How members access their customer account

Learn how your members engage with their account.

When a visitor to your site signs up for one of your member areas, they must create a customer account and pay for membership (if applicable). From there, they can log into their account to access member area content, manage their information, and view orders.

This guide covers how members create and manage their customer accounts.

How members create accounts

Visitors sign up for one of your member areas using a join button in a member sign up block or on the member area's access denied screen. If the member area has two membership pricing options, they’ll select a pricing option. After clicking the join button, they’ll be prompted to create a customer account or log into an existing account. To make a new account, members enter their name and email, and create login credentials.

What happens after a new member creates or logs into their customer account depends on the member area’s membership pricing:

• Free - New members are automatically taken to the member area homepage and receive the member area’s welcome email.
• Subscription or Fixed amount pricing - New members continue to a checkout screen where they must enter their payment information and complete the checkout flow before accessing the member area’s homepage. In addition to the welcome email, they’ll also receive a receipt for their purchase.

How members sign in

To sign into their customer accounts and access your member area pages, your members use a login link in your main navigation. Depending on your site's version, this link appears automatically when you enable Member Areas. Learn more about the login link display.

Members can also log into their accounts from any member area’s access denied screen.

Tip: While visitors can create customer accounts on your site by clicking Create account on the login screen, they can only become members by going through the steps above.

What appears for members when they sign in

After a member signs into their account, the customer account panel opens on the right side of the screen. What appears in this panel depends on how you've customized your member navigation:

• If your Member Navigation is set to Show in the Customer Account Panel, links to all pages in the member areas to which your members have a membership appear when they sign in. Members can access their customer account and review their membership details by clicking Account.
• If you selected Replace main navigation (Version 7.1 only) or Don't show navigation, customer account details appear in the panel to members, not links to member areas pages.

Members can close the Customer Account panel by clicking anywhere on your site outside of the panel.

How members review their memberships

Members can view and manage their memberships from their customer account. After logging in, they click Account, and then Memberships. All member areas to which they have a membership are listed in the memberships section.

Members can click a member area to view their membership start date and a link to the member area’s homepage. If the member area has a recurring subscription, or fixed amount membership pricing with remaining installments, the following details also appear to members:

• Renewal date - The date of their next recurring subscription or installment payment
• Frequency - How often they pay recurring subscription or installment payments to maintain access to the member area
• Price - The membership payment amount
• Go manage subscription - Members can click this link to manage their saved billing information

How members change their email addresses

Your members can change their email address when logged into their account. Member area accounts work the same as customer accounts and follow the same rules. To learn more about changing a member's email address, visit How customers use customer accounts.

How members cancel their memberships

When a member cancels their membership, you’ll receive an email notification. The member won’t receive a refund for payments already made. If the member area has remaining subscription payments (either recurring or installments), all subsequent payments will be automatically canceled.

If a member asks how to cancel their membership to a member area, tell them:

1. Log into your customer account.
2. Click Account, then click Memberships.
3. Click the member area you want to cancel your membership to.
4. If you have remaining payments: click Go manage subscription. Otherwise, move to the next step.
5. Click Cancel subscription, then click Cancel subscription again to confirm.

When a member cancels their membership, they'll keep access to gated content for the remainder of the billing cycle. At the end of the billing cycle, their account fully expires. They'll still have access to their customer account, but navigation links to members-only content won't display.

If you want a member to lose access to gated content immediately, you can cancel their membership.

How members log out

To log out of their customer accounts, members click Account, then Sign out. After logging out, they'll be redirected to your site's homepage.

Depending on their browser, members may be automatically logged out of their customer accounts after they've been inactive for a certain length of time.