This guide is for course providers managing the people who have joined a membership in the Admin dashboard. It explains how to see who has joined, add someone yourself, stop renewal or end access, check payments and report on members. To set up the membership itself, see Create a Membership for Your Courses.
Subscription: one person's record of joining a membership, with its own cost, start date, renewal or expiry date and status. Each subscription belongs to one person.
Subscriber or member: the learner who holds the subscription.
Use a System Admin account for the main Memberships area. Members manage their own subscription from their account; see Manage a Membership You Bought.
See Who Has Joined a Membership (Subscriptions List)
Open Memberships → Subscriptions.
Find the learner using the displayed name, email and membership. Check START DATE, RENEWAL / EXPIRY DATE and STATUS.
Select the row away from the learner's name to open Subscription Details; the name itself links to the contact.
Check Membership, Cost, Auto-renews, Start date, and Renews on or Expiration date. A trial also shows Trial end date. Review Transactions separately from the access status.
Each subscription shows one of these statuses:
Active: the record is marked active and has not passed its expiry date. Check Start date too; this badge alone does not prove that a future subscription has started or that a payment succeeded.
Active until [date]: renewal has been stopped but the record remains active before its expiry date.
Expired: the expiry date has passed.
Inactive: the record is not active.
Initiated: joining was started but is not finished, as explained below.
The learner's own account shows slightly different statuses: it has Starts on [date] and no Expired status. See Manage a Membership You Bought.
What Initiated Means on a Subscription
A subscription is Initiated when the person started joining but their first payment or card setup has not been completed. A member on a free trial who has not yet saved their card details also shows Initiated. Initiated subscriptions are left out of the Subscriptions list, but they appear as a Subscribed entry on the person's contact. When the person completes payment or card setup, the status changes. If they start joining the same membership again, Cademy replaces the unfinished subscription with the new attempt.
Add a Learner to a Membership Manually (No Charge)
A manual subscription grants membership access without collecting money. Its Cost is 0 and Auto-renews is Never, even if the selected membership normally has a recurring price. Use it only when you intend to grant access without an automatic charge.
Open Memberships → Subscriptions and select New Subscription.
Use Search for a contact... to select the intended learner with an email address. If the learner does not yet exist, use Create new contact... in that selector and enter their details.
Use Select a membership to choose the plan.
Set the intended Start date and End date. Although the fields are marked optional, enter an explicit End date for time-limited access, particularly with a future start.
Decide whether to enable Send confirmation email. It is off initially.
Select Create Subscription. In the resulting Subscription Details, verify the learner, membership, Cost, Auto-renews, Start date and Expiration date.
With no Start date, the manual subscription starts when it is created. With no End date, a recurring plan uses one recurrence interval counted from creation, not from a chosen future Start date; a Never plan has no practical end date. The membership plan's own dates are not copied into this manual form.
If Cademy shows This student already has an existing membership with you that clashes., the learner already has an active subscription with you, to any of your memberships, that covers the chosen start date. Check their current subscriptions before trying again. Do not create a second contact to bypass the warning. If the saved dates are wrong or an existing subscription needs changing, contact Support with its details.
Manually Enrolled Subscription Shows Zero Cost: Offer a Trial, Then Payment
A subscription you add with New Subscription always has a Cost of 0 and never renews, so it cannot start a trial and then charge the member. For a free trial followed by payment, set Free trial period on a recurring membership and send the person the membership's Share link, so they join themselves and enter their card details. If you already added them manually, select Deactivate... on the manual subscription first: while it is active, joining the same membership shows You already have this membership.
Import a List of Subscribers Into a Membership
There is no import for membership subscribers, and no bulk action that adds several people to a membership. Importing people with Import Customers and Learners (Contacts) from a Spreadsheet creates contacts only, not subscriptions. To give a group, such as all employees of a client company, free courses through a membership, either add each person with New Subscription, or create a membership with a Price of 0, leave Published off and send its Share link to the group so each person joins themselves.
Cancel a Member's Subscription: Stop Renewal or End Access
Choose the required outcome before confirming. These actions cannot be undone through this screen. After renewal has been stopped, a later Deactivate request is rejected as already cancelled; contact Support if you need a further change. Cancelling does not itself issue a refund or cancel course places already booked.
Confirming either cancellation action triggers cancellation emails for the learner and configured provider recipients. The original manual subscription's Send confirmation email choice does not suppress these messages. If delivery or recipients matter, confirm them with Support before acting.
Open Memberships → Subscriptions, select the learner's row and check Subscription Details. Don't Renew... and Deactivate... are shown on every subscription, whatever its status.
To stop future renewal of a recurring subscription while retaining the current period, select Don't Renew.... Read the displayed end date and confirm Don't Renew.
To mark an uncancelled subscription inactive immediately, choose Deactivate... instead and confirm Deactivate. Use this action to end a subscription that does not renew: Don't Renew... leaves such a subscription active until its expiry date.
Reopen Subscription Details and check the status and dates. For a paid recurring subscription, also verify that Stripe shows the intended cancellation before confirming the outcome to the learner.
If Stripe already reports a subscription as cancelled, Cademy can mark it inactive immediately even when Don't Renew was selected. Do not promise continued access when the records disagree. Membership cancellation also does not establish that every members-only course restriction has been enforced; ask Support about any unexpected access.
Pause a Subscription for a Member
Subscriptions cannot be paused, by you or by the member. Subscription Details offers only Don't Renew... and Deactivate.... If a member wants a break, select Don't Renew... so they keep access until the end of the period they paid for, and send them the membership's Share link to join again when they return. To give free access again later, add them with New Subscription and the dates you agree.
Check Membership Payments, Fees and Failed Payments
Open the learner's Subscription Details and look under Transactions. Recorded rows show a date and payment status; an amount appears when one is recorded and non-zero. The small details button beside a row opens the breakdown recorded for that payment. It can list Total Paid, Platform Fees, Marketplace Fees, Cademy VAT and Net Payout; a line is shown only when it has an amount.
This view is not a complete payment statement: a one-off membership payment can be absent from Transactions, and displayed fee or Net Payout figures need checking against the payment provider's records. An empty list does not prove that no payment was made.
For a reported failed or missing payment, check the matching payment or subscription in the connected Stripe account and compare it with Cademy's dates and status. Do not rely on receiving a failure email as the only check. If the records disagree, contact Support before asking the learner to pay again.
There is no refund action in Subscription Details. A payment for a membership is not linked to an invoice, so Refund… is not offered for it; to refund a membership payment, contact Cademy Support with the membership, the learner and the Stripe payment reference. Refunds of course orders are explained in Refund a Customer in Full or in Part. Stopping renewal, ending access and refunding money are separate decisions.
Find a Member's Subscription on Their Contact
Open Contacts and select the learner. Their contact page can display green membership badges and a Subscribed activity entry. A badge alone does not confirm that access dates are current. Open the subscription from its activity entry, or use Memberships → Subscriptions, and check the start date, expiry and status.
Report on Registrations and Progress for a Specific Membership
To list a membership's current members, open Contacts, select Filter, choose Membership and select the membership. The filter matches people whose subscription is active today. To see bookings made with a membership's benefit, open Reports, select Filter, choose Purchased with Membership and select the membership. Add the Lesson Progress column to see how far each learner has got through the online lessons. For report filters, columns and exports, see Read Your Sales and Registration Reports.
If a Membership or Subscription Is Missing
No Apps or main Memberships area: ask a System Admin to check that Stripe and Cademy Memberships are installed.
No public membership card: open the plan and check Published. An unpublished plan's direct link still allows signups.
No course benefit: check the selected course under the plan's Benefits, the learner's email, and the subscription's start date, expiry and status. Ask the learner to check the final checkout total before payment.
No learner in Subscriptions: confirm the email used to join and whether initial payment or card setup completed; an unfinished one is Initiated and left out of the list. Check payment records before asking them to restart checkout.
Unexpected access, dates, recipients or payment totals: contact Cademy Support with the membership name, affected learner, relevant course or subscription, and the result you expected. Include the payment reference when the issue concerns a payment.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does adding a learner manually charge them?
No. New Subscription creates a zero-cost, non-renewing subscription. Set and verify its dates; it does not collect the selected plan's normal price.
What is the difference between Don't Renew and Deactivate?
Don't Renew stops renewal while retaining the remaining period when the subscription is still active in Stripe. Deactivate marks an uncancelled Cademy subscription inactive immediately. Choose carefully: after cancellation, the screen does not allow a second cancellation action.
Why is an initial subscription missing from the list?
Incomplete initial payment or card setup records are Initiated and excluded from the normal list. Confirm the email and payment status before asking the learner to try again.
Where does a learner manage their own subscription?
Use Manage a Membership You Bought for the learner's account route. Ask Support if a displayed action or payment result differs from the guide.