Memberships

ChessRoster’s membership system lets your club offer recurring subscriptions through PayPal. Members get discounted tournament entry (or exclusive access), and ChessRoster handles billing automatically.

Memberships require a linked PayPal account. See PayPal Setup before creating your first tier.

How It Works

The membership system has two layers:

Membership tiers — Define the product (name, description, feature list). Examples: “Club Member”, “Junior Member”.
Billing plans — Each tier can have multiple plans at different frequencies (monthly, quarterly, annual) and prices.

Players subscribe via PayPal billing agreements. ChessRoster checks their active subscription at tournament registration and applies any discount you have configured.

Setting Up Tiers and Plans

Open your organization’s membership settings

Navigate to your organization and open the management panel. Find the Membership Tiers section.

Create a tier

Click Add Tier and fill in the tier details:

Field	Notes
Name	Shown to players on the public membership page (e.g., “Club Member”).
Description	A short summary of who this tier is for.
Features	List of benefits shown as a checklist on the subscription page.

Save the tier. It is now visible in your settings but players cannot subscribe until you add at least one billing plan.

Add billing plans to the tier

Expand the tier and click Add Plan. Set the billing frequency and price:

Frequency	Billing cycle
Monthly	Billed every month
Quarterly	Billed every 3 months
Semi-Annual	Billed every 6 months
Annual	Billed once per year

You can add multiple plans to a single tier. Players choose their preferred frequency when subscribing.

Publish

Once at least one plan exists, the tier is available on your public membership page at:


https://www.chessroster.com/organizers/[your-org-slug]/membership

The Player Subscription Experience

On the public membership page, players see a card for each tier with its feature list. If a tier has multiple billing frequencies, a selector lets them toggle between monthly, quarterly, and annual pricing.

When a player clicks Subscribe:

A dialog confirms the billing terms.
The player is redirected to PayPal to authorize a billing agreement.
On return, their subscription is activated immediately.

Players manage their subscription at:


https://www.chessroster.com/organizers/[your-org-slug]/membership/manage

That page shows their current status, next billing date, and a cancel option.

Subscription states

State	Meaning
Approval Pending	PayPal redirect authorized but agreement not yet confirmed.
Active	Subscription is billing normally. Player has full member benefits.
Suspended	PayPal suspended billing due to a payment failure.
Cancelled	Player or organizer cancelled. Benefits continue until the end of the current period.
Expired	Subscription ended after cancellation or repeated payment failures.

Using Memberships with Tournaments

Membership discounts at registration

When creating or editing a tournament, you can configure a membership discount on any registration fee tier. The discount is captured in a fee snapshot at checkout and applied automatically when a player with an active subscription registers.

Requiring membership through the event date

Enable the Require membership to be valid through tournament end date checkbox on your organizer’s edit page (in the Membership Tiers section) to restrict discounted registration to players whose subscription remains active through the event date — not just at the time of registration. Players without an active membership covering the event date pay full price.

This is an organizer-level setting that applies to all tournaments under your organization. It is useful for club-run events where member pricing is a benefit of continuous membership, not a one-time discount.

Upgrade flow

Players can upgrade from one tier to another. ChessRoster prorates the billing so the player is only charged for the unused portion of their current cycle when upgrading.

Viewing Your Members

From the organization management panel, the Members section lists all subscribers with their current status, tier, and subscription details. Use this to monitor active subscriptions and identify lapsed members.