At the heart of Clava is a simple yet powerful membership builder allowing you to build a variety of subscriptions or one-time memberships be it for Passes (simple access passes to a physical location), Classes, Online Classes and Services the possibilities are endless.
Subscriptions and One-time memberships allow your customers to book into classes/activities, services or access your facility - whatever you have set up using pre-paid credits. Here's an understanding of the terminology used on the Clava platform:
Clava Membership Terminology
Passes - Provide general access, e.g. open gym area
Classes - Provide session credits that can be used for various classes
Online classes - Provide session credits that can be used for virtual/online classes
Services - Provide session credits for services, e.g. spa, sauna, physio, personal training, etc...
Subscriptions and One-Time Pack - Similarities
Both give your customers prepaid credits. These credits can be used to book into whatever you allocate to a membership.
By default, both subscriptions and packs will allow customers to use those credits on whatever singular or combination of options you have scheduled or will schedule going forward.
Reasons to go with one over the other
Subscriptions
The most common form of a subscription is to have an auto-renewing subscription.
For example, once a month your customers on this subscription are automatically charged. This is done with the 'Recurring setting', 'Membership expiration setting', and 'Billing Interval'.
Unlimited vs Limited
Subscriptions can be unlimited, meaning the customer can book as many classes as they want. They can also be limited, where the customer gets, say, five classes per month. This you can set when creating a pricing option for a specific membership.
Less manual work
In general auto-renewing subscriptions are less manual work over time for a business. They require little to no interaction with the customer after they've been initially sold.
Fixed Start Dates / End Dates
Subscriptions also allow you to create fixed start and end dates. One use case for this might be for a special event.
To create a sense of urgency among your customers you might offer a discounted limited-time subscription that runs from January 1 - April 1. This can be achieved under the membership settings with the 'Active from' and 'Active to' settings. By comparison, an auto-renewing subscription would require durations Settings of, say, 1 month.
One-time Packs
Packs are great for those who like to go at their own pace.
You'll likely have a customer that makes it in a lot one month and then the following month can't make it in for whatever reason. A class pack appeals to this customer because it allows them to use the pack's credits at their own pace. Packs can also be set to auto-fill when they run out of credits if your customers prefer this.
To learn more about Packs and Subscriptions, see the video above.
Whichever option you choose, make sure that when creating your memberships you check to ensure it includes access to only the things it should.