How can we help?

Click "Start free" on the homepage, or open the sign up page. Enter your email, your first and last name, and a password, then accept the terms and pick a few interests. We also send you a verification email. You can start exploring right away, and a reminder stays at the top of the app until you click the link in that email.

Open Discover to browse communities by category or search for one, or open a link a creator shared with you. Then open the community and click "Join for Free." Every community can be joined for free, and some also offer paid tiers with more inside.

The strip on the left holds your communities, plus Direct Messages and Explore Communities. Click a community to open it: its menu lists Community Home, the chat rooms, and a link for each kind of content the community has, such as Posts, Courses, Files, Events, and Shop. Along the top, or the bottom bar on a phone, you can switch between Discover, What's New, and your communities. Your profile, settings, and Help & Support are in the menu under your profile picture.

Yes. Creating an account, joining communities, and starting a community of your own are all free. When a creator earns on MemberPad, from paid memberships or one-time sales, we keep a standard platform fee of 9%. Stripe's card processing fee is separate.

Click "Start a community" in the main menu, or "Create A Community" at the bottom of the sidebar, and enter your community's name, type, and description. Then finish setting it up in Backstage Admin: add your logo and banner under Settings, create tiers under Tiers & Pricing, connect payments under Payments & Payouts, and write the page new members see first under Welcome.

Yes. In Backstage Admin, open Settings to change your community's name, description, and category, upload a logo and a banner, pick a banner color, an accent color, and a theme, add social links, and connect your own domain. Your community's web address is created from its name when you set it up, and it can't be changed in Settings. For a fuller public site, use Public Site.

Share your community's public page. Its link looks like memberpad.com/c/your-community, or uses your own domain if you've connected one. Post it anywhere: social media, email, or your website. People who open it land on your community's page, where they can join.

A community has four built in roles. A Member joined for free. A Paid Member is on a paid tier and gets what that tier unlocks. An Admin manages content, members, and settings. The Host is the owner, with full control, including payments and payouts. Only the host can make someone an admin: open Members, click the member, and choose Change Role. You can also appoint moderators, who can delete chat messages and mute people but can't ban anyone, and create up to 25 custom roles, which are display titles only and grant no permissions.

In Backstage Admin, open Members to see everyone with their role, plan, join date, and last login. You can filter to removed, blocked, or canceled members and export the list to CSV. Click a member to change their role or remove them; removed members can rejoin later. Only the host can make someone an admin or change an admin's role.

Posts are written by a community's host and admins. In Backstage Admin, open Posts & Media and click "New Post." Write in the editor and add images or a video under Cover Media; the first image becomes the cover. Under Content Access, choose Free to make the post public, so anyone can read it, share it, and find it in search, or Paid Plans Only to limit it to the tiers you pick. Then publish it, save it as a draft, or schedule it for later.

Yes. When creating or editing a post, you can save it as a draft instead of publishing it right away. Drafts are visible only to you and the other admins, and you can come back to edit and publish them at any time.

When you create a post, course, file folder, chat room, event, or video category, set Content Access to paid and tick the tiers that get in. Files are locked by folder and videos by category, not one at a time, and a free post is public, so anyone on the web can read it. Courses, folders, events, and notebooks can also be sold as a one-time purchase in your Shop. People without access can see that the content exists, but can't open it until they're on a tier that includes it or have bought it.

Yes. Members can leave comments and reactions on posts, which helps build engagement in your community. As an admin, you can moderate comments from the post itself.

In Backstage Admin, open Courses and click "New Course." Add a title, a description, and a header image, and choose who can access it. Then click "Add Lesson" to build it out: a lesson can hold a video, written content, and downloadable resources, and you can add quizzes and assignments too. Group lessons into sections, and drag lessons and sections into the order you want.

MemberPad supports the common video formats, including MP4, MOV, and WebM. Videos are transcoded for adaptive streaming, so they play smoothly at the best quality each viewer's connection allows, up to 1080p.

Yes. In the course editor, set Access to Paid Plans Only and choose which tiers include the course. You can also turn on One-Time Purchase to sell the course on its own in your Shop. Access covers the whole course, so there are no free preview lessons. Members without access still see the course listed, but can't open its lessons.

Every community can store at least 1,800 minutes of video, and that allowance grows as your community earns. Video that free members can watch has its own, smaller allowance. Once your community brings in more than $2,000 a month in recurring revenue, these limits no longer apply. If you get close, you can ask for more from the notice in the editor. Videos stream at up to 1080p.

Each community can have several chat rooms, which admins can group into sections and open to everyone or only to certain tiers. Messages arrive in real time, and links show a preview. Rooms keep recent history, so members can catch up on what they missed.

Yes. Open someone's profile and click "Message," or open Direct Messages from the strip on the left. To start a new conversation, you need to be on a paid tier, or be an admin or the host, in a community you share with that person. Anyone can reply to a conversation someone starts with them. You'll see which conversations have unread messages, but there are no read receipts.

The Support Inbox lets members message a community's admins privately. Members find it in the community menu as "Contact Creator," or whatever name the creator gives it. Admins answer every conversation from Support Inbox in Backstage Admin, and can broadcast a message to all members or to the members they pick. A creator can also turn the inbox off.

No. Chat rooms, direct messages, and the Support Inbox keep recent history, and older messages expire on their own. Treat chat as conversation rather than an archive: anything members need to keep belongs in a post, a file, or a course.

In Backstage Admin, open Files, create a folder, and upload into it. Each file can be up to 50 MB. Access is set on the folder, not on single files: make the folder free for all members, or limit it to the tiers you choose. Members open the Files tab in your community and download whatever their access allows. To offer one file on its own, add it as a digital product instead.

Yes. In Backstage Admin under Files, create folders to group files by topic, module, or whatever suits your community. Folders are a single level, so there are no folders inside folders. Members can open each folder and download the files they have access to.

Yes. Each file can be up to 50 MB, whatever its type. Files also count toward your community's storage allowance, which starts at 5 GB and grows as your community earns. Once your community brings in more than $2,000 a month in recurring revenue, the allowance no longer applies.

Yes, by folder. When you create or edit a folder, choose Paid Plans Only and tick the tiers that should have access. You can also sell a whole folder as a one-time purchase in your Shop. Single files can't be locked or priced on their own, so put exclusive files in a folder of their own, or sell one file as a digital product.

Open the community and go to its Membership tab, or visit its public page. Pick a tier, choose monthly or yearly if both are offered, and click "Subscribe Now," or the free trial button if the tier has a trial. You'll finish paying on a secure Stripe Checkout page.

Yes. Open the menu under your profile picture and choose Subscriptions & Purchases, then click "Change Plan" on an active subscription to see the other tiers. When you switch, the price difference for the rest of your billing period is prorated and charged right away, and if that charge can't go through, your plan stays as it is. If you subscribed through Apple, change your plan in your Apple ID settings.

Open Subscriptions & Purchases from the menu under your profile picture, click "Cancel Subscription" on the one you want to end, and confirm. You keep access until the end of your current billing period, and there are no cancellation fees. Until then, you can click "Reactivate" to keep it going. Subscriptions made through Apple are canceled in your Apple ID settings.

MemberPad uses Stripe for secure payment processing, so you can pay with all major credit and debit cards, such as Visa, Mastercard, and American Express. MemberPad never stores your card details.

MemberPad's Refund Policy applies to every community, and creators can offer more generous terms. Start by messaging the creator through the "Contact Creator" link in the community menu. If you can't sort it out together, email [email protected] with your account email, the community or product name, the purchase date, and the reason, and we'll help.

Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each billing period, monthly or yearly, using your payment method on file. The amount usually matches your last charge, but it can differ if a discount code has ended or a free trial has just finished. You'll find the date under "Next renewal" on your Subscriptions & Purchases page, along with your billing history.

Digital products are items a creator sells for a one-time price, such as templates, guides, ebooks, or presets. A product is either a file you download or a link to content hosted elsewhere. Unlike a subscription, you pay once and keep access, unless the purchase is refunded or access is withdrawn, for example after a chargeback.

Open the Shop tab in the community and click "Buy" on the product you want. You'll finish paying on Stripe Checkout. When you come back, your access appears within a moment, and you can download the file or open the link.

Open the menu under your profile picture and choose Subscriptions & Purchases. Everything you've bought is listed under One-Time Purchases, where you can download it or open it again whenever you like. A purchase that was refunded or had its access suspended shows that status instead.

Yes. In Backstage Admin, open Digital Products to create and manage them. Give each one a name, a description, and a price, then upload the file or add a link to where it's hosted. Published products appear in your community's Shop tab for members to buy.

As the host, open Payments & Payouts in Backstage Admin. Setup has three steps: submit your tax information, connect a Stripe account through Stripe Connect (or reuse the one from another community you host), and choose how sales tax is handled. Members can start paying once your tax form is approved, your Stripe setup is finished, and your sales tax choice is made. Then set your prices under Tiers & Pricing and Digital Products.

When a member pays, the charge runs through your connected Stripe account. Stripe deducts its processing fee, MemberPad's platform fee comes out of the same charge, and the rest stays in your Stripe balance. Stripe then pays out to your bank on the schedule set in your Stripe account.

MemberPad's standard platform fee is 9% of each paid transaction, so you only pay when you earn, and there is no monthly charge. Stripe's card processing fee is separate and charged by Stripe. If your community started with a founder code, a lower rate may apply.

In Backstage Admin, open Tiers & Pricing. For each tier, set a name, an optional description, a monthly price and an optional yearly price, an optional free trial, a badge, and a list of benefits, then choose which content the tier unlocks. You can create several tiers, such as Basic, Pro, and VIP. Every community also keeps one free tier, which can't be deleted.

Yes. The dashboard in Backstage Admin gives an overview of your community, including member count, active subscriptions, and revenue, and Members shows each member's status and plan.

Go to the login page and click "Forgot your password?" Enter your email address and we'll send you a reset link. The link expires after 1 hour. Click the link in the email to create a new password. If you don't see the email, check your spam folder.

After you sign up, we send you a verification email. Click the link in it to verify your address. Until you do, a reminder shows at the top of the app with a "Resend" button in case you need a new email. If it doesn't arrive, check your spam folder.

Click your profile picture at the top of the app and choose "Edit Profile." Your profile page opens and you edit it right there: click the camera on your picture to change it, and use the pencil icons to update your name, display name, username, and bio.

You can delete your account inside the app: click your profile picture, choose Settings, open the Delete Account tab, and confirm with your password. Your account, profile, active sessions, and membership in every community are removed immediately, and this can't be undone. Posts and messages you wrote stay in their communities but show as "Deleted user." If you run into trouble, email [email protected].

Yes. MemberPad takes security seriously. All data travels over HTTPS and passwords are securely hashed. Card and bank details are handled by a secure third party processor and never stored on our servers, and the tax ID numbers creators provide are stored encrypted.