Membership plans

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, apart from the pages and listing details you mark members only. To keep whole listings for signed-in members, 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

1. Go to Add-ons in the sidebar and open Subscriptions.
2. Under Plans, click + New plan, fill in the plan (see below) and click Submit. Create every plan you want to offer.
3. Back on the Subscriptions page, switch on Enable subscriptions and choose your options (see When a plan runs out and Renewals below).
4. 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: ….

Listing levels: what each plan unlocks

Business directories often sell levels such as Bronze, Silver and Gold, where a higher plan gets a better listing. The Listing level part of a plan’s form, below the promotions, does that. Leave a field at 0 or off and the plan gets your site’s usual setting.

Field	What it does
Photos per listing	How many photos sellers on this plan can add to each listing, in every posting form. 0 uses Number of Images in Listings › Settings (see Image settings). It can’t go above the photos your Yclas plan allows.
Deals per listing	How many deals each of their listings can have running at once. 0 uses the usual 3.
Badge on listings	A short label, up to 40 characters, such as Gold member, shown with a star on the seller’s business listings (in the business details box of a directory listing). Empty for none.
Listing statistics	The Performance page of each listing: views, contact clicks and searches. Once any plan includes it, only sellers on those plans see the numbers; the others see which plans include it and a See plans button.
Members-only content	Lets this plan’s members read what you mark members only.

Levels only apply while memberships are on, and only plans that are active count. A seller gets the level of the plan they’re on now: when it ends, their listings go back to the site’s usual settings. Administrators and moderators are never limited.

On a business directory you can also ask businesses to choose a plan when they claim their listing, so the level is part of taking it over.

Members-only content

Some of what you publish can be kept for paying members: a price guide page, a trade price on a listing, a detailed spec. Two switches appear once memberships are on:

• Custom fields. Open a field in Listings › Custom Fields and switch on Members only. Visitors without a plan see a Members only link to your pricing page instead of the value. The listing’s seller and your team always see it. The value is also left out of what search engines and the AI features read.
• Pages. In the page editor, under Publish, switch on Members only (see Pages). Visitors who aren’t members see (page title) is for members. Join one of our membership plans to read it., a See plans button and, if they aren’t signed in, Sign in. Search engines are asked not to index the page.

Who counts as a member: while no plan has Members-only content switched on, anyone on a running plan; once a plan has it, only members on such plans. Administrators and moderators always count.

If you switch memberships off, members-only fields and pages are shown to everyone again. Your choices are kept for when you switch them back on.

How members subscribe

1. The member opens your pricing page, or is sent there when they try to post.
2. They click the plan they want. They must be signed in.
3. They pay at checkout. Coupons work here too.
4. 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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
• Run a business directory — business listings, and claims that take a plan.
• Listing performance — the statistics a plan can include.
• 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.