Setting up Membership Plans

Plans describe the resources, amenities and extras your members receive - and for what fee - on a monthly basis.

Amanda avatar
Written by Amanda
Updated this week

There is more than one way for people to interact with your space through Cobot. One of those ways is as a member. To add members to Cobot so they can do things like access the member portal and make bookings, you must set up at least one membership plan.

You membership plans allow you to sell a set of services to your members to be charged on a recurring basis. You have the flexibility to make your membership plans as simple or detailed as needed.

Members will see your list of available plans on your Cobot Homepage when they sign up. Your member can choose the one that best fits their needs. Click on Products » Membership Plans » Add Plan in your admin portal to add your first plan.

This guide will explain each of the sections within your plan settings:


Basic Settings

Your first page is the 'Basic Settings' section of your new plan. Under each field you will see a description of what it is for, making it easy to fill out. Keep reading for those fields that need a little more explanation and for some helpful tips and tricks!

Name

Because your plan names are visible on your public-facing homepage and search engines, we suggest you use generic, easy-to-read names, such as 'Full-Time Membership' or 'Flexible Student Membership'

Price / Per (Billing Cycle)

All plans supported by Cobot work with a rolling start/end time, depending on the increment you select as your billing period (monthly, quarterly, etc.).

  • For example, suppose your billing period is set to be billed every month. If a member signs up for your space on March 18th, they will pay the monthly fee until April 17th. The membership will automatically be renewed every month on the 17th after that.

  • To change the currency of your space, go to Setup » Basic » Payments » Check the 'multiple currencies' box. Now, anywhere there is a price, you will see a drop box with all available currencies. Don't see the one you need? Reach out to Support and we can add this for you.

Visibility

When you check the 'hidden plan' box, the plan will not be publicly visible. It will not be visible on your Homepage nor be indexed on search engines.

All plans, regardless of wether they are publicly visible or not, will have a unique URL generated. You can copy and paste these links and send them to people privately.

New members have to be approved

You can choose whether or not new members need to have their memberships confirmed before they become active by checking the 'New members have to be approved box.'

When checked, members complete the registration process. They can log into their member portal but cannot access any features, like the community section or booking calendar. Only once you confirm them will their payment method on file be charged (if present), and their billing cycle begins. All features will be unlocked for them immediately. To read more on the member portal, click here, and more on features you can activate for members here.

Terms & Conditions

All plans, wether public or not, will require your members to accept the Terms & Conditions box on the signup form. Cobot's Terms & Conditions are located here and we require anyone who uses the Cobot platform to accept these.

To add your own Terms & Conditions for members to accept, you need to add them to each plan individually (do this if your plans have custom terms per plan type), or in your general Terms & Conditions section Setup » Basic » Terms & Conditions. These will populate above Cobot's Terms & Conditions.

To read more on Terms & Conditions, click here.

Cancellation & Commitment

When you enter a cancellation period, this indicates the number of days' notices a member must give when cancelling their membership. Members can cancel to the end of their billing cycle if left blank.

  • For example, if you add 30, the member can cancel their membership on any date, but it will remain active for 30 days past that date. Suppose their billing date is March 1st, and they cancel on March 15th. In that case, they will have an active membership until April 15th, resulting in another billing cycle charge on April 1st.

The Minimum Commitment field means your member won't be able to cancel their plan within this time frame. If you wish to override this, you can do this for them via your admin portal in their member profile.

  • By checking the 'Recurring Minimum Commitment' box, the system will automatically reset the minimum commitment period once the first one is completed.


Time Passes

Time Passes allow you to make limited access plans by populating Time Passes. This is ideal for members who don't want to work full-time or would like to only pay for time spent in your space. These can be used in a variety of ways, so check out this guide for more details on how to set these up and use them.

If you want to offer Time Passes to people without them having to go through the membership registration process, then populate Drop-In Passes instead.


Extras

Extras are items or services your members can book in addition to their plan. These are a great way to offer premium features to your members, such as mail service, or 24/7 access, and to generate extra income for you.

When you add an extra, a checkbox will appear on the sign-up form.

Extras are billed along with the fee for the membership plan and will appear on the invoice as a separate line item.


Bookings

The Bookings section lets you do a few things that will inform your member's interactions with your booking calendar via their member portal. You can do the following:

Restrict Access to Resources

Click on 'Plan only has access to selected resources' to restrict what kind of resources your member can book. Uncheck the resources you want to hide; members on this plan will not see them in their bookable resources via their member portal.

For example, members on a full-time plan can book all meeting rooms and event spaces, but drop-in members can only book a Day Pass.

If you want to block a specific member from certain resources instead of all members on that plan, restrict them directly in their member profile. Read more on how to do this here.

  • Restrictions on the member level will remain, even if the member changes their plan. For example, Julie cannot book the Event Space on her member profile, but she upgrades to a plan that allows Event Space bookings. Julie will still be restricted from booking in this resource until an admin manually updates her member profile. Click here to read more on member-specific booking privileges.

Give Free Usage of Resources

Giving members free usage in some or all of your resources is an excellent way to upsell your memberships. A drop-in member might have to pay full price for booking your meeting room, but a full-time member gets 5 hours of meeting room usage included in their membership plan.

To add these, click '+ Add Credits' and select all the resources you want the free time to apply to. Add multiple credits if you give multiple amounts, or select them all under one credit to pool the free time.

In the example below, this member will receive 5 hours of free time (credits) in the Event Space, Meeting Room, One-on-One Room, Private Cabin, Roof Terrace Lounge, and Tent Meeting Rooms.

You can also add a monetary amount that members can apply to one or multiple resources.

After the 5 hours are used up, the resource's regular fees apply to any subsequent bookings (as populated within the Resources Settings).

These expire/refill to that amount after each monthly billing cycle.

Apply Custom Rates to Resources

Looking to give members on specific plans a reduced (or increased) rate for their bookable resources? Select the resources to which you want to apply the new rate and add the price in the Price/h field under the booking credits.

Once your member uses up their booking credits, Cobot will automatically apply the custom rate posted to their plan.

💡 Pro Tip: Give your premium plans a boost by adding both credits and custom rates.


Messages

This section will allow you to add three different kinds of messages:

Permanent Welcome Message

This message is permanently displayed to new members within their member portal. This is a good place to say hello to your member and give them some instruction on how to use your space or contact details.

This will remain at the top of the page every time they log in to their member portal so keep the message generic.

Welcome Message for Unconfirmed Members

The welcome message for unconfirmed members will be displayed to new members within their member portal after they sign up and only if you have 'New members have to be approved' activated within their plan settings.

IMPORTANT NOTE

The member will not have access to any section of their member portal other than their dashboard and Membership settings until they are confirmed.

This will remain until you have clicked 'confirm' on their membership. At that point, the permanent welcome message will be displayed.

Signup Message

The signup message will appear at the bottom of that specific plans description box on the signup form. This is a good place to add additional information to your members to explain the next steps in the signup process.


Signup Charge

This is where you can add a one time fee such as a deposit, signup charge or admin fee. This will only be applied to the members very first invoice when they are first registered. It will not apply if the member is changing their plan.

You can also add a discount in this field if you want to give new members a reduced first month.


Editing Plans and Bulk Plan Changes

You can edit your plan settings at any time by going to Products » Membership Plans. Any changes made to your plan templates in this way will only affect NEW members signing up. Members already on that plan will not have the changes automatically applied.

If you would like to make it so changes to a plan is applied to existing members, then you will need to do a bulk plan change.


Next Step

Now that you have your plans setup, you can start adding members.


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