Set up a membership tier

A membership tier gives a group of customers, usually your club subscribers, automatic benefits such as member pricing, shipping discounts and a set number of complimentary items. For example, "Reserve members get 20% off library reds and two comp tastings a quarter."

This guide follows the tier form from top to bottom, then covers activating a tier and archiving it. For how memberships work across checkout, POS and subscriptions, see the Memberships overview.

Before you start

Check access

• Open Memberships in the Awtomic navigation. If you don't see it, ask an Awtomic admin on your store to give you the Memberships user permission, or contact Awtomic support.

Make these decisions first

• Who qualifies. Subscribers, optionally narrowed by the products they subscribe to and their customer tags, or any customer with certain tags. You can't change this after you create the tier.
• What members get. Product discounts, a shipping benefit, usage discounts, or a mix.
• Where the tier sits in your list. Each customer gets one tier: the highest tier in the Memberships list that they qualify for. It's the list order that decides, not which tier has the bigger discount.
• Which tags the tier adds. Subscribers only tiers can add Shopify customer tags to their members.

1. Create the tier

1. In Awtomic, open Memberships and select Create tier. If you don't have any tiers yet, select Create membership tier.
2. Complete the sections in steps 2 to 6.
3. Select Save in the save bar at the top of the page.

The tier is saved as a Draft, and the page shows "Membership tier created". A draft tier has no members and gives no benefits. Nothing goes live until you activate it (step 7).

A new tier is added at the bottom of the Memberships list, which gives it the lowest priority. If it should win over another tier, drag it higher in the list. The manage tiers guide (coming soon) explains reordering.

2. Basic Info

Both fields are required and can be up to 64 characters.

3. Membership type

Choose who the tier is built from. As the form says, "Membership type cannot be changed once created". To switch later, create a new tier and archive the old one.

If you switch between the two types while you're creating the tier, the Customers segment rules reset and the Customer tags section is cleared. The Customer tags section (step 6) is only available for Subscribers only tiers.

4. Customers segment

This section defines which customers qualify. What you see depends on the membership type.

Subscribers only

Under Subscription contains, choose what a subscription must include:

• Any product: any active subscription qualifies. This is the default.
• Specific products: select Select products and choose the products. A subscription qualifies if it includes any of them.
• Specific product variants: select Select product variants and choose the variants. A subscription qualifies if it includes any of them.

A customer qualifies while at least one of their subscriptions is active and matches. They stop qualifying when they pause or cancel their only matching subscription, or when the matching product is removed from it. For a gift subscription, the gift recipient becomes the member, not the buyer. [Review Q1]

Build-a-Box subscriptions. With a dynamic Build-a-Box, both the box and the items in it count. With a classic Build-a-Box, the box product counts, but the items inside the box count only when you use Specific product variants and select those items' variants. For the difference between the two box types, see Dynamic vs Classic Build-a-box.

Narrow the tier with customer tags (optional)

1. Turn on Customer tags.
2. Choose how the tags must match:
   • Includes ANY of the selected tag(s) (default): the customer has at least one of the tags.
   • Includes ALL of the selected tag(s): the customer has every tag.
   • Does not include ANY of the selected tag(s): the customer has none of the tags.
3. Type a tag in Customer Tag and select Add. To add several at once, separate them with commas.

As the form says, "If tag options are defined, we will create a segment based on subscription contents above AND the included customer tags." A customer must match both the subscription rule and the tag rule. There's no "or", and a tier has one tag rule.

For example, a Reserve Club tier might use Specific products set to your Reserve Club shipment, plus Does not include ANY of the selected tag(s) with the tag "staff", so that staff get their own tier.

When a customer's tags change in Shopify, Awtomic checks them against the tag rule again, so customers can join or leave the tier when you tag or untag them.

All customers

Under Customer tags, choose how the tags must match (Includes ANY of the selected tag(s), Includes ALL of the selected tag(s) or Does not include ANY of the selected tag(s)), then type each tag in Customer Tag and select Add.

Keep in mind:

• Members get their benefits when they're the identified customer: logged in at online checkout, or added to the cart at POS.
• A customer who is a member of a Subscribers only tier keeps that tier, even if an All customers tier higher in the list also matches their tags.
• The Memberships list shows a dash instead of an Active members count for All customers tiers. To see who has the tags, filter your customers by tag in Shopify.

Check your rules before you save

The form doesn't check that a rule is complete. It lets you save Specific products or Specific product variants with nothing selected, and a tag rule with no tags. Before you activate, make sure every rule has at least one product, variant or tag. [Review Q2]

5. Benefits

"Add the perks members get when they qualify for this tier." The section has three boxes, each with its own switch, and all three start off. Turn on the ones you want. Separate guides for each benefit are coming soon; here's what each box offers.

Product discounts

Member pricing on your products.

• Discount strategy: Apply the same discount to all products, or specify discounts by products, product variants, collections or product type (for example, Specify discounts by collections). With any strategy other than all products, you can add several discount tiers with + Add another discount tier, each with its own selection and amount.
• Discount type: Percentage (%) or Fixed amount, in your store's currency.
• Display label: the name members see for the discount, such as "Member discount".
• Discount applies to: Only one-time (default) discounts one-time purchases only. Choose Recurring and one-time lines to discount the products on members' subscriptions as well.

Shipping

Depending on your store, this box is one of the following:

• Shipping discounts: choose a Shipping discount type (Free shipping, Percentage, Fixed discount or Specify shipping rate), which orders it applies to, an optional Minimum cart total, and optional Discount limits based on the shipping rate.
• Free shipping on all orders: a single switch that turns on free shipping as a member benefit.

If you don't see Shipping discounts, contact Awtomic support to confirm it's enabled for your store. See the shipping benefits guide (coming soon).

Usage discounts

"Grant members a set number of discounted or complimentary items per period (e.g., 4 tastings per quarter)." You choose the products, collections or product types, how many uses members get (Usage), when the uses reset (Reset schedule), and optional limits per day (Apply per-day usage rules). Usage discounts are for one-time purchases, not subscription items. [Review Q3] If a usage discount and a product discount both cover the same product, the usage discount applies first.

See the usage discounts guide (coming soon).

How members receive benefits

Benefits apply automatically. Members don't enter a code. Awtomic recognizes a member as the identified customer, for example when they're logged in at online checkout or added to the cart at POS.

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Membership discounts combine with your other discounts

Membership discounts combine with your other product, order and shipping discounts, including box discount codes. A member can receive a membership discount and another discount on the same order. Set your amounts with that in mind so you don't discount the same wine twice by accident.

6. Customer tags (Subscribers only)

"Automatically apply tags to customers who qualify for this membership." You can use the tags in Shopify Flow, discounts, email segments or other apps.

1. Turn on the switch in the Customer tags card.
2. Type a tag in Tags, such as "Reserve member", and select + Add or press Enter.
3. Repeat for each tag you want to add.

When tags are added and removed

• Awtomic adds the tags when a customer becomes a member, including existing subscribers when you activate the tier.
• Awtomic removes the tags when a customer stops qualifying. As the form says, "Tags are retained if a customer still qualifies for another tier that shares the same tag." Only active tiers keep a shared tag in place, not draft or archived ones.
• A removed tag is removed even if you or another app added the same tag separately. Use tags that only this membership manages.

These tags are different from the tags in Customers segment. Segment tags decide who qualifies; the tags in this section are added to customers who do.

7. Activate the tier

1. Open the tier from the Memberships list.
2. Select Set to active in the "Membership tier created" banner, or open the Status menu and select Active.
3. Under "Ready to activate this membership?", select Confirm. Select Back to leave the tier in Draft.

What happens when you activate

• The tier's status becomes Active.
• Customers who already qualify are added automatically. For a Subscribers only tier, these are existing subscribers with an active subscription that matches your rules. You can't skip this step.
• If the tier adds customer tags, "we'll apply them now as part of a bulk update."
• From then on, customers join and leave the tier automatically as their subscriptions and tags change.

Adding existing customers happens in the background, so it can take a while on a large store.

The Memberships list may then show "Membership changes need to be applied to members". Recalibrate members updates existing members' pricing on their subscriptions and which tier applies to each member, based on your current tier settings. It doesn't re-check who qualifies. The manage tiers guide (coming soon) explains when to run it.

While a recalibration is running, you can't change a tier's status, save it or archive it. Wait until you see "Member recalibration complete".

Change an active tier or move it back to Draft

• To change an active tier's settings, see the manage tiers guide (coming soon). Saving an active tier asks you to confirm and then to run Recalibrate members.
• To take a tier out of use temporarily, open Status and select Draft. There's no confirmation. New customers stop joining the tier. To remove its pricing from existing members, run Recalibrate members, as described for archiving below. When you set the tier to Active again, you confirm the activation again, and customers who qualify are added.

8. Archive a tier

Archive a tier when you retire it for good.

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Archiving is final

An archived tier can't be edited or set back to Draft or Active. To offer the same benefits again, create a new tier. There's no confirmation step: the tier is archived as soon as you select the button.

1. Open the tier from the Memberships list.
2. At the bottom of the page, select Archive membership tier.
3. On the Memberships list, select Recalibrate members, then Start recalibration. Recalibration can take several minutes.

What happens when you archive

• The tier shows an Archived badge and stays in the Memberships list.
• No new customers join the tier.
• Customer tags: archiving doesn't remove the tier's tags from customers who already have them, and Awtomic stops adding or removing them for this tier. If you no longer need the tags, remove them in Shopify.
• Member pricing: until you run Recalibrate members, members may keep receiving the archived tier's benefits at online checkout, in the POS cart and on their subscriptions. Recalibrate members removes the archived tier's member pricing for every member. Members who also belong to another active tier get that tier's benefits instead. [Review Q4]

Messages you might see

Checklist before you activate

• The membership type is right. You can't change it later.
• Each rule under Customers segment has at least one product, variant or tag.
• The benefits and their amounts are what you intend, keeping in mind that membership discounts combine with your other discounts.
• The tags the tier adds are used only by this membership.
• The tier is in the right place in the Memberships list.