Membership dues

Charge families a recurring amount to belong to your organization. Dues are separate from activity tickets — dues buy membership, tickets buy a seat at one activity.

Two different roles are involved. Turning dues on is a Settings change, so owners and co-leaders do it. Watching who is paying happens under Billing, which owners and billing managers can open.

Two things have to be true first

This is where most organizations get stuck, so check both before you go looking for the setting.

1. Your visibility is Closed or Hidden. An organization set to Open cannot charge for membership. Save the dues form on an Open listing and it refuses with "must be Closed or Hidden to charge a membership fee".
2. Your payouts are Active. Until Stripe onboarding is finished there is nowhere for the money to go. The dues panel shows "Connect your payouts to start collecting dues" with a Set up payouts link.

Visibility is on the same Settings page, in the Membership & joining block above dues. Payouts are covered in Getting paid.

:::warning An open listing cannot bill Open visibility leaves your member content ungated. Dues cannot be charged on an Open listing at all. Switch to Closed if you still want to be listed and found, or Hidden if you would rather not appear in the directory. :::

Turn dues on

1. Open the account menu and choose Manage organizations.
2. Pick your organization, then open Settings.
3. Scroll to Membership dues.
4. Tick Enable membership dues.
5. Enter Price (USD).
6. Choose a Billing cadence.
7. Write a Description (optional) — what members get for their dues.
8. Select Save membership settings.

The six cadences

Cadence	What happens
Monthly	Renews every month.
Every 2 months	Renews every two months.
Quarterly	Renews every three months.
Every 6 months	Renews every six months.
Annually	Renews once a year.
One-time fee	Charged once, when you approve the member. Never renews.

You pick one cadence for the whole organization. Families do not choose, and you cannot offer a monthly option alongside an annual one. There are no membership tiers and no free trial.

What a family sees

On your join request form, a family sees your price and cadence, a Discount code (optional) box, and the reassurance "You won't be charged until the organizers approve your request." They send the request with Send request, and the first charge happens on approval.

From then on the charge repeats on your cadence, and the family is emailed ahead of a renewal so it is not a surprise. An annual renewal gets around a month's notice; a monthly one gets a few days.

Watching who is paying

Open Billing in your organization's console. The Subscriptions page opens on three figures:

• Monthly revenue — everything normalised to a month, so an annual membership counts as a twelfth.
• Paying members — how many are active.
• Past due — how many payments have failed.

Under the figures, each member is listed with their status, their price, their next charge date and how long they have been a member. A complimentary member is marked (comped).

Statuses read Active, Past due, Awaiting payment, Incomplete or Canceled. Awaiting payment is not a failure — it means a complimentary window has closed and this member has never paid through Famlo, so there is nothing to charge yet.

When a payment fails

Failed payments lead the Subscriptions page, because they are the only thing on it anyone has to act on. Stripe retries the card on its own while you decide whether to intervene.

A failing membership moves through three stages:

1. Retry — the first courtesy reminder. Stripe is still attempting the card.
2. Action required — the charge needs the family to do something before it can settle, usually a bank verification step.
3. Final warning — retries are nearly exhausted and the membership will lapse.

You have two controls on each failing row:

• Send a reminder emails the family and asks them to update their card.
• Offer a discount… picks one of your promo codes, and Offer sets it aside for them. The family sees "Your group offered you a discount" on their own membership page and applies it with one tap. Useful when the real problem is the price rather than the card.

A discount applied to a membership that is already running holds for every renewal after it, so offer a modest percentage. See Promo codes.

Expand What we've sent them to see everything the platform has already emailed that member, so you do not repeat it.

There is no grace period setting. The retry schedule is fixed, and a membership that never recovers cancels itself.

Dues paid outside Famlo

Cash at a meeting, a cheque, a bank transfer. Record it so the platform stops asking that family to pay again.

This one needs both roster access and billing access, so in practice it is the owner who does it. The Billing link only appears on a member's row when your organization actually charges dues.

1. Open Members.
2. Find the member and select Billing on their row.
3. Enter Amount paid.
4. Choose How they paid — Cash, Check, Transfer or Other.
5. Set Date received to the day it was handed over, not today.
6. Set Membership paid up until to the date the payment covers.
7. Add a Note (optional) for your own records. The member never sees it.
8. Select Record payment.

Recording a payment does not move any money. It writes down that a payment already happened somewhere else, and sets the window Famlo should stay quiet for. Past entries are listed under Recorded off-platform with the amount, method, date and who recorded it.

A week before the covered date runs out, the family is reminded. After it, Famlo asks them to pay.

Complimentary memberships

Leave Membership paid up until blank and that family is never asked to pay again. Use it for a founding family, a volunteer, or a scholarship place. They show as (comped) on the Subscriptions page.

The form still asks for Amount paid and How they paid, so enter whatever they actually handed over. It is the blank date, not the amount, that makes the membership complimentary.

Removing a paying member

1. Open Billing, then find the member on the Subscriptions list.
2. Expand the row's remove control — it reads Remove and the member's first name.
3. Choose Stops — Immediately or At period end.
4. Choose Refund — No refund, Prorate or Full refund.
5. Select Remove and confirm.

Those three choices are the whole refund control for dues. There is no box to type an amount into.

Changing the price

Edit Price (USD) and select Save membership settings. There is no chooser for how the change applies — no "new members only", no "everyone at renewal". Because of that, tell existing members before you change what they pay. Thirty days' notice is the usual courtesy, and some states require notice ahead of an annual renewal.

Troubleshooting

I can't find the membership dues section. It sits near the bottom of Settings, below Membership & joining. If you cannot open Settings at all, you are neither the owner nor a co-leader. See Members, roles, and messaging.

I'm a billing manager and there is no Billing link on a member's row. Recording an off-platform payment also needs access to the members roster, which is an owner and co-leader thing. Ask the owner to record it.

Saving dues gives me a visibility error. Your organization is Open. Change visibility to Closed or Hidden in Membership & joining, save that, then set your dues.

The dues form shows a payouts warning. Stripe onboarding is not finished. Follow Set up payouts and come back.

A member paid me in cash but Famlo keeps emailing them. Record the payment on their Billing panel and set Membership paid up until past the date they have covered.

Recording a payment is refused because the member pays by card. They have a live card subscription. Recording a second payment would leave them charged twice. Remove the card subscription first, then record the cash.

A member says they were charged twice. Check whether they hold both a card subscription and a recorded off-platform payment for the same window. Remove the subscription with Refund set to Prorate or Full refund.

I want to offer a free trial. There is no trial setting, and no way to record a $0 payment. Use a promo code on the join step instead, or let a family attend a public activity before they apply.

What's next

• Promo codes — discount dues at the join step.
• Members, roles, and messaging — approve members and set who can bill.
• Getting paid — payouts and the platform fee.