benefits until the current subscription period (monthly or yearly) ends, but no further renewals will occur.

Creators can also cancel a member’s subscription if requested. To do this, go to the membership page, find the member, click the three dots next to their name, select "view info," and cancel the membership.

No, it won't. Whatever price people are charged when they sign up for the Membership is their price for life. Only your new members will be charged the new price; your old members can continue with the price they originally signed up for unless you or they cancel their subscription and sign up for a new one.

Your members are charged immediately when they first subscribe. After that initial payment, they will be billed regularly—every 30 days for monthly memberships and every 365 days for yearly memberships, starting from the date of their first payment.

As per industry standards, your members will receive an email notification after the payment for each renewal is processed.

You can access the Message from the sidebar. Select the member's group, type in your message, and click the send button.

Have more questions? Feel free to reach out to us via email at [email protected].

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