1. What a membership is
A membership is a product your customers subscribe to: buying it starts a recurring charge on the billing interval you set. Think "Insider Club — $12/month" or "Gold plan — $99/year". When you create a membership, Sublyra builds the whole thing in Shopify for you:
- a real Shopify product (product type
Membership) with your name and description, - one variant per tier — Silver, Gold, Platinum — each with its own price,
- one recurring selling plan per tier, so every tier bills on its own interval,
- optionally, a member discount code only tagged members can use (section 3).
Everything goes live the moment you save. Because a membership is a normal product with selling plans, it works with the rest of Sublyra automatically — the contract, the customer portal, dunning and cancellation flows all treat it like any other subscription.
2. Create a membership
1 In the Sublyra admin, go to Settings → Memberships.
2 In the Create a membership card, fill in:
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Membership name | Shown on the product page and at checkout. |
| Member discount (%) | Generates a discount code only customers tagged sublyra-member can use — members enter it at checkout. 0 means no member discount. |
| Description (optional) | Tells customers what they get — perks, access, discounts. Shown on the membership's card and the Shopify product. |
3 Add tiers. Each tier is its own variant with its own price, billing interval and optional trial:
| Tier field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Tier name | Silver, Gold, Platinum… Names must be unique within the membership. |
| Price | The recurring charge, in your store currency. Every tier needs a price above zero. |
| Billing interval | Weekly, Monthly or Yearly — each tier can differ. |
| Free trial (days) | 0–365. The first charge is deferred until the trial ends — enforced automatically by the selling plan. |
| Perks (optional) | One perk per line — free shipping, early access… Shown on the membership's card. |
4 Click Create membership. The product and its recurring billing plans go live in Shopify immediately, and the membership appears under Your memberships with its tiers, prices and trial badges.
3. The member discount code
Set the member discount above 0% and Sublyra creates a discount code in Shopify. How it works:
- It's a code, not an automatic discount. Only a code discount can be restricted to a customer segment — an automatic discount would fire for every shopper. Members enter the code at checkout.
- It's restricted to the member segment. Sublyra creates a Shopify customer segment of customers tagged
sublyra-member, and the code only works for customers in that segment. Non-members who find the code get a standard "discount isn't valid for you" message at checkout. - It applies to the whole order. The code takes the percentage off all items in the cart.
- The code is generated for you. It's derived from the membership name plus a random suffix (for example,
INSIDERCLUB-X7K2P9) and shown on the membership's card — for example, "15% off with code INSIDERCLUB-X7K2P9". Share that code with your members in the welcome email, on the member page, or in your community.
write_discounts or write_customers permission. Grant access via the amber banner at the top of the page, then toggle the membership off and on to retry.
4. The sublyra-member tag
Members are recognised by the sublyra-member customer tag. The member discount code checks for it, and you can use the same tag across Shopify — to build segments, gate content with other apps, or filter customers in your email tool.
Automatic tagging on signup is on the roadmap. Until it ships, tag members when they join — either of these takes under a minute:
1 Manually: Shopify admin → Customers → open the customer → add the tag sublyra-member in the Tags field → save.
2 Automatically with Shopify Flow: create a workflow on Subscription contract created that adds the customer tag. Sublyra ships Flow triggers including Subscription created, so the workflow needs no code — and the same workflow can tag customers who buy the membership product specifically.
5. The Membership theme block
The Membership block renders one card per tier — price, billing interval, trial badge — anywhere in your theme, with a native add-to-cart subscribe button. No JavaScript, no code.
1 In Shopify admin, go to Online Store → Themes → Customize.
2 Open the template where the membership should appear (a page, or the home page).
3 Click Add block → Apps → Membership.
4 In the block settings, pick the membership product — the product Sublyra created, named after your membership. Then adjust the content settings:
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Product | The membership product the block renders — one card per variant (tier). |
| Heading / Subheading | The title and intro line above the tier grid. |
| Highlight tier | Enter a tier name (e.g. Gold) to mark that card as the recommended one. |
| Badge label | The label on the highlighted card (e.g. "Most popular"). |
| Accent colour | The block's accent — defaults to Sublyra green (#1f7a4d). |
5 Save the theme and open the page. Each tier card shows its recurring price and interval from the selling plan, and subscribing posts the variant plus its selling plan straight to the cart — checkout becomes a subscription contract like any other.
6. Deactivate vs delete
| Action | Effect |
|---|---|
| Deactivate | Hides the product from the store (set to draft) and pauses the member discount code. Existing members keep their subscriptions. Reactivate any time — reactivating also recreates the discount code if it's missing. |
| Delete | Removes the selling plan group, archives the product, and deletes the member discount code and segment. Existing member contracts are never cancelled — current members keep billing as normal. |
7. FAQ
Do membership free trials really defer the first charge?
Yes. The trial is part of the tier's selling plan — the first charge is deferred until the trial ends, automatically. A badge like "14-day free trial" shows on the tier card in the Sublyra admin.
Can members manage their membership in the customer portal?
Yes. A membership is a normal subscription contract, so members can skip, pause, reschedule or cancel in the portal like any other subscriber, and your cancellation flows and dunning apply to it.
Can I change a tier's price after members have joined?
Memberships are created, not edited, in the current version — there's no edit form. To change pricing, create a new membership with the new tiers and deactivate the old one. Existing contracts keep their original price.
Does the member discount apply automatically?
No — it's a code members enter at checkout, restricted to customers tagged sublyra-member. That restriction is exactly why it's a code: an automatic discount can't be limited to members and would fire for everyone.
What happens to members if I delete the membership?
Their contracts keep running — deletion archives the product and removes the selling plan group and discount code, but never cancels existing subscriptions. You'd cancel those individually from the Subscriptions page if you ever needed to.