Customizing the Member Areas experience

Edit the member homepage, navigation, checkout, and more.

You can use Member Areas to build out custom classes, programs, and packages of content for different skill levels and communities. Use this guide to learn how to customize the Member Areas experience for your members.

Global settings

The Member Areas panel includes shortcut links to all the global settings that affect your member areas. To open the Member Areas panel, in the Home menu, click Settings, then click Member Areas.

The following options appear:

• Create member areas - Links to the Pages panel, where you can add new member areas.
• Manage members - Links to the Profiles panel, where you can view all your members, along with any Commerce customers, mailing list subscribers, and donors.
• Shortcuts - Use the links in this section to access the Commerce features you’ll use to sell memberships to your member areas. Click Customer notifications to customize member email notifications.
• Member navigation - Control the navigation menu that appears to members when they log into their customer accounts on your site.

Customize member homepages

The member homepage is the landing page for a member area. Use this page to welcome your members and link out to the rest of the pages in that area. Links to a member area’s homepage automatically appear in:

• Membership purchase confirmation emails
• Member area welcome emails
• The Memberships section of a member’s customer account panel

The first page you add to a member area automatically becomes that area’s homepage. To set another page as the member homepage:

1. Open the Pages panel.
2. Under Member Areas, locate the appropriate member area.
3. Hover over the title for the page you want to set as your member homepage and click .
4. In the page settings, scroll down and click Set as member homepage.
5. Click Confirm in the pop-up, then click Close.
6. Your new member homepage will have a home icon next to its title.

Note: Navigation links and pages within portfolio pages (version 7.1) or index pages (version 7.0) can't be set as the homepage.

If you delete the member homepage or remove it from its member area, the first page listed under that member area in the Pages panel automatically becomes the homepage. If there aren’t any other pages, a 404 error appears for members when they try to access their members-only content.

Style member homepages

You can customize the page’s design using style tweaks in the Design panel. Learn more in Making style changes.

Customize member navigation

When a member logs in to their customer account, a new navigation menu appears, listing the gated pages in that member area. Choose how you want this member navigation to appear:

1. Open the Member Areas panel.
2. Click Member navigation.
3. Choose where you want logged-in members to view their member navigation.
4. Click Save.

What member navigation options you have depends on your site’s version.

Customize checkout

Create a custom checkout form for customers to complete when paying the recurring subscription or fixed amount membership cost to access one of your member areas. Use this form to collect information or comments from your customers and display your Terms of Service.

Note: You can only create a single custom checkout form for your site. If you sell products or services as well as member area memberships, the same form appears at checkout for customers, regardless of what they're purchasing.

Customize customer email notifications

Customize the following automatic email notifications sent to your members:

• Welcome email - The email a new member receives after signing up for one of your member areas. By default, this email welcomes members, invites them to sign in, and links to the member area homepage.
• Cancellation email - The email a member receives after their membership is canceled, either because you removed them from a member area, deleted the member area from your site, or cancelled your Member Areas subscription.
• Customer account emails - Enabling Member Areas also enables customer accounts by default. Customize the emails members receive after creating an account or resetting their account password.
• Opt-in confirmation emails for free member areas - The email a member receives when they sign up for a free member area. Members must click a link in this email to confirm their interest in receiving email communications.

Learn more about all the email types members receive, and how to customize them in Customer email notifications.

Customize access denied screen

An access denied screen appears to visitors if they try to access pages in a member area when they’re logged out of their customer account, or if they don't have an active membership. The access denied screen includes the following details:

• Pricing option picker - If the member area has two membership pricing options, this picker automatically shows, allowing prospective members to choose a pricing option before clicking the join button. You can’t remove or change the text of the pricing option picker.
• Headline - Create a headline for the screen, stating the name of the member area and welcoming your members.
• Description - Use this field to remind viewers that member area pages are only accessible to members, and to invite new members to join. If you added a description to the member area, that text automatically populates the field, but if you change it for the access denied screen, it won't change the member area description.
• Join button - Visitors can click this button to sign up for your member area. By default, the button text is “Join” if the member area only has one membership pricing option. If the member area has two pricing options, the button displays the amount and frequency for the pricing option they've chosen. Learn how to hide the join button in the steps below.
• Sign in link - Members can click this button to sign into their customer account and access the member areas to which they already have a membership.

Change the details on an access denied screen

To customize the details on a member area’s access denied screen:

1. Open the Pages panel.
2. Under Member Areas, hover over one of your member areas and click .
3. Click Edit access denied screen.
4. Use the drop-down menu to select which Member Area this screen applies to.
5. Customize the Headline and Description message.
6. If you want to hide the Join button, switch the Show join button toggle off. This ensures visitors can only sign up for membership from a member sign up block.
7. Click Save.

To reset the messaging to the default wording, click Reset to default at the bottom of the panel.

Style the access denied screen

To style the access denied screen's colors in version 7.1, open site styles, then click Colors. The access denied screen uses the default color theme. Click the theme to make style changes:

• Headline color - Follows Heading (large)
• Description color - Follows Paragraph (medium)
• Pricing option picker color - Follows Background under Button
• Pricing option picker font color - Follows Text under Button
• Join button color - Follows Background under Button
• Join button font color - Follows Text under Button
• Sign In link color - Follows Paragraph (medium)

All text elements on the access denied screen take their style from your site-wide fonts. You can re-size the access denied screen's fonts using the following tweaks:

• Headline size - Follows Heading 2
• Description size - Follows Paragraph 2
• Pricing option picker font size - Follows your font’s Base Size.
• Join button font size - Follows your font’s Base Size.
• Sign In link font size - Follows Paragraph 2

The pricing option picker and join button follow the Buttons site styles tweaks.