Offering Discounts Using Discount Codes
You can create discount codes for renewing or new members to apply towards membership payments. This is great if you are having a membership drive or would like to offer a discount to certain groups of members. Discount codes can give a percentage or dollar discount. You can create as many as you need and limit the number of times each code is used.
Discount codes are enabled by membership level and billing option. To activate them go to Labels & Membership > Membership Levels. Click on the membership level, and navigate to the Billing Options tab. Under each billing option check allow these discount codes and click on the discount codes you allow to be used. You will be asked if the discount code can be used by new members, renewing/upgrading members, or both.
If you have not yet created the discount code, you can click on Setup Discount Codes to create a new discount code.
Click on the New Discount button to create a new discount code. Give the code a code name and then a discount by percentage or dollar amount. If you would like to limit the number of times a discount code can be used (this is a limit across all members, not per member) you can put a number in for Total Number of Uses. You can leave this setting blank to make the number of uses unlimited. Then save your changes.
Managing Your Discount Codes
When a member pays with a membership discount code it will be listed when you export your membership payments. If you set a membership discount code to be limited to a particular number of uses, the system will stop accepting the code once it reaches the limit.
At any time you can change the discount codes that are enabled for a membership level. For example if you are offering a discount in January only you can enable the code on January 1. Then on February 1 go back into the system and disable the discount code. To do that just go back to the membership level and billing option, click on that discount code and click “Remove” so it is no longer highlighted in blue. Then save your changes.
How Members Use Discount Codes
When a member joins or renews, in the same area where they enter their credit card they will see an box to enter the discount code and a button to apply the discount. Once they click “Apply”, the total will be adjusted to reflect the discount. They can then continue with their signup or renewal.
If a membership does not allow for any discount codes, the discount code box will be hidden.
Discount codes will apply to the current amount due for the member. So if the discount is a percentage, it would include any application fees, past due fees and pro-rated amounts. You can create discount codes that would fully subsidize the membership payment. If the discount is greater than the normal payment, the total will be capped to 0, it will not be processed as a refund or applied to future payments/periods.
Discount Codes For Offline Billing
Note that discount codes are not accepted for offline billing. If you wish to offer discounts to members for offline billing, please provide instructions (within the payment instructions) to your members on how to submit the code with their payment so you can apply the discount; for example, you could have them write the discount code on the check.
Discount Codes For Automatic Recurring Billing
Note that discount codes only apply to the current membership payment. They do not apply to future automatic recurring payments. ie. if the member is signing up for Automatic Recurring Billing of $100/month, and the discount code is 50%, their first payment will be $50, but subsequent automatic payments will be $100.
Offering Discounts Using Private Billing Options
Another way of offering discounts to your members is through private billing options. This is applicable when you need to discount the membership payments indefinitely, not just for the current payment (as with discount codes). You would simply create a billing option with the discounted pricing, and disable the "Allow members to select this billing option" setting. This is a great way to provide discounted pricing for legacy members, or for board members, etc.
Only members who are assigned this billing option by the administrator will pay the discounted price. New members would have to be added by the administrator as there is no way for a new member to select a private billing option. But if this is a temporary promotion, you could enable the "Allow members to select this billing option" setting accordingly, and turn it off when the promotion is over.