Vega Forms: Memberships on forms

This article explains how to sell memberships on a form: joining, renewing and gifting.

The memberships themselves (their prices, how long they last, how often they're charged and whether they renew) are set up in the Vega dashboard. See Membership Settings — User Guide. A form shows whatever those settings say.

Which forms can sell memberships

The Membership form type starts with everything you need: Contact details, Membership, Payment and Consent. Its button says Join. You can also add a Membership section to a Registration or Donation form.

If any membership on the form costs money, the form needs a Payment section.

Choosing the memberships to offer

Select the Membership section and tick the memberships to offer. They're grouped under their membership type names (for example Membership or Friends of the Gallery), and the form shows them the same way.

Only one membership? By default, a single membership is selected automatically without being shown. It still appears if it's paid in instalments, has more than one way to pay, or renews. Tick Show the membership on the form even though it is the only one to always show it with its price.

What members see

When someone picks a membership, the form explains what they're signing up for, using that membership's settings in Vega:

• More than one way to pay (e.g. yearly or monthly): they choose under How would you like to pay?, each with its price.
• Paid in instalments: a line of plain text under the membership says how it's paid, and the form says so again beside the total, for example Charged today, then $8.50 monthly – 12 payments in all, or …continuing each term until cancelled.
• One payment: Charged today – one payment for the term.
• Renews automatically: Renews automatically at the end of each term.
• Member's choice: a tick box, Renew automatically at the end of each term. Their answer is saved and respected.

Because a membership's own settings decide how often it's paid, a membership form can't have a Frequency section. The builder won't let you add one.

Renewals

Ask whether this is a renewal adds a tick box, I am renewing my membership. You can change the wording.

Ticking it sends the renewal acknowledgement instead of the new-member one, and lets you file renewals differently with pathway rules.

It doesn't look up the person's existing membership. Vega works out the new expiry date from their record when it processes the payment.

Gift memberships

Let the buyer gift this membership to someone adds a tick box, I would like to gift this membership to someone. When it's ticked, the buyer is asked for the recipient's details.

Setting	What it does
Collect the recipient's address	Asks for their address, with the same address search as the buyer
Require the recipient's email	Their email must be given
Offer a gift message	A message of up to 255 characters

First name, last name and email are required when the gift box is ticked.

A gift membership uses the gift membership acknowledgement. A form can't have both a gift membership and a Gift options section.

Membership and a donation together

Add a Donation amount section to a membership form to let people give at the same time. The form shows a breakdown (Donation, Membership, Total), and the membership + donation acknowledgement is sent.

The emails

Set the membership's documents on the Membership section's Emails tab:

• New membership: what a new member gets, however the membership is billed (once, monthly or annually). It's also sent when one of the documents below isn't chosen.
• Membership + donation, Membership renewal, Renewal + donation, Gift membership, Gift membership + donation: shown when the form can send them (a renewal question, gift memberships, a donation).

These documents are used whenever a membership is chosen, on any form with a Membership section, including Registration and Donation forms.

On a form with a membership, the donation is acknowledged with the membership, so the Payment section doesn't offer its own one-off or recurring donation documents. Membership pathway rules can choose a different document; they're listed on the Emails tab under Set by rules. See Acknowledgements and thank-you pages.

Discount codes

Add a Discount codes section to give members a Gift card or discount code box, as the old membership widget had. A code can take a percentage or an amount off the membership, for all memberships or only the ones you choose, never a donation. See Donations and payments.

Where memberships are filed in Vega

Set the Campaign (default) and GL code (default) on the Membership section's Vega setup tab. Both are required: the form can't be saved without them.

The Payment section's own default campaign and GL code aren't needed on a membership form unless it also takes a donation, or offers the processing fee without its own fee campaign and GL code. Until then they aren't shown.

To file particular memberships differently, or renewals, gifts or memberships with a donation, add membership pathway rules in the same tab. See Routing payments with pathways.