Connect your own Stripe account so members can settle from their space, and put a subscription on automatic renewal.
On this page
Connecting your own Stripe account#
Path: Settings › Integrations › Stripe.
Press Connect with Stripe. You go to Stripe in a new tab to sign in or create an account, then you come straight back. Connecting takes a few minutes. Stripe then verifies your account, usually within a few days.
The account is yours: members pay into your own Stripe balance, never through MoveMembers, and MoveMembers takes no commission. Stripe charges its own fees, which depend on your country.
While Stripe is still verifying, the card says what is missing. Check again refreshes the status, and the Stripe options menu opens your Stripe dashboard or disconnects Stripe. The payment methods your members see depend on your country, and you turn each one on or off in your Stripe dashboard.
A studio that connected earlier by pasting keys keeps three fields instead: Publishable key, Secret key and Webhook secret, with a Webhook URL to add in Stripe and a Test connection button. A message offers Connect with Stripe instead, which replaces the keys. A secret key that starts with sk_demo_ is a placeholder that puts the account into simulation: nothing is charged.
What members can do once Stripe is connected#
From their member space, a member can pay the balance left on a plan and settle an open shop tab. When the payment comes back, it is recorded as a card payment, the plan balance is updated and a receipt goes out.
Turning on auto-pay#
Path: Settings › Member portal › Options in the member portal › Let members set up auto-pay.
It is off by default and it needs Stripe connected. Once on, a member holding an eligible plan sees a Set up auto-pay button in their space. They enter their card once with Stripe, and the plan renews itself.
Each successful renewal is recorded as a card payment, and the member receives the usual payment receipt. A Manage link in their space opens Stripe's billing page.
The member sets it up themselves from their own space, on the membership row. You never start a recurring charge for them, and nothing recurring begins until they enter their card with Stripe.
Which plans can renew by themselves
Auto-pay is offered on renewing memberships only: a subscription plan whose duration matches a rhythm Stripe can repeat, with a price above zero. The billing rhythm follows the duration of the plan, so the price and the interval always cover the same period.
7 days bills every week. 28 to 31 days bills every month. 89 to 92 days bills every 3 months. 180 to 184 days bills every 6 months. 365 or 366 days bills once a year.
Any other duration (14, 45 or 60 days, for example) is not offered, and the member pays that plan one purchase at a time, as before.
Three more kinds of plan never show the button: a plan that includes a number of classes (credits are not reloaded at renewal), a plan that starts at the first session (it has no end date until it has been used), and a trial offer. Packs, passes and price to set plans are not eligible either.
Selling a plan in monthly payments
Path: Settings › Memberships › Selling › Monthly payments.
Switch on Monthly payments to also sell the plan as a fixed number of monthly card payments, between 2 and 36. You set the number of payments and the monthly price, and charging stops by itself after the last one. It requires Stripe.
When you add the membership to a member, choose the monthly option and press Create payment link. Send the link by message: it expires after 24 hours. The member pays by card on their phone, and the membership starts with the first payment. Members can also choose monthly payments themselves when they buy the plan online.
In their member space, the member sees how many payments are made, for example 2 of 6, and an Update card link when a payment fails. In Settings › Member portal, Block booking when a monthly payment fails stops bookings on that plan while a payment is overdue. It is off by default.
The webhook matters if you use your own keys
With Connect with Stripe there is nothing to set up: MoveMembers receives Stripe's notifications on one shared address. If you connected by pasting keys, subscription payments and every renewal after the first one are recorded only when Stripe calls the webhook address you pasted into your Stripe dashboard.
The software refuses any webhook call if no webhook secret is saved, so an incomplete setup means no call is accepted at all. One-off payments have a safety net, because the software checks the payment again when the member comes back from Stripe. Subscriptions have no such net.
Recurring prices are frozen once created
The first time a member puts a plan on auto-pay, a recurring price is created in your Stripe account for that plan, that billing period, that currency and that amount. Every later subscriber at the same amount reuses that price.
Members already on auto-pay keep the amount they signed up for. If you change the price of the plan in Settings › Memberships afterwards, only members who set up auto-pay after the change are charged the new amount.
Troubleshooting
When a recurring charge fails
A failed charge creates a payment line with the Overdue status and the note Stripe payment failed, so the member appears in the Unpaid filter of the Payments history and in Reminders.
The plan stays active while Stripe retries on its own schedule. If a retry succeeds, that same line flips to Paid rather than creating a second one.
If the member cancels their subscription from the Stripe billing page in their member space, the plan is marked cancelled here.
In practice, a card that Stripe declines shows on the member as a late payment, in the Unpaid filter and in Reminders, until a retry goes through or you settle it yourself.