When you set up a membership plan, you’ll choose its type — membership, subscribe & save, or loyalty program — which helps you control how members earn access to perks.
- Both Membership and Subscribe & save models are triggered by a product purchase: you sell access through a product listing. When a customer buys the assigned product, they become a member — and in either case, they can buy once, or subscribe using one of your billing plans.
- Memberships sell a digital product, typically access (like a “VIP Access” listing)
- Subscribe and save models sell a physical product (like a coffee subscription)
- Loyalty programs can grant access through:
- Account registration: Grant free memberships automatically when customers register for an account on your site. Great for building an email list.
- Shopify Flow: Gift or assign memberships with Shopify Flow. Flow lets you automatically create memberships based on triggers like order payment, customer tags, and more. Zendra provides 11 membership triggers and 9 actions for building automated workflows.
- Manual: Keep your plan private for staff-only assignment via the Shopify admin — View a customer, then use the actions menu to assign a membership.