Memberships overview

Memberships give a group of customers ongoing benefits for as long as they belong to the group. For example, Reserve club members might get 20% off library reds and four comp tastings a year, while your staff get 30% off everything.

Staff need the Memberships user permission to see and manage tiers. If you don't see Memberships in the Awtomic navigation, check the staff member's permissions or contact Awtomic support.

When to use a membership tier

Use a membership tier when a group of customers should get the same benefits automatically, without entering a code: club members, VIPs, staff or wholesale buyers.

Memberships work alongside other Awtomic and Shopify features, but they're set up separately:

• Build-a-Box discounts stack with membership discounts. If a box has its own discount and the customer is a member, the customer gets both: the box discount on the box price and the member discount on top of it. Keep that in mind when you set the two. See Dynamic vs Classic Build-a-box.
• Shopify discount codes work for anyone who enters the code, and a member who enters one gets both the code and their member pricing. Membership benefits go only to recognized members.
• Subscription plan discounts are part of a subscription's price. See Setting up Subscription Plans.
• Moments rewards are gifts and discounts that customers earn at a moment in their journey. See Moments by Awtomic.
• Add-on discounts and allocation rules are set in those features. See Creating and Managing Add-ons for subscribers and Allocations overview.

What a membership tier is made of

Each tier has three parts:

• Who qualifies: the tier's Membership type and its Customers segment rules.
• Benefits: what members receive. A tier can have any combination of:
  • Product discounts: member pricing on products, as a percentage or a fixed amount off.
  • Usage discounts: a set number of discounted or complimentary items per period, such as four comp tastings a year.
  • Shipping discounts: free or discounted shipping for members. Depending on your store, a tier offers either the full Shipping discounts options or a single Free shipping on all orders switch. If you don't see Shipping discounts, contact Awtomic support to confirm it's enabled for your store.
• Customer tags (optional): Shopify tags that Awtomic adds to members of Subscribers only tiers, for use in Shopify Flow, discounts, email segments and other apps.

Each tier also has a Membership nickname, which only you see, and a Display name, which customers and POS staff may see.

Subscribers only or All customers

You choose the Membership type when you create a tier. It can't be changed later. To switch, archive the tier and create a new one.

A Subscribers only tier never includes a customer who has never had a subscription.

How Awtomic recognizes a member

Benefits are tied to the customer, not to a code. Awtomic applies a member's benefits when it knows which customer is buying:

• Online checkout: the customer is signed in to their customer account. [Review Q2]
• POS: staff add the customer to the cart.
• Subscriptions and card-on-file orders: the customer is the one on the subscription or order.

Members don't need a discount code, and typing an email address at checkout doesn't make someone a member. A guest checkout gets no member benefits.

Where member benefits apply

"Yes" means Awtomic applies the benefit automatically when a recognized member buys a product that the tier's settings cover.

What to know about the table:

• Subscription items: a product discount applies to subscription (recurring) items only when the tier's Discount applies to setting is Recurring and one-time lines. With the default, Only one-time, members get the product discount on one-time purchases and one-time add-ons only.
• Renewals: member pricing on a subscription item stays on the subscription for later renewals. If you change the tier, existing subscriptions keep their old member pricing until you recalibrate members (see below).
• Usage discounts apply to one-time items only, never to subscription items. [Review Q4] When a usage discount and a product discount both cover the same product, the usage discount is used first.
• Admin card on file: staff can remove member pricing from an order with Clear discounts.
• POS: staff can't add a membership discount by hand; it's applied automatically. Custom sales don't get member pricing.

On a subscription, a membership discount shows as its own discount row, named with the product discount's Display label. If you leave the label blank, the discount is named after its amount, for example "10% membership discount". In the customer portal, members also see struck-through prices with their member price when they swap products or browse add-ons.

One tier per customer

A customer gets the benefits of one tier only: the highest tier in your Memberships list that they qualify for. Awtomic doesn't compare tiers to find the biggest discount, and it doesn't combine benefits from several tiers.

For example, if Reserve is above Club in the list, a customer who qualifies for both gets only Reserve's benefits, even if Club has a larger shipping discount.

If a customer qualifies for a Subscribers only tier, Awtomic uses that tier, even when an All customers tier higher in the list also matches their tags.

To change the order, drag the tiers on the Memberships page. The new order applies to existing members after you recalibrate members.

How membership discounts combine with other discounts

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Important

Membership discounts combine with other product, order and shipping discounts, including Shopify discount codes and box discount codes. A member who also uses a discount code, or subscribes to a discounted box, gets both discounts. Plan your member pricing with this in mind so discounts don't add up to more than you intend.

Tier status: Draft, Active and Archived

You change a tier's status from its page: use the Status menu to switch between Draft and Active, or select Archive membership tier at the bottom of the page.

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Important

Archive membership tier doesn't ask for confirmation, and archiving can't be undone. To offer a similar tier again, create a new one.

Archiving a tier, or moving it back to Draft, doesn't change members' prices straight away. Select Recalibrate members afterwards: recalibration removes that tier's member pricing from every member. Members who also qualify for another active tier move to that tier's benefits. [Review Q5]

Recalibrating members

Awtomic stores each member's benefits with the member and on their subscriptions, so checkout, POS and renewals can apply them quickly. When you create, edit, activate, archive, reorder or move a tier to Draft, those stored benefits aren't updated right away. Until you recalibrate, members may keep getting benefits based on the previous tier settings.

After a change, the Memberships page shows Membership changes need to be applied to members. To apply your changes:

1. On the Memberships page, select Recalibrate members.
2. Select Start recalibration.
3. Wait for Member recalibration complete, then select Dismiss.

Recalibration can take several minutes. While it runs, you can't edit tiers.

Recalibration updates the member pricing on existing members' subscriptions to match your current tier settings, and refreshes which tier each member's benefits come from. It doesn't re-check who qualifies. Customers join a tier when you activate it, or when their subscriptions or tags change to match its rules.

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Tip

Finish all your tier changes before you recalibrate, so you only need to run it once. Dismissing the Membership changes need to be applied to members banner doesn't apply your changes.

Next steps

Set up a membership tier walks you through creating a tier, choosing who qualifies and activating it.