Member Statuses

Every membership has a status that determines whether the member is billed, included in fulfillment, and able to use member benefits. Statuses differ between subscription and release memberships.

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Subscription Membership Statuses

Status	Meaning
Active	Membership in good standing. Billing and fulfillment run normally. A comp is Active but never billed (see Comps).
Trialing	Member is in a trial period and has not yet been charged, for example a member whose first charge comes later or one activated without a card until their paid-through date.
Past Due	A payment failed. Stripe is automatically retrying - fulfillment continues during retries.
Paused	Temporarily on hold. No billing or fulfillment occurs.
Payment Failed	All automatic retries have been exhausted. Needs manual attention.
Unpaid	Stripe gave up after exhausting retry attempts and the membership is no longer collecting payment automatically.
Cancelled	Membership has been ended. No further billing or fulfillment.
Incomplete	Signup was initiated but first payment has not completed.
Incomplete Expired	Initial signup wasn't completed within Stripe's grace window. The member needs to start over.
Staged	Pre-active member set up but not yet billing. Staged members appear on the CRM page, not the Members table. See CRM and Contacts.

Active and Past Due are both treated as "live" memberships for fulfillment - they're included in the default Members view and in fulfillment cycles. The system keeps fulfilling Past Due members because most failed payments resolve on Stripe's automatic retry. Once a charge moves to Payment Failed or Unpaid, fulfillment stops until you intervene.

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Release Membership Statuses

Status	Meaning
Active	Membership in good standing. Member is included in releases.
Paused	Temporarily on hold. Member is excluded from new releases.
Cancelled	Membership has been ended. No further releases.
Staged	Pre-active member set up but not yet enrolled. See CRM and Contacts.

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Member Lifecycle Transitions

From	To	How
Active	Paused	Click Pause in the sidebar footer
Active	Cancelled	Click Cancel in the sidebar footer
Paused	Active	Click Resume Membership in the sidebar footer
Paused	Cancelled	Click Cancel in the sidebar footer
Cancelled	Active	Click Reactivate Membership (release) or Restart Membership (subscription) in the sidebar footer
Staged	Active	Activate via the CRM - see CRM and Contacts

For step-by-step instructions on each action, see Edit a Member.

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Staged Members and Activation Intent

A Staged member is a record that's been set up in the CRM but has not yet started billing. You stage members ahead of time so you can configure exactly how their activation should run - waiving fees, deferring the first charge, scheduling a future billing date, and so on. The settings you choose at staging time are stored on the contact and replayed exactly when activation happens.

Choices captured at staging

When you create or edit a staged member, the activation form captures:

Option	What it does
Waive enrollment fee	The enrollment-fee line item is removed from the activation preview and not charged. Useful for friends and family or returning members. (For someone you'll never charge, grant a comp instead.)
Skip first subscription charge (start in trial)	The member is activated immediately but their first recurring charge does not run today. The subscription enters a Stripe trial period and the first invoice runs at the next billing date.
Skip initial purchase (staff only)	For tiers with Requires Initial Purchase enabled, this skips charging the initial wine selection at activation. Used for VIP onboarding when you've already collected the initial purchase by another means.
When does recurring billing start?	Four choices: Immediately (charge today), Defer to next cycle (charge at next fulfillment-cycle anchor), Schedule date (charge on a specific future date), or Next natural billing (charge on the listing's natural cycle anchor).
Send welcome email	If checked, a welcome email is sent when activation actually runs.

Replay on activation

The captured intent is honored when the staged member is activated - whether by staff clicking Activate in the CRM sidebar, by the member completing a card-collection link, or by the bulk-activation job. The activation charge preview shown to staff (and on the card-collection page) always reflects the captured intent, so the dollar amount the member sees is the dollar amount that will be charged. A start date you stored at staging is kept when the member activates.

Staged with a paid-through date or as a comp

A staged member can also be staged with billing terms: a paid-through date with no card (from an import's Paid Through column or Set paid-through date on People), or as a comp (from an import's Comp columns). Their row reads "Paid through {date}, no card", "Staged as lifetime comp" or "Staged as comp until {date}".

These terms are kept whichever way you activate them: from their profile, in a bulk activation, or with an import's Activate them now. Nothing is charged today. A card link can't activate these members; it only saves their card. See Members Without a Card and Comps and Lifetime Memberships.

Activation can never bill a member twice. If an earlier attempt already created the member's subscription in Stripe but didn't finish recording it, activation stops with a message instead of creating a second one, and the member's spot stays held until it is sorted out.

If you change a staged member's intent before activation, the new intent overrides the old one - staging is mutable until the moment of activation.

"Activating…" pill

While a staged member is in the process of being activated (e.g., a bulk activation job is running), an Activating… pill appears on the row to make the in-flight state obvious. Once activation completes, the pill clears and the member transitions to Active (or back to Staged if activation failed).

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Payment Method on File

The Payment Method on File indicator across the CRM and member list is sourced from the member's business customer profile rather than from each individual membership. When the member adds, replaces, or removes a card, the indicator updates automatically across every membership they have with you. Cancelled or paused memberships are no longer ignored - if the customer has a card on file, you'll see it even on a non-active membership.

The indicator only says a card is on file when one actually is. Activating a member without charging a card (for example a waived or deferred first charge) reads the indicator from Stripe instead of assuming a card. If it ever looks wrong, Sync Payment Methods on the People page re-reads it from Stripe (see CRM and Contacts).

If a member has no payment method on file, fulfillment and charge runs flag them with the appropriate blocking issue (see Inventory Holds and Blocking Issues). For subscription members, only orders that ship are flagged: their subscription invoice already pays for the cycle, so a pickup member without a card is not blocked.

When a member adds a card, it becomes the card their subscription bills and pays any renewal they still owe. See Failed Payments and Retries.

Members without a card

A member can be active with no card when you activate them without one. Until their paid-through date they are card pending: filter Card on file to Card pending on the People page to find them. They're reminded to add a card 14 and 3 days before the date, unless you changed the reminder days under Settings > Communication. If the date arrives with no card, the membership is put on hold (Paused) and they get one email to add a card; adding it resumes them. See Members Without a Card.

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Comps

A comp (complimentary or lifetime membership) is a subscription membership that is Active but never billed: no card, no signup fee and no renewals. It is never card pending and gets no card reminders.

• Lifetime comps stay Active until staff end them. Comps with an end date are Cancelled automatically at the start of that day.
• Ending a comp (or reaching its end date) cancels the membership with the note "Comp ended". Nothing is charged or refunded.
• A comp can be Paused and resumed on any day, since there is no billing date to line up with. A paused comp is left out of fulfillment.

See Comps and Lifetime Memberships.