If you'd like to offer your community members different levels of access, where each level unlocks its own channels, courses and resources, you can build this inside a single Ivorey™ community. Members choose the tier that suits them, pay for it, and automatically receive access to the content included in that level.
This allows you to grow a paid membership while keeping all members together in one community, rather than managing multiple separate communities.
A community on its own uses one price for entry. To offer multiple paid levels (e.g. Foundation, Accelerator and Mastermind) inside one community, you can create a private channel for each tier and link the relevant courses and resources to those channels. When someone purchases a tier, they’re granted access to that tier's private channel, which unlocks everything connected to it.
Higher tiers can also optionally be given access to the channels beneath them, so they receive everything in the lower levels too.
This guide is perfect if you want to:
Offer two or more paid membership levels inside one community
Give each tier its own channels, courses and resources
Unlock content automatically when someone joins a tier
Automate access, tagging and welcome emails per tier
Before setting up your community with tiered access levels, it’s important to already have these foundational steps completed:
Steps 1 and 2 in our Community Master Guide - set up your client portal and community group
Step 1 in our Courses Master Guide - complete all steps here if you plan to also sell your courses as standalone products
Setting up paid tiers involves a few connected pieces: your community settings and channels, the courses and resources for each level, an offer to sell each tier, and the workflows that grant access after purchase.
Work through the steps below in order to build a scalable tiered membership experience.
Before building anything, define the structure of your membership levels. Planning your tiers in advance will make the setup process much smoother.
For each tier, decide:
The tier name and price (e.g. Foundation, Accelerator and Mastermind, each at their own amount)
The channels each tier can access
The courses and resources each tier unlocks
Whether higher tiers also receive access to the lower-tier content
Whether you want a free entry tier alongside your paid ones, or paid tiers only (this decides how you'll promote access later)
Having these details mapped out beforehand will help you configure each component correctly and avoid making changes later.
Create a private channel in your community, for each membership tier. Private channels remain hidden until access is granted, making them ideal for tier-based memberships.
Please refer to our Community Channels guide for the detailed steps.
If your tiers include access to courses, you can link each course to the relevant private channel(s) for the tier it belongs to. Once they’re linked, only members in that channel can see and access the course, so content unlocks automatically based on the tier someone joins.
Please refer to our Add Courses to the Community Learning Tab guide for the detailed steps.
This is a one-time step for your whole community, not something you'll repeat per tier. These are the emails that fire automatically whenever access is granted, in order to automatically send login details, event notifications and more. You can optionally create customised welcome emails per tier in the upcoming steps.
Please refer to our Community Notifications guide for the detailed steps.
An offer is how you sell each tier and bundle everything that comes with it. You will create one offer per tier, set its recurring or one-time price, and include any courses that level unlocks.
Please refer to our Create a New Offer guide for the detailed steps.
Now that each tier has an offer, you need a way for people to choose and pay for the level they want. We recommend selling tiers through a Sales Funnel, so all tiers can be shown side by side for comparison, rather than sending buyers to separate isolated checkout links.
Please refer to our Sales Funnels Master Guide for the detailed steps.
How you promote your community, depends on whether or not you have a free tier included:
If you have a free entry tier: Your free tier is simply community membership with public channels only, and no private channels included. Promote your community URL publicly and let people join for free, then upsell to your paid tiers from inside the community using Promotional Links (Settings > Promotional Links).
If all of your tiers are paid: Your members only ever enter via their tier's post-purchase workflow, never through a manual join request. Don't share your raw community URL publicly, since it has nothing to offer someone who hasn't purchased a tier - only ever share your sales funnel link.
If you offer a membership subscription or recurring payment, members may want to upgrade, downgrade or cancel their subscription. Members can switch tiers by cancelling their current tier, then purchasing the new one.
In your client portal settings, ensure that Billing & Subscription is permitted, so members can cancel their own tier.
Please refer to our Client Portal Permissions guide for the detailed steps.
This workflow is what removes channel access automatically when someone cancels their tier. If they purchase a different tier to upgrade or downgrade, they’ll trigger your post-purchase workflow as usual. Otherwise, they'll still technically be a community member but won't be able to access any private channels or content. We’ve created a workflow template to make the setup easier, customise it to create one per tier.
From the main Ivorey™ menu, go to Workflows > open the [Workflow Templates] folder > and the [Courses & Communities] folder
Find the Community Tier Cancelled: Tier Name template > click the [⋮] three dots > select [Duplicate] > and open the template copy to start customising
Rename your workflow, at the top > and click on the [Subscription] trigger:
Under Filters, confirm the filter is set to Global Product is > and select the product for the first tier
Ensure the Status filter is set to Canceled
Click [Save Trigger]
Click on the [Revoke Private Channel Access] action to customise:
Select your community, under Group
Select the the relevant channels for this tier, under Private Channels
Click [Save Action]
Click on the [Add Tag] action to customise:
Click the [X] to remove the placeholder tag
Type in your tag > click on [+] Add New Tag
Click [Save Action]
Click on the [Internal Notification] action to customise:
Select the [Notification Type] you prefer (email, notificaion, SMS or WhatsApp)
Update the User Type field to select who in your team should receive the notification
Update the notification Subject and Message as needed
Click [Save Action]
(optional) Click on the [Send Email Confirmation] action to customise:
Enter your From Name and From Email
Update the email Subject and Preview Text as needed
Draft a plain text email or click [Select existing template] to choose a customised template
Click [Save Action]
Note: Members automatically receive a cancellation confirmation email, which you should already have customised and connected in your settings, during previous steps. You can send an email via this workflow, if you'd like to send something more personalised on top of that. Otherwise, delete this action altogether.
When you're happy with the workflow, toggle it to [Publish], at the top right of the screen > and click the [Save] button
If any configuration issues are flagged, correct them > then try to Publish and Save again
Test your new workflow by cancelling the test purchase you created using your own details, when testing your sales funnel in the previous workflow (or place a new test purchase > and cancel it)
Check if you received the email and if the correct access is revoked > go to the [Execution Logs] tab in your workflow > and confirm each action fired correctly, with no errors
When you’re happy that all is working correctly, duplicate the workflow > and repeat the steps to customise it for your next tier
Yes. You can keep your community free to join and place your paid content inside private tier channels. This allows prospective members to enter the community, explore any free content you share, and upgrade to a paid tier when they’re ready.
Once they purchase a tier, they will automatically receive access to the channels, courses and resources included in that membership level.
No, your community's Subscription price (Settings > Subscriptions) should stay set to Free by default, even if all your tiers are paid. This setting only applies if you share the link to your community directly.
If all of your tiers are paid, access is sold through your sales funnel only, with each tier gated to its own private channel. Setting this to Paid would just charge a redundant fee on top of your tier pricing.
If you want to set your community to private, you can still offer a free tier and promote your community by sharing its URL. When prospective members land in your community, they’ll have the option to request access.
Private community groups require manual approval for every join request by default. You can review and approve these from the Members > Requested tab inside your community. Refer to our Community Ownership, Admin and Access guide for the detailed steps.
To automate the process, you can set up a workflow with a Requested to Join Group trigger and a Grant Group Access action, which will auto-approve these requests.
No, a sales funnel is not the only way to sell your community tiers. However, this is recommended since it lets members compare all tiers side by side.
But if you’d prefer a quicker setup, you can share each tier's individual offer checkout link directly instead. If you go this route, you'll still need a workflow granting access per tier, just built differently. Please follow the steps outlined in the following guides:
Course Signup Workflows For Offer Checkouts - add the Grant Private Channel Access action for that tier
If a member cancels their subscription, and doesn’t then purchase a higher or lower tier, they'll stay a community member with no private channel access. If your community includes a free tier, they’ll have access to that. If not, they simply won't be able to see any content.
If you'd like to clean this up occasionally, check for members with no active subscription and remove their group access manually. Refer to our Community Ownership, Admin and Access for the detailed steps.
Yes, you can bulk-grant access to a tier for existing members, without requiring them to purchase. Please refer to our Manually Grant Course or Community Access guide for the detailed steps.
Hit the support chat widget inside Ivorey™ - we can:
Upload the templates directly into your account if you can't find them
Walk you through any of the steps
Troubleshoot anything that's not working
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