Guides
Membership community setup: writing checkout and renewal notices
Set up a membership community with the right words: what the checkout page must show, how to confirm signup and when a renewal notice has to land.
What to take away
- The FTC reads a "free trial" that converts to a paid subscription as a negative-option offer, and its 2018 ROSCA recap says the trial must disclose the post-trial price before it takes card details.
- The checkout page carries three things before the pay buttonthe price after any trial, the billing frequency and how a member cancels.
- A confirmation after signup repeats those terms, and a renewal notice reaches the member before the charge and states the amount.
- Involuntary churn from expired cards is a renewal problem, not a marketing one, so the notice and the card prompt are worth writing carefully.
- Nothing here is legal, tax or security advice. Auto-renewal disclosure rules vary by state, so route your checkout copy through counsel.
What the checkout page must show
Show the price after any trial, the billing frequency and the cancellation method on the checkout page, before the member enters a card. The FTC's position is that material terms must be clear before the customer hands over billing information.
FTC negative-option requirements
- Price after any trial, stated clearly
- Billing frequency, stated clearly
- How a member cancels, stated clearly
- Terms on checkout page, not linked policy
- Express consent before billing info is given
- Simple way to stop the recurring charge
The FTC's 2018 post, Time for a ROSCA Recap, describes a case where a "risk-free" trial was neither. The agency's position on negative-option offers (the FTC negative option rule is covered separately) is that material terms must be clear before the customer hands over billing information.
For a paid community, the material terms are the price after any trial, the billing frequency, and how a member cancels. Put them on the checkout page, not in a linked policy.
Consent comes next. The statute requires express informed consent before the card is charged, and it requires a simple way to stop recurring charges. State law can add duties on top of the federal ones, so confirm your own state's requirements with counsel before you publish the page.
Draft the checkout disclosure
Write the disclosure in plain words directly above the pay button. It names the price, the frequency, the date of the first charge and the route to cancel, and it says the card is charged until the member cancels.
Join for $19 a month. Your card is charged today, then $19 every month on the same date until you cancel. Cancel any time in Account, then Billing.
If there is a trial, the same block states the price that follows it. Keep the cancel route identical in every message the member receives, so the words on the checkout page match the words in the confirmation and in each notice.
Confirm the signup in writing
Send a confirmation straight after signup that repeats the terms and the cancellation method.
California is one concrete example. Its automatic renewal law (Business and Professions Code 17600 and following) requires the terms and the cancellation method to be shown before the member consents, and a confirmation after signup that repeats them.
A short confirmation covers it: the plan, the price, the billing date, the card on file and the cancel route. Write it once, then reuse the same wording in every notice that follows.
Write the renewal notice
The renewal notice has to reach the member before the charge, and it has to say the amount. A notice that lands in a spam folder is not a notice. Send it from an address the member opted into.
Your membership renews on March 14 for $190, covering the next 12 months. Card on file: Visa ending 1234. To stop the renewal: Account, then Billing, then Cancel. Or reply to this email.
Timing depends on the billing cadence. For monthly plans that usually means an email at signup plus a receipt each cycle. For annual plans, a reminder in the weeks before renewal. A community that bills monthly has a different failure mode than one that bills annually, and the notice should match the one you run.
A full renewal email sequence builds on this single notice. Confirm the timing your state requires before you schedule anything.
Where the copy sits in the setup order
The copy is one decision in a four-step order that keeps you out of rework. Platform and billing come before the wording, and the churn number comes after it.
Four links that carry the setup
- Choose the platform, test member export first
- Set the billing path and retry ownership
- Write the renewal notice with the amount
- Define one churn number and hold it
- Choose the platform after you know how members pay you, and run its export on a test workspace before you import anyone.
- Set the billing path. Confirm who owns the retry schedule, you or the processor, and write down the attempt count and the gap between attempts.
- Write the checkout disclosure, the confirmation and the renewal notice, and run a live test charge on the smallest plan.
- Define the churn number. Pick one definition of churn and hold it, because vanity metrics like total signups hide the members who quietly stopped paying.
The publishing platform guide covers the first step in more depth.
What a failed renewal costs
Failed payments cost real money, and the numbers come from your processor. Card Account Updater and a dunning sequence recover revenue that a new landing page cannot. Your monthly recurring revenue depends on active subscribers, average plan price and failed-payment recovery rate.
Renewal math in three numbers
- 400active subscribers
- $19average plan price
- $7,600gross monthly recurring revenue
- $228lost monthly to failed cards
Take a 400-member community at $19 a month. Gross MRR is $7,600. If 6% of charges fail, that is 24 failed charges a month. Recover half of them and you recover 12, lose 12, and lose $228 a month.
Run that arithmetic with your own member count, your own price and your own failure rate. The failed payment recovery flow shows what happens between the first failed charge and the last retry.
Where beginner setups break
Most first-year failures are not platform failures. They are paperwork and timing failures.
An annual plan sold before you have a refund policy is a dispute waiting to happen. A renewal notice sent by a tool the member never opted into is a chargeback. Both trace back to the copy and the order of setup described above.
Track concentration too. If 80% of your member records live in one platform's database and that platform changes its export terms, you have an audience you cannot reach. Keep a permission-based email list you own.
Common questions
Does the FTC rule apply to a small paid community?
ROSCA covers negative-option offers, which includes a subscription that renews without the member acting again. Size is not the test. If you bill a card on a recurring basis, the disclosure and consent requirements apply, and your state may add more.
How often should a renewal notice go out?
Often enough that the member sees it before the charge. For monthly plans that usually means an email at signup plus a receipt each cycle. For annual plans, a reminder in the weeks before renewal. Confirm the timing your state requires.
What is the first thing to fix in a struggling community?
Failed payments. They are cheaper to recover than new members are to acquire, and the fix is a retry schedule plus a card-update prompt. Check your processor's recovery rate before you spend anything on acquisition.
What should the cancel instructions say?
They should name the place where the member actually cancels, in the same words on the checkout page, the confirmation and every notice. The example copy above uses Account, then Billing, then Cancel.
