Can I sell paid community memberships or tiers in Knorish?
Yes, Knorish fully supports selling paid community memberships and access tiers using one-time payments, subscriptions, and recurring memberships. With the Knorish Communities feature, you can create free, invite-only, or paywalled community groups—where access is gated through a course or a bundle. This setup enables you to monetize access using one-time payments, monthly/annual subscriptions, and membership plans, depending on how you structure your pricing.
Note: It's always a good idea to create a dedicated landing page for each paid group offering, be it a one time payment or subscription. This helps present the benefits clearly before redirecting users to payment or signup.
One-Time Payment Groups
Great for lifetime access, VIP forums, or exclusive mastermind communities. Members pay once and retain permanent access to the group. For example, you could create a “Lifetime Access Inner Circle” group that users can unlock with a $99 one-time payment. Learn how to set up one-time payment groups.
Subscription or Membership or Based Groups
Best suited for ongoing access models like coaching programs, content libraries, or community Q&A groups. These use recurring billing—monthly, quarterly, or annually. For instance, a creator could offer a “Premium Mentorship Group” at $19/month or $190/year, bundled with exclusive live sessions and discussions. Here's how to set up subscription-based groups.
Tiered Membership Plans
With Knorish, you can design tiered membership models by creating separate groups—each linked to its own course or bundle with unique pricing and access levels. For example:
- Free Group: General community access for all users
- Pro Group ($9/month): Includes bonus content and weekly Q&As
- Elite Group ($29/month): Includes everything in Pro + live sessions + 1:1 calls
Each group functions as its own tier, and members can upgrade to higher levels by purchasing the corresponding course or bundle. You can further differentiate tiers using:
- Custom posting permissions (e.g., Admin-only vs open discussions)
- Visibility settings (some tiers may be private or invite-only)
- Different icons or labels for easy identification
Gated Access and Group Controls
You can restrict group entry through gated access, based on purchases of a course or subscription to a bundle. Groups can be open to all, invite-only, or private with payment access. Example: A course called “Advanced Design Bootcamp” could automatically unlock access to a peer discussion group, while a “Pro Designers Circle” group remains invite-only for selected members.
You also have full control over posting permissions, group visibility, and paywall settings—ensuring you deliver the right experience at each membership tier. Here's how to configure Group Settings and Permissions.
Important Considerations
- A payment gateway must be connected to enable paid access.
- Use courses for free or one-time payment groups.
- Use bundles for subscriptions or memberships.
- Each membership tier must be linked to its own course or bundle, meaning if you have three tiered options, you would need to create 3 bundles for each tiered group.
- Paywalls is a payment/ checkout screen enforced through pricing and checkout links to gate access to the community.
- Joining links can be shared externally for faster group access.
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