Member Sites

Set up member sites and create pages that only visitors with a membership can access.

You can build an online community and curate content with Member Sites. Pages you add to a member site are automatically hidden behind a paywall. Only members who sign up for a pricing plan can access your content. You can offer free or paid memberships to your member site.

This guide describes how to enable, create, sell, delete, and add content to a member site. 

Tip: It's free to build a member site, but you need a digital products plan or a business or commerce plan before your visitors can sign up for memberships.

Enable member sites

How you enable Member Sites for your site depends on if you're building a new site or expanding an existing site.

Build a new site with Member Sites

If you're creating a brand new site, choose one of the Membership or Digital Products templates from the template store. These site layouts already have Member Sites enabled.

You can also choose any template that works best for your business and follow our steps to manually enable Member Sites to an existing site.

Add Member Sites to an existing site

To enable Member Sites on an existing site:

1. Open the Member Sites panel.
2. Switch the Member Sites toggle on.

Create a member site

To create a new member site:

1. Open the Pages panel.
2. Click the + icon next to the Member Sites section to enter the member sites creation screen. If this section doesn't appear in the Pages panel, ensure Member Sites are enabled on your site.
3. Name your member site.
4. Set your membership pricing to make your member site available for a recurring subscription, a fixed amount, or free.
5. Click Done.

Tip: You must have Administrator or Website editor site permissions to create new member sites.

Check out our Member Sites checklist for a list of steps to take to set up and sell access to your member sites.

Member sites settings

After you create a member site, it appears beneath the Member Sites section in the Pages panel. To open a member site’s settings, hover over the member site title and click .

Here are some of the settings you can change:

• Name - This name appears as the title of a member site in the Pages panel and digital product blocks.
• Pricing plans - Click Pricing plans, to create a new pricing plan or change the current one. Any changes made to a pricing plan’s recurring subscription cost only affects new members. Members that signed up before the price change will continue paying the price their original price.
• Paywall - Click Edit paywall to customize the page that appears to non-members if they try to access content in this member site.
• Global settings - Click Manage global settings for a shortcut to the Member Sites panel.
• Delete - Click Delete member site to remove the member site from your site.

SEO and passwords in member sites

When a page is in a member site, the page’s SEO options and passwords are deactivated, and its URL is removed from your site map. If you move the page out of your member site, these settings are automatically reinstated.

Add content to a member site

After creating a member site in the Pages panel, you can add members-only pages beneath it. Create content such as classes, workshops, or video libraries for different communities and skill levels. Only visitors who sign up for that member site’s pricing plan can view its pages.

Tip: Use Acuity Scheduling, course pages, or service products for classes or workshops to increase your revenue. You can also add a videos page to a member site to create a gated video library.

Pages in a member site don't have SEO options and aren't indexed in your site map. This keeps them hidden from search results to maintain the exclusivity of members-only content.

To add a page to a member site:

1. Open the Pages panel.
2. Under Member Sites, locate the appropriate member site, then click Add page.
3. Select a layout option.
4. Enter a page title in the text field and press Enter.

Tip: The first page added to a member site automatically becomes that member site’s homepage. You can change this by dragging and dropping a different page into the top position of your member site.

You can also drag and drop an existing page into the Member Sites section of the Pages panel. Each page can only be in a single member site. To include the same page of content in two or more member sites, duplicate the page and drag it into the other member site.

Tip: It’s not possible to drag course pages and videos pages that are part of a pricing plan into a member site. You can duplicate the pages, remove the new version from the pricing plan, and drag them into your member site.

Navigation links

In addition to pages, you can also add links to your member navigation. Use this option to link your members ‌to external sources, such as a members-only forum or Facebook page.

If you've chosen to replace your site navigation with the member navigation (version 7.1 only), we recommend adding navigation links to public pages on your site in the member navigation. This helps members find your public content, even when logged into their customer account.

Page limits

There's no official limit to the number of pages you can add to a member site. Depending on how you've set up your member navigation, however, you may want to minimize the number of pages in your member sites. If your member navigation replaces your main site navigation (version 7.1 only), hovering over the member site’s name in the navigation bar reveals a list of all the pages in that member site. When a member site contains many pages, that list is long and could overwhelm your visitors.

If you do add a lot of pages in a single member site, we recommend setting your member navigation to Don't show navigation and creating a custom member navigation on the member site’s homepage.

Note: Member sites don’t support folders.

Build a sign-up page

Your visitors can only purchase access to your member site using digital product blocks. We recommend creating a public sign-up page, or page section, on your site that includes digital product blocks for each pricing plan you offer. Visitors can compare and contrast all of your gated content, then purchase a membership.

Preview gated content

You can use summary blocks and content link blocks to preview gated content from one of your member sites on your main site. When visitors click the previewed content in these blocks, they’re taken to that member site’s paywall, where they can log in.

If you have a store page in one of your member sites, you can use product blocks on your main site to advertise products from that store. Visitors can then use these blocks to purchase the featured products from your gated store without signing up for a membership.

Protect member site content

When a visitor who hasn’t signed up for a membership tries to view pages in a member site, they'll encounter a paywall. Encourage non-members to join by adding a link to your paywall that connects to your sign-up page.

Keep in mind, we can’t guarantee the security of content in your members-only pages after members have access to them. It's not possible to completely prevent someone from copying members-only text, images, audio, or file URLs from your site and sharing them with non-members. There are several approaches you can take to protect your content and discourage unlawful copying. To learn more, visit Preventing visitors from downloading your images, videos, and audio.

Note: On version 7.0 sites, Avenue, Montauk, and Flatiron templates use a grid index page. If you add a grid index page to your member site, pages inside the index display the content of the page when linked to directly. This means that members can share a link to a page inside the member site and non-members can view the content.

Delete member sites

As a best practice, we recommend you email all ‌members of a member site before you delete it. Learn how to contact your members in Managing individual members.

To delete a member site:

1. Open the Pages panel.
2. Hover over the member site you want to delete, then click .
3. In the General tab, scroll down and click Delete member site.
4. In the pop-up message, click Delete.

Note: Deleted member sites and their memberships can’t be restored.

After you delete a member site:

• Deleting a member site doesn’t delete its pricing plan. The pricing plan still exists, but it no longer includes the member site. We recommend updating the pricing plan details.
• If you delete the member site’s pricing plan, members receive a cancellation email, notifying them of this change.
  • Members can still log into their customer accounts. Member navigation and links to the deleted member site won't appear in the Memberships section of their customer accounts panel.

The pages from that member site become unrestricted and move into the Not linked section. The pages are visible to search engines, and any members who saved direct links to those pages can still access them. You may want to delete the pages or use page passwords to keep them private.