How to build a community, add free or paid groups with one-time payments, memberships or subscription payment options and external links or URLs?

How to build a community, add free or paid groups with one-time payments, memberships or subscription payment options and external links or URLs?

Communities help you go beyond courses by enabling member-driven discussions, gated group access, and recurring monetization. You can build open groups that anyone can join for free, or private groups that are invite-only or paid. Paid groups can be set up with one-time fees, subscriptions, or memberships on a daily, weekly, monthly, or annual basis delivering an exceptional experience for your audience and customers.
Notes
Note: Access to the groups is enabled via courses or bundles. For each new group, you would be required to create a new course or bundle. Free or One-time payment groups, for example - lifetime access groups can be enabled via a course or a bundle. Create a bundle specifically to enable subscriptions or membership based groups such as monthly, quarterly or annual subscriptions.

Introduction to Knorish Communities

Communities allow businesses and experts to build vibrant, interactive spaces where learners can connect, collaborate, and stay engaged.

Inside your community, you can add multiple groups and add custom links based on your offerings:
  1. Free groups – Open for anyone to join
  2. Paid groups 
    1. One-time payment based access  – For example, lifetime membership access.
    2. Subscription based groups – Where you charge a recurring fee for access on a daily, weekly, monthly, or annual basis. 
You’re now ready to begin adding groups inside your community.

How to access the community section

Start by logging into your Knorish account.

You’ll see separate sections for managing groups, links, posts, and general settings. Click on Community in your dashboard menu to access the tabs:
  1. Groups – create and manage free or paid communities
  2. Links – add external URLs to your community
  3. Posts – publish or draft community content
  4. Settings – manage visibility, Flow AI, and post options

Creating a free group in your community

Free groups are open to everyone and are a great starting point for engagement. 

To create a free group, follow these steps below:
  1. Access the publisher dashboard
  2. Click Community > New Group
  3. Add a group name and description
  1. Choose a group icon: Default, emoji or custom
  2. Enable group options as applicable

  1. Under access permissions, select anyone can join this group
    1. Else add courses, bundles or teams to enable access for specific users only 
  2. Under Action Button Destination, select how you would like the user to join the group
    1. Users should first learn more about the group and then decide to join
      1. Redirect to page
    2. A direct signup should be enabled:
      1. Redirect to Course Checkout Link
      2. Redirect to Bundle checkout link  
    3. Users should be sent to an external link, e.g.: Razorpay Or Stripe payment page
      1. Redirect to external link 

  1. Open Courses & Bundles in a new tab
  2. Click New Course and add course name
  3. Add Curriculum if required
  4. Click Next
  5. Under Publish, scroll down to Select a pricing plan for your course

  1. Set the pricing to Free
  2. Add title and currency
    1. Optional: Add course expiry
  3. Click Save
  1. Under Course prices, click on the action icon and select Make Default  
  2. Enable the settings on the page as required
    1. Ensure that Allow course regular and express checkout is turned on
  3. Publish the course
  4. Return to group setup
  5. Set posting permissions (Anyone or Admin only)

  1. Click Save Changes
Your group will be live in the community.
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Note: If you are creating a community for the first time and have not created any courses yet, access this link to discover how to create a course step-by-step. 

Creating a paid group with one-time payment option

These groups are accessible after a one-time purchase, perfect for lifetime access groups.

Follow these steps to create a paid group:
  1. Go to Community > Groups > New Group
  2. Add a group name and description

  1. Choose a group icon: Default, emoji or custom
  2. Enable group display options as applicable
  3. Under Access Permissions, define the access control
    1. Add the course/bundle created for this group

  1. Under Action Button Destination, select from the options available how you would like the user to join the group
  2. Set who can post (Anyone or Admin)
  3. Open Courses & Bundles in a new tab
  4. Click Save Changes
The group will be live.
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Note: For one-time payment setup, you can choose to create a course or setup a bundle as well as both have one time payment options available. 

Creating a subscription or membership based group (monthly, quarterly, annual)

Subscription-based groups require a recurring payment setup using bundles. This section shows you how to set one up for your community.

Follow these steps to create a subscription group:
  1. Go to Community > Groups
  2. Click on New Group
  3. Enter group name and description

  1. Choose a group icon: Default, emoji or custom
  2. Enable group display options as applicable
  3. Under Access Permissions, add the bundle created for this group
  4. Under Action Button Destination, select how you would like the user to join the group

  1. Set who can post (Anyone or Admin)
  2. Click Save Changes
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Note: Only one bundle is required for enabling different payment options. Here's how to setup a bundle with multiple pricing options.

Creating Tiered Membership Plans (Basic, Pro, Elite)

Tiered membership plans allow you to offer multiple access levels, each with its own pricing and content. Each tier is created as a separate group with its own payment setup.

This approach works well when you want to cater to different audience needs or budgets while automating access and renewals. Tiered plans work best when you want to:
  1. Offer multiple pricing options for different levels of value
  2. Segment users by their needs
  3. Upsell premium offers to existing members 
  4. Provide exclusive access to higher-tier members
  5. Run structured coaching or support programs

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Note: Creating a tiered membership plan involves repeating the one-time payment or the subscription/membership-based group creation process listed in the sub-sections above for each membership level. For example, a 3-tier plan (Starter, Pro, Premium) requires 3 separate groups and 3 bundles, each with its own pricing and access setup but the same billing frequency (e.g., one-time, or monthly/annually). 
Follow these steps to create a tiered membership group:
  1. Go to Community > Groups
  2. Click on New Group
  3. Enter group name and description (e.g., Basic Membership)
  4. Choose a group icon: Default, emoji or custom

  1. Enable group display options as applicable
  2. Under Action Button Destination, select how you would like the user to join the group
  1. Set who can post (Anyone or Admin)
  2. Click Save Changes
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Note: To guide your audience in choosing the right plan, create a dedicated landing page that clearly explains the differences between your membership tiers. List the pricing options, benefits, and inclusions in a side-by-side format, and connect each Call-to-Action (CTA) button directly to the respective bundle checkout links you've created. Here's how to design a landing page and connect the buttons to signups or bundle checkouts 

Add links to your community page

You can add links to blogs, books, apps, your courses, bundles or any other resources that enhance your community experience. These links act as quick access points, making it easier for members to discover and engage with valuable external content.

Follow these steps to add a link:
  1. Go to Community > Links
  2. Click on New Link
  3. Enter link name and paste the URL
  4. Choose an icon: Default, emoji or custom
  5. Click Save
  6. Under Links, drag and drop the link to assign a specific sort order number (decreasing sort order = higher visibility)
Once done, the links will be visible on the community page to the user. 
Important Considerations
  1. A payment gateway must be integrated to accept payments for paid and subscription groups.
  2. When creating free or one-time paid groups, create a course. For creating subscription or recurring payments based groups, use bundles.
  3. Flow AI visibility on the community or the dashboard depends on your subscription plan.
  4. Links and groups follow a decreasing sort order where higher numbered links or groups appear first on the dashboard.
  5. You can also share the group joining links externally for faster access. 
  6. To learn how to create a course access, access the article - How to create or delete a course on Knorish?
  7. Here's how to setup a bundle for subscriptions or memberships - Course bundles, subscriptions and memberships
  8. You can also build landing pages specifically for the community or specific groups and connect the buttons to signups or bundle checkouts. Here's how to design a new landing page.