Onboarding fee
What you’ll achieve: every new member pays your club’s joining fee or yearly licence as the final step of signing up — no chasing, no spreadsheet of who still owes what.
Prerequisites: a connected Stripe account, at least one licence created under Sales → Licences, and an onboarding form.
How it works
Section titled “How it works”The Onboarding Fee is a question type you add to your onboarding form. It is not a text field: it turns into a sales page that is always the last page of the form. New members answer your questions first, then land on the sales page, pick a licence and pay through Stripe. When they come back, the sign-up is complete and the licence is already in their member file.
Three rules shape everything else on this page:
- The athletes pay, not the account. If an adult registers only themselves, they are the athlete. If a parent registers children, each child needs a licence and the parent is only ever offered one.
- Several licences on one page are alternatives. Buying one is enough. Use this for tiers (“flexible” vs “season”), never for two fees that both have to be paid.
- The fee is either required or optional, for the whole form. Required means nobody joins without paying. Optional adds a real “continue without” card next to the licences.
Two ways clubs use it
Section titled “Two ways clubs use it”Both come from real clubs on Volley World; names are left out.
A beach club with two membership tiers — optional
Section titled “A beach club with two membership tiers — optional”A beach volleyball club offers two yearly memberships: a flexible membership for players who drop in during the season, and a regular membership at a lower joining price for players who also take a training subscription. Neither is mandatory — the club also welcomes people who just want to sign up for a tournament now and then.
Their onboarding form ends with an Optional fee page showing the two memberships side by side plus a third card, Continue without membership. Most new members choose a tier on the spot. Those who skip are never asked again on sign-up, but both memberships stay on sale in the club store, so they can join later from there. Because the memberships carry a season end date, they expire for everybody on the same day and are simply sold again for the new season.
A club with a single joining fee — required
Section titled “A club with a single joining fee — required”An indoor club charges every new member a one-off joining fee that covers insurance and registration. Nobody plays without it, so the club marks the fee Required and attaches just that one licence.
New members see one card with the price and a single button. Until they pay, their membership request is held back: it does not appear under Approve requests and the person cannot book anything. The licence has no end date, so it is paid exactly once. The club is not in the euro zone, and the page simply shows the licence’s own currency.
Set it up
Section titled “Set it up”- Under Sales → Licences, create the licence(s) you want to sell. Set the Unit Amount and Currency. For a yearly fee, set the End of License Date to the season end; for a one-off joining fee, leave it empty. See Licences.
- Make sure your club’s Stripe account is connected under Settings → Online payment. Until it is, the sales page still shows — but members are let through without paying. See Connect Stripe.
- Open Forms, open your Onboarding Form and switch to the Questions tab. Click + Add Question and pick the type Onboarding Fee. The card moves itself to the end of the form — it is always the last page, after Select Training Groups if you use that too.
- Choose Required or Optional.
- Set the two switches. Offer a licence to the registering parent too adds the parent as an optional extra when children are registered. Ask again when the licence expires is for yearly fees: once the licence has lapsed, only the payment page reopens the next time the member opens the app — never the whole form. It only applies to required fees.
- Give the page a title and a one-line subtitle — this is what members read above the cards, so write it for them (“Choose your membership”, “Your joining fee”).
- Click + Add licence and pick one from your Sales catalogue. Repeat for alternatives. Expand each licence to give it a Headline, a short pitch under What this membership gives them, an optional Badge (“Most popular”) and Highlighted to make it stand out visually.
- For an optional fee, keep Show a “continue without” card on and word its title and description — it is a real option next to the licences, not a small link.
- Save. Use the eye icon on the form to preview the sales page exactly as a member will see it.
The card warns you before a member hits a dead end: no Stripe account yet, no licence chosen, or a licence that is inactive, expired or has no price. A licence with a warning is simply not shown to members.
What the member sees
Section titled “What the member sees”- After the last question, the sales page opens with your title, the licence cards and the price in the licence’s currency.
- Paying opens Stripe’s checkout and returns to the app or the club link when done. If they close the checkout, they can come back and pay later — the answers they already gave are kept.
- A required fee holds the membership request as awaiting payment. It only reaches you under Approve requests once the fee is paid.
- An optional fee never blocks the request. A member who chose the “continue without” card is not asked again on sign-up; the licence stays on sale in the club store.
- The purchase is recorded as a normal licence: you see the holder under Sales → Licences, and the fee answer in the form’s answers.
Troubleshooting
Section titled “Troubleshooting””This club cannot take payments yet”
Your club has no active Stripe account, so the page cannot charge anyone. Members are let through without paying until you connect Stripe. The warning disappears on its own once Stripe reports payments enabled.
”No licence chosen yet. Add at least one, or the page is skipped.”
The question has no licence attached, so there is nothing to sell and members never see the page. Create the licence under Sales → Licences first, then add it with + Add licence.
A licence is missing from the members’ page
Only Active licences with a price and a future (or empty) end date are shown. Expand the licence on the card — the reason is written under its name. For a lapsed yearly fee, roll the End of License Date forward for the new season under Sales → Licences.
The fee was never asked
Both onboarding gates skip as soon as a member has submitted the form once. A fee added to a form later is only seen by members who sign up after that. Existing members can still buy the licence from the club store.