Member accounts

Let visitors sign in to your website, and keep some pages for members only. Good for a client area, a members' handbook, resources you do not want public, or anything you would otherwise be emailing out one at a time.

The short version

Turn on Member accounts under Membership Settings.
That puts a login page at /login on your site.
Mark any page members only and it needs a login.
Add members yourself, or let visitors sign up themselves.
Charge for it if you want, with a monthly or yearly price you set.
Paid sites get a /join page, and members get /account.
These are visitors to your site, not people on your team.

Members are not your team

Worth getting straight before anything else, because they are two completely separate lists.

Your team is the people who build your sites with you here. Your members are visitors who log in to the published site. A member has no access to this workspace at all, cannot edit anything, and never sees the editor.

Turning it on

Open Membership Settings from the Members page of your website and, on the Accounts tab, turn on Member accounts. That makes a login page available at /login on your site.

Nothing becomes private just from switching this on. It gives you the ability to make pages members only; which pages, if any, is still up to you.

Helping members find these pages

Every page of your site grows a slim strip at the bottom with a way to sign in, reach an account, and sign out. That is there from the moment you turn member accounts on, so nobody is ever stranded.

It is worth adding your own links as well, in your navigation or your footer, where people look first. The Members page of your website lists every member address with a copy button next to it, and shows only the ones your site actually has. A site that does not charge has no join page, and a site with self-signup off has no sign-up page.

Making a page members only

Each page has its own setting. Visitors who are not signed in get sent to your login page and land back on the page they wanted once they are.

Your own team can still preview a members-only page from the editor without signing in as a member, so you can check your work without keeping a test account.

Adding members yourself

Add them one at a time with Add Member and a name, email address and password, or use Invite Members to email up to 25 people at a time so they set their own password. Inviting is usually better: nobody has to send a password around, and you never have to store one.

Invitations need somewhere to send people, so Invite Members appears once the site is published with a public address. Until then you can add members by hand.

Turn on Visitors can sign up, in the same place, and your login page grows a sign-up form, so people can create their own account without you doing anything.

New sign-ups have to confirm their email address before the account becomes active. That keeps your member list to real addresses, and it means somebody who signs up and never confirms does not become a member.

Leave this off if membership is something you grant rather than something people take. A client area wants accounts you created; a community resource might not.

Charging for membership

Membership is free to join unless you say otherwise. In Membership Settings, on the Membership tab, set Joining to Paid and visitors subscribe before they can see members-only pages. You choose the price, whether it is billed every month or every year, and how many days of free trial come first, if any. You can also name the membership and add one line about what members get, both shown on the join page.

Once you set a price your site gets a /join page, showing what membership costs and a button to pay for it. Link to it from your menu, a button, or anywhere else on your site. Somebody who opens a members-only page without a membership is sent there as well.

You need a Stripe account connected first, on the Payouts tab. It is the same connection used for selling products, so if you already sell you are ready and there is nothing to set up. The money goes straight to your own Stripe account, and we take none of it. Stripe's own processing fees still apply.

Stripe handles the billing from there. It takes the payment every month or year, retries a card that fails, and emails your members their receipts. There is nothing for you to run.

Giving somebody free access

Anyone you add yourself, or invite by email, gets in for free. You are letting them in, so you are not also asking them to pay.

You can give free access to any member at any time from the Members page, and take it back the same way. Free members show up in your list marked as such, so you can always see who is paying and who is not.

If you switch a site that already has members over to paid, you get to choose what happens to the people already there. You can keep their access free, or ask them to subscribe like anybody new.

When a member's payment fails

They keep their access while Stripe retries the card, which is usually a few days. They get an email asking them to update it. If the payment never goes through, the membership ends and members-only pages stop being reachable for them.

Members manage their own card, invoices and cancellation at /account on your site, which also shows them what they pay and when it renews next. You do not have to handle any of it, and you never see their card details.

Forgotten passwords

Members reset their own password from your login page. You do not need to be involved, and you never see their password.

Managing members

The Members section of your website lists everybody, and you can edit or remove any of them. Removing somebody takes effect immediately: they can no longer sign in and members-only pages stop being reachable for them.

If they were paying, removing them cancels their subscription too, so they are not charged again for a site they can no longer reach.

If member accounts stop working

Member accounts are an add-on. If it comes off your subscription, sign-in closes and members-only pages stop being reachable.

Nothing is deleted. Your member list stays exactly as it was, and adding the add-on back brings sign-in straight back with everybody still on it.

Paid memberships are paused rather than canceled, so nobody is charged for a site they cannot reach. They start again, with the same members, when the site is back.