How to set up tiered memberships

Tiered memberships are a powerful way to give your community flexible pricing, exclusive perks, and priority access—all while creating predictable revenue for your organization.

In this article, we’ll walk you through how tiered memberships work, how to set them up on OpenSports, and why groups like Big City Volleyball are seeing huge success with this model.

What Are Tiered Memberships?

Tiered memberships offer multiple pricing levels with different benefits based on the tier a member chooses. They’re designed to fit a variety of player needs—whether someone wants to attend a few sessions a month or get full access with added perks.

Take Big City Volleyball as an example. They offer two monthly membership tiers:

Gold Membership:

This monthly membership includes 8 event passes per month with a 100% discount applied at checkout for select event types (e.g., Open Play, Practice, Clinics). Members receive priority access to registration 3 hours before non-members and can join $40 pop-up clinics for just $18.75 per session. Passes do not carry over, the membership auto-renews, and is non-refundable.

Silver Membership:

This membership offers 4 event passes per month for a recurring monthly fee, with a 100% discount automatically applied at checkout. It includes access to events with specific tags and priority registration. Pop-up clinics are available at a reduced rate of ~$21.25 per session. Unused passes do not roll over, and the membership auto-renews each month and is non-refundable.

How to Set Up Tiered Memberships

You can create tiered monthly memberships by following these steps:

Go to Group Profile > Dashboard > Memberships
Click Create Membership

Create title, (e.g., Limited, Full, VIP), upload custom image, and fill out the description box
Set Membership Price
Set renewal as indefinitely and renewal frequency to monthly basis

Within Eligibility select Everyone
- Select Specific Users if you’d like to limit the membership to a very small audience. To make a user searchable within your group, they must first join the group as a member.
Apply Event Tags to set the membership applicable only to specific events
In Discount section
- Select Percentage and set to 100% to give members 100% events
- Limit the number of times a user can use this discount over a renewal period: 8
  - This setting controls how many times a member can redeem their discount during each renewal period (e.g., monthly).
  - For example, if your tier includes 4 event passes per month, set this limit to 4 to ensure members can only use the discount for up to 4 events before their next renewal. This helps manage usage and prevents over-redemption.
- Limit number of times a user can use this discount per event: 1
  - This controls how many times a member can use their discount per individual event. For most memberships, this should be set to 1 to prevent members from using multiple passes on the same event (e.g., booking for themselves and multiple guests). Set a higher number only if you want to allow multiple redemptions per event.

Add Terms and Rules that users will have to agree to before purchasing the membership.
View Membership summary, review all information before clicking Save.

Create Additional Tiers Set up a second membership (e.g., Silver) with fewer passes (e.g., 4), and repeat the same setup steps.
Add Descriptions and Disclaimers Explain session limits, priority access, refund policy, and what happens if members cancel.
Promote the Benefits! Use your event descriptions, marketing banners, and social media to highlight the savings and perks (e.g., “Save over 50% on clinics with a Gold Membership!”).

Why Use Tiered Memberships?

By offering recurring billing, your organization benefits from consistent, predictable cash flow. It is a flexible option for players as some members might only want a few sessions a month, while others want access to everything. Tiered plans meet both needs. Priority access and discounted pricing are great incentives to keep members coming back month after month. There is also the opportunity to upsell by starting members on a lower tier and give them the option to upgrade as their usage increases.

Set Up Different Types of Memberships

Questions? Send them our way: support@opensports.net