Can I run a paid membership, subscription or community from my own website?

Yes. Whatever you call it - a membership, a subscription, a paid community, a members area - describe it to Bernard: a name, a monthly price, a yearly price or both, and which courses it includes. A join page appears on your site as a draft for your approval, and people join there and pay you directly.

Who holds my members’ subscriptions?

You do. Every member’s payment, card and subscription lives in your own Stripe account, not ours. If you ever left bernard, your members’ billing would leave with you - nothing is held hostage.

What happens when I add a new course later?

If your club includes everything, new courses flow to existing members automatically at their next renewal. Nobody has to rejoin, and you never send access links by hand.

What if a member’s card fails, or they cancel?

Nothing is cut off early. A failed card gets a grace period while they sort it out; a member who cancels keeps everything until the time they paid for runs out. Access simply lapses at the end, and rejoining picks everything back up.

Can the membership include private rooms in my forum?

Yes, if you have a community forum. Name the rooms and members are let into them when they join, with no email unless you have said the club is open to new members. When a membership ends, after the grace period, the person leaves those rooms; their posts stay.

Can I move my members across without anyone getting an email?

Yes. A new membership is quiet until you tell Bernard it is open to new members: people who join get their courses and rooms but no welcome email and no forum sign-in email. For a club that already sends welcomes, ask Bernard to make it quiet before the move, and tell him when it is open again.

Students & members4 min read

Run a membership or paid community - people pay monthly for my courses

Selling a course once is a good month. A membership is a good year: people subscribe - monthly, yearly, or whichever they prefer - for ongoing access to everything you teach, and your income stops restarting at zero. Call it what your people would: a membership site, a subscription, a paid community, a members area, a community group. Platforms built around memberships and communities charge hundreds a year for this and often take a slice of every payment. Here it comes with your courses, and nobody takes a slice of anything.

The prompt

“Set up a membership called [the club name] at [the price] a month or [the price] a year, giving members access to [all my courses / these courses: …].”

Signed in, Get my prompt fills in your site for you. Otherwise press Copy and fill in the [bracketed] parts. First time? Connect your AI to bernard once: Use your own AI (opens in a new tab).

How it works

Describe the club. A name, its prices (monthly, yearly, or both side by side), and what’s inside - every course you have (Sell a course from my own website explains courses themselves), or a hand-picked set. Offer my membership monthly or yearly, and change the price explains two prices, members switching between them, and changing a price later.
Approve the join page. A page for the club appears on your site as a draft, with the prices, what’s included, and a join button for each price. Like every change, it goes live when you approve it.
People join and pay you. The join button takes them to a checkout on your own payment account (Where the money goes when someone enrols) - the money, the card details and the subscription itself all belong to you.
Access looks after itself. Once you tell Bernard the club is open to new members, each new member gets a welcome email per course with their way in - no passwords (Let learners in without accounts or passwords). Until then joining is quiet: members get their courses, and no email is sent. Each renewal quietly extends their access, and if your club includes everything, courses you publish later reach existing members automatically.
Members get somewhere to talk. Every membership comes with its own community space - a room on the join page and conversation under each lesson. See My community space - where members talk, and how I look after it. If you have a community forum, the membership can also open private forum rooms: members are in them while their membership lasts, including the grace period after a failed card. Joining sends no forum email, and no course welcome, until you tell Bernard the club is open to new members, so a quiet move stays quiet.

Questions your members might ask you

Ask Bernard “how’s my club doing?” for members, joiners and what the club earns, or “who’s lapsing?” for anyone whose payment is struggling. A member who cancels keeps access until the end of what they paid for - that promise is built in, and it’s worth repeating to them. To see the club’s price next to your course prices and codes, ask for your price list (Show me all my prices in one place); raising the price is in Put up my membership price without upsetting the people already paying, and every pricing option is in Every way I can price my courses, memberships and workshops. Members can also pay less for your courses, and visitors can join and buy a course at the member price in one checkout (Give my members a better price on my courses), monthly or yearly. A course can also come with a few months of the club, free months that carry on at the club’s price unless the member cancels, or that simply end (Give a few months of my membership with a course). A welcome code for new members, such as 20% off the first month, works on the join page (Give people a discount code when they join my membership).

Leaving the door unlocked

The subscriptions live in your Stripe account, not ours. That’s deliberate: if you ever moved away, your members and their billing would come with you. It works the other way too: if your old platform billed members through your own Stripe account, those subscriptions are already yours (Keep my paying members when I move platform). A membership should be a reason people stay, never a lock on the door.

A members area is not a private whole website

The words are often used for both, but the permissions are different. A paid membership opens the courses included in the club. It does not automatically put every member on an invitation-only whole-site list. If you also want to close the whole website, choose which members should enter and invite those addresses separately. Their payments, membership and course access are unchanged. Make my whole website private for invited people explains the whole-site door.

Questions people ask

Can I run a paid membership, subscription or community from my own website?: Yes. Whatever you call it - a membership, a subscription, a paid community, a members area - describe it to Bernard: a name, a monthly price, a yearly price or both, and which courses it includes. A join page appears on your site as a draft for your approval, and people join there and pay you directly.
Who holds my members’ subscriptions?: You do. Every member’s payment, card and subscription lives in your own Stripe account, not ours. If you ever left bernard, your members’ billing would leave with you - nothing is held hostage.
What happens when I add a new course later?: If your club includes everything, new courses flow to existing members automatically at their next renewal. Nobody has to rejoin, and you never send access links by hand.
What if a member’s card fails, or they cancel?: Nothing is cut off early. A failed card gets a grace period while they sort it out; a member who cancels keeps everything until the time they paid for runs out. Access simply lapses at the end, and rejoining picks everything back up.
Can the membership include private rooms in my forum?: Yes, if you have a community forum. Name the rooms and members are let into them when they join, with no email unless you have said the club is open to new members. When a membership ends, after the grace period, the person leaves those rooms; their posts stay.
Can I move my members across without anyone getting an email?: Yes. A new membership is quiet until you tell Bernard it is open to new members: people who join get their courses and rooms but no welcome email and no forum sign-in email. For a club that already sends welcomes, ask Bernard to make it quiet before the move, and tell him when it is open again.