Membership plans
Put posting behind a paywall: charge members a subscription with plans that include a number of listings for a number of days, and decide what happens when a plan runs out.
Membership plans put posting behind a paywall. Members choose a plan on your pricing page, for example Starter: 5 listings for 30 days, pay for it, and can then post up to that many listings until the plan ends. Only members with a plan can post. It is how most car, property and equipment marketplaces charge their dealers and agents. Memberships are part of the Professional and Marketplace plans.
Memberships charge for posting. Browsing stays open to everyone. To keep listings for signed-in members only, use Require Login to View Listing (see Listing page and form fields) or make the whole site private; neither is paid. To earn from advertisers rather than sellers, see Banners and ad slots.
Use membership plans when your sellers post regularly. For occasional sellers, a fee per listing with pay to post is usually simpler.
Switch on memberships
- Go to Add-ons in the sidebar and open Subscriptions.
- Under Plans, click + New plan, fill in the plan (see below) and click Submit. Create every plan you want to offer.
- Back on the Subscriptions page, switch on Enable subscriptions and choose your options (see When a plan runs out and Renewals below).
- Click Save changes in the bar at the bottom.
You can also switch on Seller plans in the guided Make money set-up. On a site without plans it offers to create three for you (Free, Pro seller and Dealer), and it won’t switch memberships on until there is at least one active plan.
The pill next to the page title says On while memberships are on.
Once memberships are on, every member needs a plan to post. Members without one are sent to the pricing page
(/pricing.html on your site) when they try to post. Administrators and moderators never need a plan.
You need at least one payment method for paid plans. A plan with a price of 0 is free and starts without a checkout.
Create a plan
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Name | The plan name members see, such as Dealer or Pro. |
| Seoname | The plan’s short name for web addresses, in lower case without spaces, such as dealer. Must be unique. |
| Description | What the plan includes, shown on the pricing page. |
| Price | What members pay for each period, in your Currency. 0 makes the plan free. |
| Days | How long the plan lasts, for example 30 or 365. |
| Amount Ads | How many listings a member can post during the plan. -1 means unlimited. |
| Marketplace Fee | With Stripe Connect, the commission (%) taken on this plan’s members’ sales instead of your standard one. A rate you set for one seller on the Commission on sales page comes before the plan’s fee. See Commission and service fees. |
| Status | Active plans appear on the pricing page. Deactivate a plan to stop selling it. |
Plans are listed on the Subscriptions add-on page, where you can edit or delete them. The pricing page shows active plans from the cheapest up.
After creating or changing a plan, clear the cache from the link in the confirmation message so the pricing page shows the change straight away. See Clear the cache.
Promotions included in a plan
A plan can include featured listings and moves back to the top, which sellers use instead of paying. It gives your higher plans more value: for example, Dealer with 5 featured listings and 20 moves to the top each month.
Set them at the bottom of the plan’s form, when you create or edit it:
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Featured listings included | How many listings a seller on this plan can feature without paying, each plan period. |
| Days featured per credit | How long each of those listings stays featured. |
| Moves to the top included | How many times a seller can move a listing back to the top without paying, each plan period. |
The credits start again each time the plan renews, and unused ones don’t carry over. In the Nova theme, sellers use them with Use a credit on the Promote page of a live listing (see The Promote page), and the pricing page lists them on each plan as Included: ….
How members subscribe
- The member opens your pricing page, or is sent there when they try to post.
- They click the plan they want. They must be signed in.
- They pay at checkout. Coupons work here too.
- The plan starts at once. Their profile shows You are subscribed to the plan … until … with … ads left.
Each listing they post uses one of the plan’s listings. Listings they already had published count too: if a member with 3 published listings buys a 5-listing plan, they have 2 left.
Changing plans
Members change plan by buying another one on the pricing page. The new plan replaces the old one straight away (the remaining days of the old plan aren’t carried over). Yclas stops a member from:
- buying the plan they already have before it ends;
- moving to a plan with fewer listings than they are already using.
When a plan runs out
Block expired members decides what happens when a member’s plan runs out, and whether plan limits are enforced. These settings are on the Subscriptions add-on page.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Block expired members | When a plan ends and isn’t renewed, the member’s listings are hidden (status Unavailable) until they buy a plan again. Members who have used all their listings, or whose plan has ended, are sent to the pricing page when they try to post. Their listings come back automatically when they renew. |
| Do not limit access | Appears once Block expired members is on and saved. Members with an expired plan can still browse, contact sellers and use their account; they are only asked to renew when they post or edit a listing. |
| Extra listing when sold | When a member marks a listing as sold, they get that listing back on their plan (never more than the plan’s total). |
| Retry failed renewals | Off by default. Tries a declined card again before the plan expires, and reminds members before each automatic renewal. See Retry declined cards. |
Switch on Block expired members if you want plans to be enforced. Without it, a member who has had a plan once can keep posting after the plan has ended or after using all its listings; only members who never had a plan are sent to the pricing page.
If you switch on Block expired members before creating any plan, Yclas reminds you to create one first.
Renewals
When a plan ends, Yclas renews it automatically if it can:
- Free plans renew on their own.
- Plans paid by card through Stripe are charged again to the same card. When a member pays for a plan on Stripe’s payment page, Stripe asks their permission to save the card for future payments; at renewal the saved card is charged without the member having to do anything. Plans paid with Stripe’s older card pop-up (Legacy Checkout) renew the same way.
- Every other plan creates a new order, and the member gets the plan-expired email with a link to pay. Until they pay, the plan counts as expired (and, with Subscription Expire, their listings are hidden).
If the bank asks the member to confirm the renewal, or the card is declined, the member gets the plan-expired email with the link to pay instead, unless you retry declined cards (see below).
Cards are not saved while Let Stripe add the tax (Stripe Tax) is on (see VAT and taxes): members then renew by paying from the email.
Members on automatic card renewal can stop it with Cancel Subscription on their profile (or, with Retry failed renewals on, from their My plan page). Their plan then runs to its end date and isn’t charged again.
If you deactivate a plan, members on it aren’t renewed when their period ends.
Retry declined cards
Cards get declined for ordinary reasons: an expired card, a limit reached that day. With Retry failed renewals on, a declined renewal doesn’t end the plan straight away:
- A few days before an automatic renewal, the member gets a reminder with the date, the amount and a link to change their card or stop the renewal.
- If the card is declined, the member keeps their plan and their listings stay up. They get an email with the date of the next try, a link to update their card and a link to pay now.
- The card is tried again 1, 3 and 7 days after the first failure. Each failed try sends the same email with the next date.
- If the last try fails, or the member turned automatic renewal off meanwhile, the plan expires as usual: the plan-expired email, and hidden listings with Block expired members.
To switch it on, go to Add-ons › Subscriptions, switch on Retry failed renewals and click Save changes. It only affects plans that renew from a card saved with Stripe.
The Subscriptions page then also lists Failed renewals: each member whose card was declined, the order, the number of Tries, the Next try, and whether it is Trying again or Given up.
The reminder and the failed-renewal emails have a fixed text: they aren’t in Email templates.
The My plan page
With Retry failed renewals on, members see Manage your plan in the plan box of their profile, in place of Cancel Subscription. It opens My plan, where they can:
- see their plan, its renewal date and the listings left;
- Turn automatic renewal off, or back on with the card already saved;
- Change card (or Add a card) on Stripe’s secure page, for the next renewals;
- Pay now, while a declined renewal is being retried.
See and adjust subscriptions
Subscriptions in the admin sidebar (shown while memberships are on) lists every member’s plan, with listings left, expiry date and status. You can filter by member, plan, dates and status, and click a subscription to edit it, for example to give a member extra listings or extend their end date.
Plan payments appear in Orders under the plan’s name. Refunding a plan order there ends that member’s plan straight away.
Related guides
- Pay to post — charge per listing instead.
- Stripe and Stripe Connect — card payments, renewals and per-plan commissions.
- Email templates — edit the plan-expired email.
- Ways to make money from your marketplace — pricing ideas.
- Invoices — the invoice members get for each plan payment.
Updated 20 October 2026 · Suggest an edit