Subscriptions & policies
A subscription is what turns a membership plan into recurring billing. This page covers how one gets started, what each status means, and what to do about pauses, cancellations, and failed payments.
Start a subscription
From a member's profile, or the member does it themselves — through your signup page or their own app.
Pause a subscription
Freeze billing without ending the membership, then resume whenever you're ready.
Cancel a subscription
End it now, at the end of the period, or on a date that matches your notice policy.
When payments fail
TrainOS keeps retrying the card and picks up the moment it's fixed.
Start a subscription
A subscription can start three ways: you start it from a member's profile, a prospect starts it while joining through your signup page, or an existing member starts it themselves from their own app.
Pending members activate the moment billing starts
A member sitting on your roster as Pending — someone who booked a free trial, or stopped partway through your signup page — becomes Active automatically the instant a subscription starts for them, whichever of these paths gets them there. No need to click Activate Member yourself. See Member statuses.
From a member's profile
Go to Members, open the member, and find the Membership card. Click Start Subscription, pick a plan, add a Promotion Code if one applies, and confirm.
If there's no card on file yet, you enter one right there — no redirect, no separate checkout page. The button then reads Continue instead.
The same Start Subscription action lives on a member's profile in your mobile app, with the same plan picker and card entry.
Another way in
Your Dashboard home's Charge button can also start a subscription — choose Membership Plan as the charge type. See Charging a member.
The member starts it themselves
Joining through your signup page. A prospect who opens
trainos.site/your-url/signup picks a plan and pays on their own phone as
part of joining — no staff work needed. See Share your signup
link for the full walkthrough of
that page.
From their own app, once they're already a member. A member with no active plan opens Plans and taps Subscribe. They enter their own card, or TrainOS charges whatever card is already on file. A member who already has a plan sees Change Plan here instead — see Change a member's plan below.
What each status means
You'll see these on Payments → Subscriptions and on each member's Membership card. A subscription with a cancellation scheduled shows its current status plus the date it cancels.
Past due is a grace period, not a lockout
A member with a failed payment keeps checking in as usual. If your academy requires a subscription to train, that setting only blocks someone with no subscription at all — a past-due member still has one. See When payments fail below.
Pause a subscription
You can pause or resume any subscription at any time — the one exception is a yearly plan, which can't be paused by you or the member.
Pause from Payments → Subscriptions, or from the member's Membership card — both have a Pause action. You choose 1, 2, or 3 months, or type in any custom length. Members pause from the Membership screen in their own app, within whatever limits you set — see Set your policies below.
You are never limited by these settings
Every pause, cancel, and switch setting only governs what a member can do on their own. You can always pause, resume, cancel, or switch any member's plan yourself, and without the limits those settings put on members.
Cancel a subscription
You choose exactly when a cancellation takes effect:
A subscription that's already past due skips all of that — cancelling it is immediate only, stops the payment retries, and writes off the unpaid invoice.
Changed your mind, or so did the member? Undo Cancellation removes a scheduled cancellation and restarts normal billing, any time before the end date arrives.
Change a member's plan
A plan's price is locked in the moment you create it — the only way to charge something different is to deactivate it and create a new one (see Membership plans). Editing prices this way never touches anyone already subscribed; each member keeps paying what they signed up for until you move them to a different plan.
To move a member, click Switch Plan from Payments → Subscriptions or the member's Membership card, and pick a New Plan. TrainOS shows how the switch is handled before you confirm:
You can override how any switch is handled — charge the difference immediately, add it to the next invoice instead, or skip proration entirely — and TrainOS shows the exact amount due before you confirm. A scheduled downgrade can be called off with Cancel Switch, on your side or the member's, before it takes effect.
When payments fail
Fixing the card is what speeds things up — TrainOS retries the unpaid invoice the instant a new default card is saved, instead of waiting for the next scheduled attempt.
If every retry fails
Once Stripe's own retry schedule is exhausted, it may cancel the subscription — TrainOS reflects that here as Cancelled. Start a new one from the member's Membership card any time.
Meanwhile, a past-due member keeps checking in as usual — the front-desk kiosk just shows a Membership past due banner as a reminder to update their card. See Attendance & check-ins.
Set your policies
Go to Settings, then find the Membership Lifecycle section. Only owners and admins can change these.
See Academy settings for the exact defaults and ranges, and how a failed payment behaves.
What members see
$150
/ month
Who's allowed to do what
| Feature | Owner | Admin | Instructor | Student |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start a subscription for a member | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Manage any member's subscription | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Manage their own subscription | ✓ | ✓ | If allowed | If allowed |
| Apply or remove a discount | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Change Membership Lifecycle settings | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
Instructors and students don't get billing access
The web dashboard is owner and admin only, so these rows describe the mobile app. An instructor can manage a subscription of their own the same as any member, gated by the same settings — but not anyone else's. Billing stays with owners and admins.
See also
- Membership plans — create plans, set prices, and restrict class access
- Charging a member — one-off charges, separate from a subscription
- Cards on file — how a card gets saved and updated
- Coupons & promo codes — discounts a subscription can carry
- Payments & charges — the full ledger of every charge
- Academy settings — every setting your academy can change