Supporter memberships
Sell monthly or yearly supporter tiers from your own workspace. Supporters pay you directly on your own Stripe account, Ramphearth takes no cut, and each tier can give custom roles so supporters reach the channels you set aside for them. If you've been running a Patreon for your community, this is the way to bring it home.
Before you start
- Plans. Built into every Creator size, Starter included. No add-on, no licence and no platform fee: the only cost is Stripe's own processing fee. Self-hosted servers have every feature on.
- Who. Owners and Admins set up tiers. Anyone 18 or over with a Ramphearth account can join.
- Where. Org Settings → Memberships. Your join page is
/support/<your workspace's handle>on your Ramphearth address. - Stripe. Memberships use the same connected Stripe account as Client payments. If you've already connected it there, you're ready; otherwise connect from the Memberships section (Stripe's own pages ask for your business and bank details; Ramphearth never sees them).
Needs setup on the server. Card payments appear only when the server's operator has set up Stripe Connect. On the hosted service it's ready; on your own server, see the self-hosting configuration guide.
Make a tier
- Open Org Settings → Memberships and connect Stripe if you haven't.
- Choose Add a tier. Give it a name, a short description of what supporters get, a currency, a monthly price and (optionally) a yearly price.
- Tick the custom roles the tier gives (up to five). Make the roles first in Org Settings → Roles, and give them access to the channels you want supporters to reach.
- Save. The tier appears on your join page at once.
Creator includes up to 10 live tiers. Changing a price makes a new price at Stripe: people already supporting keep paying what they signed up for until they change tier. Archiving a tier stops new people joining it; current supporters keep it until their membership ends.
How roles follow payment
| What happens at Stripe | What happens here |
|---|---|
| Payment succeeds (first or renewal) | The tier's roles are given |
| A renewal fails | Roles stay for 3 days while Stripe retries, then are taken away |
| The supporter pays the failed invoice | Roles come back |
| The supporter cancels | Roles stay until the end of the paid period, then go |
| The membership ends or is unpaid | Roles are taken away |
A role someone was given by hand is never taken away by a membership. A supporter who isn't a member of the workspace yet gets their roles when they join it.
For supporters
On the join page, sign in, pick monthly or yearly, then Join. You pay on Stripe's page, on the creator's own account. Afterwards, Manage membership opens Stripe's page where you can change your card, switch tier or cancel. Tick Say hello before joining if you'd like a welcome card posted in the workspace; nobody is announced without it.
New-supporter cards
Pick a text channel under New-supporter cards and Ramphearth posts a short card there when someone joins and ticks Say hello. The card names them by their workspace name and the tier, never an amount or an email.
Sales tax
Tick Let Stripe work out sales tax to turn on Stripe Tax for your tiers. It runs on your Stripe account, and Stripe charges for it. Leave it off if you handle tax yourself.
Privacy
- Card details are entered only on Stripe's pages, never on Ramphearth.
- Ramphearth stores which tier you support, its status and renewal date, and the Stripe ids needed to look it up again. It never stores card numbers, and the supporter list shows workspace names only, never emails or amounts.
- Memberships aren't available through the API, apps or assistants: setting up tiers and joining are things a person does themselves.
For server operators
Memberships reuse the Client payments Stripe Connect endpoint. On that endpoint in Stripe, also tick these events (as connected-account events): checkout.session.completed, customer.subscription.created, customer.subscription.updated, customer.subscription.deleted, invoice.paid and invoice.payment_failed. An hourly check re-reads every live membership from Stripe as well, so a missed event is caught.