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Paid memberships

A paid membership is a VIP plan a customer buys (vs. a VIP tier they earn). In Charm a membership is just a Shopify product — the customer purchases it, perks switch on, and they stack on top of points and tiers.

Model

Section titled “Model”
  • A membership program links to a product, optionally pinned to a single variant (e.g. monthly vs. annual). The plan inherits that variant’s price.
  • Plans can be one-time / term-based (e.g. a 12-month pass) with expiry + a configurable grace window, or auto-renewing subscriptions, which need a store payment setup that supports subscriptions (Shopify Payments, PayPal Express or another subscription-capable gateway). The editor warns you if your store doesn’t.
  • Perks use the same vocabulary as VIP tiers (shipping, member discounts, cashback, store credit, custom benefit cards) and resolve through the same checkout discount Function. For a customer who is both a member and in a tier, the better of each perk applies: the higher discount, cashback rate and points multiplier, free shipping if either grants it, and perks like early access or custom benefit cards from both.
  • A plan can carry its own points multiplier. Next to a VIP tier’s multiplier, the higher of the two applies, never both multiplied together, and you can keep the full multiplier for members who keep ordering.

Lifecycle

Section titled “Lifecycle”
  1. The customer buys the membership product through normal checkout.
  2. As soon as the order is paid, the membership activates and its perks switch on.
  3. Perks are enforced automatically at checkout (and at POS) for as long as the membership is active.
  4. When the term ends, the membership lapses after the configurable grace window; lifecycle emails (welcome / expiring / expired) fire along the way.

Important behaviors

Section titled “Important behaviors”
  • No platform cut. Membership sales settle through Shopify checkout like any order — Charm never takes a percentage or per-member fee.
  • Fees don’t earn points. Membership purchases are auto-excluded from point earning across every surface (order earning, refunds, on-page estimate, checkout preview) so a plan can’t circularly earn against its own multiplier.
  • Revenue tracking. Each purchase captures amount + currency; analytics report lifetime and active membership revenue, not just member counts.
  • Self-service auto-renewal. A subscription bought through the membership block auto-applies its selling plan (with auto-renew copy). Customers can Cancel renewal from the membership card in their account (access continues to the end of the paid period), or switch to another plan from the next renewal, and Charm skips the expiring-soon email for anything still set to auto-renew.
  • Automatic renewal billing. Charm charges each renewal on the renewal date. If the payment fails, it tries again after 1, 3 and 5 days, then cancels the subscription and the membership ends with the paid period. See term length and grace period.

Storefront

Section titled “Storefront”

Memberships show up wherever the customer already is. Every enabled plan with a linked product becomes a plan card with its price, the monthly equivalent of a longer plan, its perks and, where it can be worked out, the monthly spend at which the plan pays for itself. Guests and signed-in customers see the same plans; a member sees their own plan and its status instead.

  • Floating widget: a Membership row opens the plans, with Buy now to add a plan to the cart (with its selling plan attached, so a subscription renews exactly as it would from the product page) and View plan for the product page. A member sees Your membership and Manage membership, which opens the Loyalty Hub.
  • Loyalty Hub in customer accounts: a Membership section under the balance summary with the plan cards, or the member’s own card with Cancel renewal, Renew now and Other plans.
  • Landing page: the Landing: Memberships block shows the plans as cards or as a comparison table.
  • Membership theme block on product pages, with the points multiplier at the top of the perk list, and the POS customer view.

You can mark one plan as Best value and hide the payoff line per plan. See Show membership plans on your storefront for what each surface shows and how to set it up.

Prices come from the Shopify product and are re-read every time you save the membership or open the memberships page, so a price change on the product follows through to the cards on its own. The cadence line is translated into all 35 storefront languages, and every string is editable per language under Visibility → Customer copy.

See Theme app blocks.

Section titled “Related how-tos”