Your platform includes WooCommerce Subscriptions — the full engine for recurring payments: memberships, payment plans, retainers, community access, anything billed weekly, monthly or yearly.
What you can build with it
- Membership — monthly or annual access to your community, a course library, or ongoing content.
- Payment plans — split a high-ticket program into e.g. 3 monthly payments, ending automatically.
- Retainers — recurring billing for ongoing services.
- Free trials and signup fees — both supported per product.
Create a subscription product
- Go to Products → Add New.
- In Product data, choose Simple subscription.
- Set the price and the billing interval (e.g. $49 every month, or $490 per year).
- Optional: add a free trial period or a one-time signup fee.
- For a fixed-length payment plan, set the subscription to expire after N payments.
- Publish.
Like any product, a subscription can be linked to LearnDash courses or community spaces — access is granted while the subscription is active and can be revoked automatically when it lapses. That wiring is what turns “a recurring charge” into “a membership”. See Automations.
What happens on failed payments and cancellations
The system handles the ugly parts: failed charges are retried automatically, subscribers get payment-update emails, and a subscription that ultimately fails moves to on-hold — pausing the access tied to it. Subscribers can update their card, pause or cancel from their account page on your site, which saves you support back-and-forth.
One honest note before you build a membership
Recurring revenue is earned monthly. A membership only retains if members keep getting value — fresh content, live sessions, an active community. The technology here is the easy part; plan the monthly value before you plan the pricing page. When you’re ready, your list is the best launch audience: Email marketing from your platform.
