How to Create and Manage Membership Products

Membership Products are designed for selling access, continuity, and transformation – by unlocking content and experiences behind login. They allow you to build scalable offers where value is delivered through gated content, structured programs, communities, and ongoing engagement rather than one-time downloads or manual fulfillment.

With Membership Products in Recrevio, customers purchase access that automatically unlocks specific content areas. Most commonly, this means access to a Circle, but memberships can also grant access to regular pages, funnel steps, or other protected areas across your platform. This makes memberships ideal for building long-term value, recurring revenue, and deeper relationships with your audience.

Membership Products are ideal for offering:

  • Online courses and learning programs
  • Membership sites and subscriptions
  • Communities and Circles
  • Cohort-based programs
  • Ongoing education or resource libraries
  • Challenges, programs, and portals with gated content

Membership Products focus on structured access control rather than file delivery or manual service fulfillment. Once purchased, access is handled automatically based on your setup – creating a smooth, scalable experience for both you and your members.

This article walks through every section of the Membership Product editor, from top to bottom, explaining each setting and offering best-practice recommendations so you can confidently create, price, and manage membership-based offers that grow with your business.

Creating a Service Product

To create a Physical Product:

  1. Go to Products → All Products
  2. Click Add Product
  3. Select Membership as the product type

This opens the product editor, which is divided into three main areas:

  1. Main product details (left column)
  2. Product settings & media (right column)
  3. Advanced product options (sections below)

1. Main Product Area (Top Left)

This is where you define the core information about your product.

Product Title

Enter the name of your product as it will appear:

  • In your store
  • On checkout pages
  • In order confirmations
  • In emails and receipts

💡 Tip – Product Names for Membership Products

Use clear, value-driven names that communicate the ongoing benefit, transformation, or experience members will get—not the internal structure of the membership. Focus on what the member gains access to and why it matters over time.

For example:

Use “Creator Growth Membership” instead of “Monthly Content Portal v1”

Use “Leadership Circle” instead of “Member Area – Level 2”

If your membership includes multiple elements (courses, community, live sessions, resources, or programs), keep the product title simple and aspirational, and explain the full scope, access rules, and structure in the product description or funnel instead – rather than trying to list everything in the product name.

Description

The description will be displayed in the built-in store. You can describe your product using either:

  • Simple Editor – clean text-based description

  • Drag & Drop Editor – opens the web studio controls so you can add any widget – this enables richer layouts with sections, images, and formatting. Simply click the Add Widget button to open the widget panel to the left and drag and drop any widget to the discription field.

Use the description to explain:

  • What the product is
  • Who it’s for
  • What’s included
  • Key benefits or features

💡 Tip – Use the AI Writing Assistant for Product Descriptions

You can use the built-in AI Writing Assistant to quickly create or improve your product description.

Generate a description from the product title, expand or shorten existing text, or refine the wording to make it clearer and more compelling.

This is especially helpful if:

  • You want a quick starting point
  • You need help structuring your copy
  • You want to improve clarity or tone

👉 See separate article: Using the AI Writing Assistant

Price

Set the base price of the product.

Available options:

  • Standard Price – Sets the regular price for the product.
  • On Sale – Display the original price as strikethrough in checkouts, highlighting a discounted sale price.
  • Subscription Product – Enables recurring payments by charging customers on a repeating schedule.

Subscription Product

If enabled, the product becomes a recurring or installment-based product.

You can chose:

  • Billing cycles

    • Ongoing Payments

      Charges continue indefinitely until canceled, e.g. charging every month for monthly plans and every 12 months for annual plans.

    • Installments

      Chose a fixed number of payments (2–52 installments)

  • Charge every

    Chose the payment frequency to every 1–12 weeks or 1–12 months

💡 Tip – Subscriptions & Installments for Membership Products

Membership Products are designed for ongoing access to content, programs, and community, which makes subscriptions the most common choice—but installment payments can also be useful in specific scenarios.

Use subscriptions when:

  • The membership provides continuous access or ongoing value
  • New content, sessions, or resources are released regularly
  • You’re building a long-term relationship with members

Examples:

  • Monthly or annual memberships
  • Communities with ongoing discussions and live sessions
  • Content libraries with regular updates
  • Ongoing access to Circles, programs, or resources

Use installments when:

  • The membership represents a structured program or course
  • Access is tied to a defined timeframe or outcome
  • You want to reduce the upfront cost of a higher-priced offer

Examples:

  • Cohort-based programs
  • Time-limited courses or certifications
  • Programs that run over several weeks or months

💡 Best practice

Use subscriptions for memberships and communities with ongoing value and no fixed end date. Use installments for programs or courses with a clear start, structure, and completion point. This ensures your pricing matches the delivery model and sets clear expectations for members.

SKU (Stock Keeping Unit)

An optional internal identifier for:

  • Inventory management
  • Accounting
  • Fulfillment systems

💡 Tip – SKU for Membership Products

SKUs are optional for membership products and often not required, since there is no physical inventory or fulfillment involved. You can safely leave the SKU field empty for most membership products.

Product Type

This is pre-set to the product type chosen when creating the product. The product type determines which fields are shown. Once the product has been created this canät be changed.

Available options:

  • Physical product
  • Digital product
  • Service
  • Membership

Member Groups (Access Control)

Membership products grant access by automatically adding customers to one or more Member Groups after a successful purchase.

When a customer checks out:

  • They are asked to log in or create an account
  • Once payment is completed, they are added to the selected member group(s)
  • Access to gated content (Circles, pages, programs, or funnels) is granted based on those group permissions

This makes Member Groups the foundation for access control in membership products.

Selecting Member Groups:

  • Click Select to choose which member group(s) the customer should be added to
  • You can assign one or multiple groups depending on the level of access you want to provide
  • Member Groups can be reused across multiple membership products

💡 Important

If you haven’t created any Member Groups yet, you’ll need to do that first.

You can create and manage Member Groups under:

Contacts > All Contacts & Members

👉 See separate article: Managing Member Groups

Member Groups allow you to:

  • Control access to content behind login
  • Structure different membership tiers
  • Manage permissions across Circles, pages, and programs
  • Automate onboarding and offboarding based on purchases

Using Member Groups correctly ensures a secure, scalable, and flexible membership setup.

2. Right Column – Media & Visibility Settings

This column controls how your product looks and behaves externally.

Product Images

Add one or more images to visually represent your product.

Images are used in:

  • Store listings
  • Product pages
  • Checkouts
  • Emails and receipts

Product Categorization

Assign the product to one or more categories or subcategories. You can also create and assign new categories during the product creation process by clicking the + icon in the Select Product Categories popup:

Categories help:

  • Organize your store
  • Improve navigation
  • Enable filtering

💡 Note

Products are assigned to categories individually (not in bulk).

Hidden Product

When enabled:

  • The product is hidden from the store
  • Still usable in direct links, funnels, as upsells/downsells or automations using the checkout widget

💡 Use case

Private offers, upsells, or invite-only products.

Product Page URL

Defines the URL slug for the product page.

Example:

/product/product-name

💡 Tip: Keep URLs short, readable, and keyword-friendly.

SEO Settings

Control:

  • Page title
  • Meta description

💡 Tip – Use the AI Writing Assistant for SEO Title & Description

You can use the built-in AI Writing Assistant to quickly create or refine your SEO Title and SEO Description.

Click Generate via AI to automatically generate an optimized SEO title and SEO description based on your product page (in this case basically the Product name and Product description).

You can also use the AI controls to:

  • Improve existing text
  • Expand or shorten your SEO copy
  • Fine-tune wording for clarity, tone, and search visibility

This is especially helpful if:

  • You want SEO-friendly text without starting from scratch
  • You need help fitting within recommended character limits
  • You want clearer, more compelling search snippets

👉 See separate article: Using the AI Writing Assistant

3. Advanced Product Options (Below Main Area)

These sections add deeper functionality to your product.

Track Inventory

Enable this to:

  • Track available quantity
  • Show remaining stock
  • Get notified when inventory runs low

💡  Tip

Leave inventory tracking disabled for most Membership Products unless you intentionally want to limit access or availability.

Custom Thank You Page

Optionally redirect customers to a custom page after purchase.

Use this for:

  • Post-purchase instructions
  • Upsells
  • Onboarding steps
  • Delivery expectations

Additional Questions

Ask customers for extra information before adding to cart.

Examples:

  • Gift message
  • Custom notes

💡 Tip

Keep questions minimal to avoid friction during checkout.

Tag Customers

Automatically apply tags to customers after purchase.

Tags can be used in:

  • Automations
  • Email segmentation
  • CRM filtering

💡 Example

Tag customers with membership-product-buyer    .

Saving Your Product

When all settings are complete:

  • Click Save Changes
  • The product becomes available based on its visibility settings

Best Practices for Membership Products

Use clear, value-driven membership names

Focus on the ongoing value, transformation, or experience members receive (e.g. “Founders Growth Circle” instead of “Membership Tier B”).

Write a compelling and confidence-building description

Clearly explain:

  • What members get access to
  • What type of content or experience is included (courses, community, live sessions, resources)
  • How often new content or activities are delivered
  • Who the membership is for
  • What outcome, progress, or support members can expect over time

Set expectations for access and engagement

Be clear about:

  • Whether access is ongoing or time-limited
  • How long content remains available
  • If live sessions, replays, or community access are included

Clear expectations reduce churn and improve long-term retention.

Use visuals to communicate the experience

Add images that help members understand and trust the offer, such as:

  • Community or program branding
  • Screenshots or previews of content
  • Visuals representing the journey, structure, or transformation

Choose the right pricing model

  • Use subscriptions for ongoing memberships, communities, or continuously updated programs
  • Use installments for fixed-length courses or programs with a clear start and end
  • Use one-time pricing only for time-limited access or lifetime-style courses

Structure access with Member Groups

Use Member Groups to:

  • Control what content members can access
  • Create multiple tiers or levels
  • Easily upgrade, downgrade, or revoke access through automations

Use a custom Thank You page for onboarding

Guide new members immediately after purchase with:

  • Login instructions
  • Where to start inside the membership
  • Links to key areas (Circle, first lesson, welcome post)
  • Next steps or onboarding actions

Test the full member journey before launch

Before going live:

  • Complete a test purchase
  • Confirm member group access is applied correctly
  • Verify login, content access, and emails
  • Review the onboarding and first-time experience

💡 Tip

Membership products succeed when the experience feels intentional, welcoming, and valuable over time. Clear positioning, structured access, and thoughtful onboarding are key to retention and long-term recurring revenue.

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