Memberships: set up, sell and manage member discounts

A membership in Rentalbuddy is a percentage discount on rentals, valid for a number of months and tied to the customer's email address. The customer pays once, and every rental they book with that email while the membership is valid gets the discount automatically.

The email part is the thing to remember, and the admin repeats it in several places: "Memberships are linked to customers by email. The same email must be used when booking for the member discount to apply." A member who books with a different address gets no discount, and nothing warns them or you.

Everything lives under Memberships in the left menu, which has four tabs: Settings, Checkout, Members and Purchases.

What a membership is, and what it is not

What exists:

• A percentage off the whole booking total for rentals, while the membership is valid.
• Memberships that customers buy online in your booking widget, and memberships you add or import yourself.
• A validity counted in months, which customers can extend or switch before it runs out.
• A confirmation email when a membership is bought and a reminder email before it expires.

What does not exist — these are plain "no"s, not hidden settings:

• No recurring or automatic billing. A membership is paid once, as a single payment. There is no monthly or yearly subscription charge, no card kept on file for renewal and no automatic renewal. When it ends it simply stops; the customer buys a new one if they want to continue.
• No free rentals, punch cards, credit packs or "unlimited" plans. The only member benefit is the percentage discount.
• No usage limits per member (for example "max 10 rentals"), and no way to share one membership between several people other than sharing an email address.
• No discount on event bookings. The member discount applies to rental bookings (rental products, accessories and insurance), not to events.

If you want tiers such as gold, silver and bronze, create several membership products with different prices and discounts — a customer holds one at a time and can switch between them.

Turn on memberships on the Memberships page

1. Open Memberships and stay on the Settings tab.
2. Switch on Enable memberships.
3. Answer Where should memberships apply? — see the next section; this one matters.
4. Set Default member discount (%). Helper text: "Used for manually added/imported members without a product-specific discount. The discount applies to the entire booking total." It must be between 0 and 100, otherwise you get Please enter a discount between 0 and 100.
5. Set Default membership length (months) — between 1 and 120, otherwise Please enter a membership length between 1 and 120 months.
6. Press Save.

If you switch memberships on without choosing where they apply, you are told Choose where memberships apply before continuing. The Checkout, Members and Purchases tabs stay greyed out until the setup is saved.

After saving, a Getting started panel appears next to the form: "Memberships are enabled. Here's what's set up and what we recommend next." It lists Sell memberships online (tagged Recommended) with a Create one link, and under Optional the Confirmation & reminder emails, Checkout requirements and Add members manually.

Saving here does not make anything sellable yet. Enabling memberships and creating a membership product are two separate steps, and operators regularly stop after the first one and wonder why customers see nothing. Until a membership product exists, no membership option appears in your booking widget. Use the Create one link in the Getting started panel — it opens a new product with the Membership type already chosen. Once you have products, the panel says "You have {{count}} membership product(s). Customers can buy memberships through your booking flow."

Choose where memberships apply: All locations or Per location

Where should memberships apply? has two answers, and the choice shapes everything after it:

• All locations — "Members can use their discount when booking at any of your rental locations." One membership covers your whole account, including locations you add later, and one membership product is enough — it is offered at every location.
• Per location — "Members only get the discount at the location they signed up for. Add a separate membership for each additional location." A person who wants two locations needs two memberships, and each location that should sell memberships needs its own membership product.

Pick All locations unless your locations are genuinely separate businesses to your customers.

Change where memberships apply later

You can switch freely until you create your first membership product (the hint says "You can change this until you add a membership or membership product."). After that the choice is locked and shows "Use the button below to change where memberships apply. Your membership products may need to be updated."

Press Change where memberships apply to open the dialog. It does two very different things depending on the direction:

• Per location to All locations — you get Choose which membership products to keep, with "Uncheck duplicate products at other locations. Unchecked products will be removed." Anything you untick is deleted, and you must keep at least one. This is the destructive direction.
• All locations to Per location — nothing is deleted. Under Your membership products you are told that each membership will now only be sold at the location shown (Sold at), and that to offer the same membership elsewhere you go to Products, use Copy and choose where it should be sold.

Press Save change to apply it. Either way the dialog says "Existing members are not affected until you edit them individually." Members who joined under the old setting keep working as before and show a Legacy chip on the Members tab. To move one onto the current setting, open them with Edit and change Where should memberships apply? on that member. There is no bulk conversion.

Create a membership product so customers can buy one

Customers buy a membership through a product, in the same booking widget they use for rentals.

1. Pick a location in the Location picker at the top of the left menu, go to Products and press Add new product (or use Create one in the Getting started panel).
2. In Choose a product type, pick Membership. The type "cannot be changed once the product is created". If memberships are not switched on yet, the card is unavailable with Enable memberships on the Memberships page first and a Go to Memberships button.
3. Under Membership settings you see which setting applies (All locations, or Per location – {{siteName}}) and fill in:
   • Membership price — what the customer pays, once. "Enter 0 for a free membership". The price is saved with your currency's decimals. A price above 0 but below Stripe's smallest online payment for your currency (for example 3 SEK or 0.50 EUR) shows "Bookings that total less than … cannot be paid online.": such a membership can't be bought online, so use 0 for a free one.
   • Rental discount (%) — what members get off their rentals.
   • Membership length (months) — leave it empty to use your account default; the field tells you the default ("Uses account default if empty (12 months)" or whatever yours is).
   • Taxes, as on any product (see the taxes guide). It can be left empty, but then no tax is charged on the membership.
4. Save the product.

On All locations, one membership product is enough — the product help says "You only need to create this product once. It will be available for purchase at all your locations, and members can use their discount everywhere." On Per location, create one at each location that should sell memberships: "Create a separate membership product at each location where you want to sell memberships." Copying a membership product to another location is done with Copy on the Products list (see the products guide).

If you try to create a membership product before choosing where memberships apply, you are told Set up where memberships apply on the Memberships page before creating a membership product.

If the account's membership settings don't allow the product when you save — for example memberships were switched off while you were filling in a new one, or where memberships apply is not set — saving stops with "This account's membership settings don't allow this product. Check the settings on the Memberships page and try again." Check the Settings tab on Memberships, then save again.

A Rental discount of 0 does not mean "no discount". The helper text says "Enter 0 for no discount", but a membership with 0 % falls back to your Default member discount (%) at booking time. If you truly want a discount-free membership (for example a club membership that only gives access), set both the product's Rental discount (%) and the account default to 0.

Membership checkout requirements (Checkout tab)

By default, buying a membership asks for the same information as making a booking: "Customers will see the same custom checkout requirements as when making a booking. Name, email, and phone are always required." The link Edit booking checkout settings takes you to those booking fields. If some of your locations use their own checkout settings, the fields a membership buyer sees depend on the location they buy from.

To ask something different, switch on Use separate checkout requirements for membership purchases and add fields under Membership checkout requirements with Add requirement — "These requirements are shown only when customers buy a membership. They do not affect regular bookings." A Preview shows what the customer gets, and Import requirements copies fields you already use for bookings. Adding, editing or deleting a requirement is only stored when you press Save.

The Checkout tab is only shown to users who are allowed to change memberships.

How customers buy a membership in the booking widget

Memberships only show in the widget when memberships are enabled and at least one membership product matches your setting — on Per location, only the membership products of the location being booked are shown.

Test bookings never show memberships. A test visit of your booking page (from Make a test booking in the location page's top bar) offers rentals only, and a membership put in a test checkout is refused. To try buying a membership, use your normal booking page — a 100 % promo code makes it free (see the promo codes guide) — and delete the member on the Members tab afterwards.

1. Choosing memberships. If the location offers both rentals and memberships, the customer may first be asked I want to book with a Products and a Memberships button, and the first step shows a Products | Memberships switch at the top. If memberships are the only thing on offer, the widget opens straight on them.
2. The membership list. Under Memberships, each membership shows its price, {{percent}}% off rentals, Valid for 12 months (or its own length), and Works at all locations or Works at this location only. If nothing is for sale, the customer sees "No memberships are available for purchase right now."
3. Existing members. A link Already a member? opens an email field ("Enter your email to see your current membership."). With a current membership the customer sees a banner such as "You have an active membership (10% off rentals until 1 June 2027).", and the buttons change from Add to Extend ("Extends your membership by 12 months.") for the membership they already have, or Switch ("Switches your membership from today — your remaining time is kept.") for a different one. Otherwise they see "No active membership found for this email."
4. Checkout. The checkout step names what will happen — for example "You already have an active membership until 1 June 2027. This purchase extends it — valid until 1 June 2028." — and the pay button reads Extend membership or Switch membership for existing members. Switching to a lower discount says so explicitly. The customer can also enter a promo code here, like on any booking. If the total ends up above 0 but below Stripe's smallest online payment, the step says "This amount is too small to pay online. The smallest amount that can be paid online is …" and the customer can't pay. If the widget can't check for an existing membership at that moment, it says "We couldn't check for an existing membership right now. If you already have one, this purchase will still be applied to it." The customer can still pay, and the purchase still extends or switches the membership held on that email.
5. After paying. The confirmation says Thank you for your membership! — "Your membership is now active. You will receive a confirmation email shortly. Your member discount will be applied automatically on future rentals when you use the same email address." — with Valid until and the date. Membership buyers are not sent to an unlock page: there is nothing to pick up.

Dates in the widget are written day first, with the month as a word in the customer's language — for example 1 June 2027.

A membership becomes active only when the purchase is fully paid. An abandoned or unpaid purchase creates no member. If you take payment outside the widget (pay on site), the membership starts when you register the purchase as paid in admin.

A separate membership button, link or QR code

You do not need a special button — the standard booking button sells memberships too. If you want a separate membership button, link or QR code that opens straight on your memberships, use the Membership purchase row on the location's Book button tab, and set its label with Membership text; see the booking button guide and the booking links and QR codes guide for the details.

How the member discount is applied to bookings

When a customer types their email in the checkout step of a normal booking, the widget checks it against your members. If it matches a valid membership for that location, the price summary shows a Member discount (10%) line, and the percentage applies to the entire booking total. Rentalbuddy checks the discount again when it calculates the price, so it cannot be faked, and it only applies if the membership is valid at the location being booked. On Per location a customer who is a member at another location gets nothing here.

If a member also enters a promo code, both apply, one after the other rather than added together: a 10 % membership plus a 10 % code on 1000 gives 810, not 800.

On the booking in admin, the member discount appears in the price summary as Membership discount (10%) — the percentage in brackets is the member's rate. When a booking is later moved or extended, the discount is worked out again from the membership the customer holds at that moment, so a membership that has expired in between no longer counts.

A membership purchase itself never gets a member discount.

Membership validity, extending, switching and expiry

Every purchased membership runs from the moment it is paid. Its length comes from the product's Membership length (months) (or your account default), so two people buying the same product on different days get different end dates. There is no way to sell a membership that ends on a fixed calendar date for everyone ("valid through next May"). If you need that, set the date by hand: add the members yourself with the Valid until you want, or sell online and then edit each buyer's Valid until on the Members tab.

Extending and switching keep the remaining time. Buying again while a membership is still valid adds the new months onto the current end date. Switch does the same, but the new membership's discount applies from today. After a membership has expired, a new purchase simply starts from that day.

Changing a product's price or discount affects new purchases only. The price is charged once, at purchase, and the discount is copied onto the membership when it is bought. Raising the price or changing Rental discount (%) later changes nobody who already bought. To adjust an existing member, edit them on the Members tab.

When does it stop? A membership stops giving a discount when its Valid until passes. A date you set by hand (or import) covers the whole of that day; a purchased membership ends at the same time of day it was bought. Nothing is charged and nothing renews.

Membership emails: confirmation and expiry reminder

When you first enable memberships, Rentalbuddy adds two emails for you: "one when a membership is purchased, and one 7 days before it expires. They're ready to use — change them anytime under Email settings, or leave them as they are." They are under Settings → Emails (the tab that message still calls Email settings): the confirmation is in the Default emails list, and the expiry reminder is in Your emails.

• Membership confirmation (When a membership is purchased) goes out when an online membership purchase is paid. It includes the membership details: where it applies, Valid from, Valid until and the member discount.
• The expiry reminder is timed Before membership expiry; you can change how long before, or switch it to After membership expiry as a "welcome back" nudge. Its default subject says the membership expires in 7 days, so if you change the timing, change the subject too.
• Reminders are rescheduled whenever a membership's end date changes, and dropped when a member is switched off or deleted.
• Members you add or import by hand get no confirmation email, but they do get the expiry reminder.

How to edit the email texts is in the emails guide.

Add or import members manually

Useful when someone joined outside your online checkout — paid you in cash, or came over from a paper list.

1. Open the Members tab and press Add member.
2. Enter their Email: "We link members to customers by email. The customer must use this same email when booking to receive their discount."
3. On Per location accounts, choose the Location.
4. Adjust Rental discount (%) if this person should differ from your default.
5. Check Valid until — it is prefilled with today plus your default membership length.
6. Press Save.

If the email does not belong to a customer yet, a customer record is created for it. A customer can hold one membership on All locations accounts, or one per location on Per location accounts; adding a second gives "This customer already has an account-wide membership." or "This customer already has a membership for this site." — edit the existing one instead.

To add many at once, press Import CSV. The dialog shows the format for your setting — Format: email, validUntil (YYYY-MM-DD, optional), discount % (optional) or, per location, Format: email, siteId, validUntil (YYYY-MM-DD, optional), discount % (optional). Worth knowing before you paste:

• One member per line, no header row. Each row is matched to a customer by email.
• Leaving the date out gives 12 months from today — a fixed default; your Default membership length is not used on imports.
• Leaving the discount out uses your Default member discount (%).
• The per-location format needs the location's internal ID, which the dialog does not list, so adding a handful of members one at a time is often quicker.
• You get Created {{count}} member(s). and, if some rows failed, a count of errors.

See and manage members

Members tab — everyone with a membership: Name, Email, Location (or All locations), Added via (Purchase or Manual entry), Discount, Valid until, Status and Actions. On Per location accounts, people with several memberships are grouped with a {{count}} locations chip. Search with Search members, tick rows to Export or Print them, and click a row to open that customer.

• The switch in Status turns a member's discount off without deleting them (Active / Inactive).
• Edit changes their discount, Valid until or email. Changing the email also updates the customer record: "Linked by email — changing it updates the customer record."
• Delete asks "Are you sure you want to remove {{email}} as a member?"

The Status column does not show expiry. It only shows whether you have switched that member on or off, so an expired membership still reads Active there. Look at Valid until, or at Customers, where the Member column shows Yes with Until and the date, Expired with the date underneath, or Deactivated with Manually deactivated.

Customers — with memberships enabled, the customer list gets Member, Applies to and Discount columns and a Member filter (Active, Expired, Deactivated, No). A customer's own page has a Membership details card where you can edit, switch off or delete their membership. The customers guide covers the rest of that page.

Who can do what follows the user's role: viewers and Booking staff can see memberships but not change them — their fields are shown greyed out — and deleting a member needs delete rights (see the users and roles guide).

Membership purchases and sales

Purchases tab — every membership someone bought, with Purchase date, Customer, the Amount and Payment status (and the location when you have several). Search with Search purchases; click a purchase to open it. This is the tab for "what did memberships bring in". Tick purchases to Export or Print them. The heading checkbox (Select this page on a phone) selects only the purchases on the current page — the line above the list then says Selected on this page: {{count}} and offers Select all {{count}} for the whole list (as narrowed by your search) and Clear. Print takes up to 500 at a time; use Export for more.

Membership purchases are orders like bookings, but they are kept out of your operational lists — there is nothing to hand out or return. In Bookings they only show when you switch on Include membership purchases, and on a purchase the change log says Membership bought by. The dashboard shows them separately as Membership sales (see the reports guide).

Turn memberships off

Switching Enable memberships off and saving stops everything customer-facing at once: membership products disappear from your booking widget, and no member gets a discount any more — existing members included, until you switch memberships back on. The Members and Purchases tabs then show "Memberships are disabled. Existing members are unchanged; re-enable in Settings to offer new sign-ups." — "unchanged" means their records and end dates are kept, not that their discount keeps working. Switch it back on and the discounts of members who are still within their dates work again.

Your existing membership products stay in Products and can still be edited while memberships are off; you just can't create new ones until you switch Enable memberships back on.

To stop selling memberships but keep existing members' discounts, leave memberships enabled and remove or delete the membership products instead.

Common questions

We turned on memberships but customers can't buy one — nothing shows in the booking window. Enabling memberships is only step one: create a membership product under Products (the Create one link in the Getting started panel does it). On Per location, each location needs its own membership product.

A member says they got no discount. Almost always they booked with a different email address than the one on the Members tab. Also check that the membership is switched on, that Valid until hasn't passed, that on Per location it covers that location, and that the booking wasn't an event. A discount cannot be added to a booking afterwards from the membership — refund the difference if you want to honour it.

Can a membership renew automatically every year, like a subscription? No. A membership is a single payment for a set number of months; there is no recurring billing or automatic renewal. The expiry reminder email is the way to invite members to buy again.

The membership expired but the Members tab still says Active. Status is only your on/off switch, not the expiry. Look at Valid until, or the Member column in Customers, which shows Expired.

Saving a membership product says "This account's membership settings don't allow this product". You are creating a new one while memberships are switched off, or where memberships apply is not set. Fix it on the Settings tab under Memberships, then save the product again.

Can I sell gold, silver and bronze memberships? Yes — create several membership products with different prices and Rental discount (%). A customer holds one at a time and can Switch between them in the widget, keeping their remaining time.

Can I sell a membership for a symbolic amount, like 1 kr? Not online if it is below Stripe's smallest card payment for your currency: customers can't pay it. Make it free with Membership price 0, or charge at least that minimum.

Can I set the product discount to 0 for a membership without a discount? Only if your Default member discount (%) is 0 too — a product discount of 0 falls back to the account default.

A member changed email address. Edit the member on the Members tab and change the email; it updates their customer record as well. A membership cannot be moved to a different customer: "Memberships cannot be moved between customers. Delete this membership and add a new one for the correct customer."

What is "Membership discount" on a booking when the customer isn't a member? With a percentage in brackets it is a member discount. A plain Membership discount line without a percentage can also show up when a booking was charged less than the current price without a promo code — check the Members tab before assuming the customer is a member.

Can Booking staff add members or change memberships? No. Booking staff, like viewers, can see memberships but not change them; a user with rights to change memberships, such as the account owner, does that.

Why can't I buy a membership in a test booking? Test bookings cover rentals only: a test visit of the booking page hides memberships, and a membership in a test checkout is refused. Try the purchase on your normal booking page instead, for example with a 100 % promo code.

How do I export all membership purchases, not just the ones on screen? On the Purchases tab, tick the heading checkbox, then press Select all {{count}} and Export. The heading checkbox alone selects only the current page.