Paid Community Memberships in HighLevel

Updated: September 1, 2025  | 
Author: Bill Stilwell

This post covers how paid community groups work in HighLevel, the difference between public and private paid groups, how trial periods and billing cycles are configured, and how access ties to courses and automations.

Reading time: about 11 minutes.

What Are Paid Community Memberships in HighLevel?

Paid Community Memberships are a feature inside HighLevel Communities that lets you gate access to a community group behind a payment. Instead of anyone joining for free, prospective members see a subscribe button and pay before they can interact with the group’s content.

This turns a HighLevel community group into a monetized membership product – whether that is a mastermind, a coaching community, a professional network, or a premium support group.

The feature connects directly to HighLevel Payments for transaction processing. You keep full control over who gets in, how much they pay, and what happens to their access when they stop paying.

How Do Paid Community Groups Work?

When you enable paid access on a community group, HighLevel adds a payment gate to the group’s join flow. Visitors who arrive at the group see a subscribe button showing either the one-time price or the recurring monthly or annual rate.

Clicking subscribe opens a payment modal powered by your connected payment processor. Once payment is confirmed, the member either gains immediate access (for public groups) or enters a pending approval queue (for private groups).

All transaction notifications go to group admins and owners by email. Each payment email includes the member’s details and payment amount, so admins are never surprised by who is attempting to join.

You can enable Payment Test Mode to simulate the full flow – payment, approval, access, and cancellation – without processing a real charge. This is useful for testing before you make the group public.

Public vs. Private Paid Groups

The public/private setting controls what happens after payment, not whether payment is required. Both types require payment to join.

In a public paid group, payment is the only gate. Once the transaction completes, the member is admitted automatically with no admin review needed.

The group’s posts and member list are visible to anyone who looks at the group page before paying.

In a private paid group, payment is the first step but not the last. After paying, the member submits a membership request and waits for admin approval.

Only members can see the group’s posts and member list. The admin can accept or deny any request even after payment – so you retain control over who actually gets in.

This matters for curated communities. If you are running a high-trust mastermind or a vetted professional group, private mode lets you screen members after they have demonstrated commitment by paying.

Billing Options and Trial Periods

HighLevel supports two payment structures for community groups: one-time and recurring.

A one-time payment grants unlimited, permanent access to the group after a single charge. There is no renewal and no automatic removal unless you manually remove the member.

A recurring subscription charges the member on a repeating schedule – monthly or annually. Access continues as long as the subscription is active.

When it lapses or is cancelled, HighLevel removes the member from the group automatically.

Trial days are available on recurring plans only. You set a number of free trial days during which the member has full access and is not charged.

At the end of the trial, the subscription billing begins. This works as a conversion tool – prospective members experience the community before committing to payment.

What Happens When a Member Cancels

HighLevel handles cancellation cleanup automatically regardless of where the cancellation originates.

If a member cancels from the HighLevel Payments screen, the system fires three actions: a cancellation confirmation email to the member, a cancellation notification to all group admins and owners, and automatic removal of the member from the group.

If a member cancels directly from Stripe, the same three actions trigger. The connection between Stripe and HighLevel ensures the removal happens whether the cancellation comes through HighLevel’s interface or Stripe’s customer portal.

Admins do not need to manually check for lapsed subscriptions or remove members by hand. The automation handles it, keeping the group membership list accurate without any admin overhead.

What Can You Do With It?

• Monetize a community without a separate tool: Set up recurring membership billing directly inside HighLevel without Memberful, Patreon, or a separate subscription platform.
• Offer free trials to increase conversions: Let prospective members experience the community for a set number of days before the first charge hits.
• Gate premium course content by membership tier: Use Private Channel-Based Course Access to make specific courses visible only to members of a paid private channel.
• Curate member quality with private paid groups: Collect payment first to filter out casual browsers, then approve or deny each request to control who actually joins.
• Automate welcome sequences on payment: Trigger a Workflow on community group payment to send a welcome email, assign a tag, or enroll the member in an onboarding course automatically.
• Offer both monthly and annual pricing: Set different billing periods to give members a pricing choice, with annual typically offering a discount as an incentive.
• Keep member lists accurate automatically: When subscriptions lapse or cancel, HighLevel removes those members without you doing anything manually.
• Test everything before going live: Payment Test Mode lets you verify the full flow from subscribe to cancel without processing real transactions.

Key Definitions

Use Cases by Industry

Business Coaching and Masterminds

A business coach runs a monthly mastermind for 30 clients. The community group is set to private paid, requiring a $297/month subscription.

New applicants pay, then the coach reviews each request before approving. Only committed paying clients get in.

Result: A vetted, high-trust group where every member has skin in the game.

Professional Associations and Networks

An industry association migrates their member forum to a HighLevel private paid group with annual billing. Members pay once per year for access to discussions, job boards, and exclusive content.

Lapsed members are removed automatically at renewal time.

Result: Clean membership rolls with no manual cleanup needed at annual renewal.

Fitness and Wellness

An online fitness coach builds a public paid community for $47/month with a 7-day free trial. New leads can experience the group and its content for a week before their card is charged.

Conversion from trial to paid runs significantly higher than a cold signup.

Result: Higher trial-to-paid conversion because members are already invested before the first charge.

Digital Marketing Agencies

An agency builds a white-labeled client community with paid access to premium training content. Courses tied to private channels are only visible to members on the paid plan.

Free members see the community but not the advanced course library.

Result: A tiered access model that upsells free members into the paid tier through visible but locked content.

Real Estate and Finance

A real estate investing educator charges $97/month for a private deal analysis community. Members submit deals, get feedback, and access weekly market commentary.

The private paid group structure keeps out non-paying lurkers and maintains discussion quality.

Result: A premium community environment where the paywall itself signals the seriousness of the members inside.

Who Is This For?

How to Set Up Paid Community Memberships

Step 1: Open your community group settings

Go to Memberships, then Communities, then Groups. Log in to the group you want to monetize and click the Settings button inside the group.

Step 2: Set group type to Public or Private

Under Settings then Details, choose Public or Private. Public groups auto-approve members after payment.

Private groups require you to manually approve each paying member before they gain access.

Step 3: Open the Subscriptions settings

Still inside Settings, click Subscriptions. You will see an option to offer the group for free or to set a price.

Select the paid option to open the pricing configuration.

Step 4: Configure your subscription pricing

Enter your price, choose one-time or recurring, set the billing period (monthly or annually for recurring), and add trial days if you want a free trial before first charge. Click Add and then Save.

Step 5: Connect a payment processor

Confirm your HighLevel Payments account is connected to Stripe, NMI, or Authorize.net. This connection handles all community subscription transactions.

If you have not connected a processor yet, do this in the Payments settings before testing.

Step 6: Enable test mode and verify the full flow

Turn on Payment Test Mode in the group settings. Run through the full flow as a test member – subscribe, pay, get approved or auto-approved, join, and cancel.

Confirm every step works before going live.

Step 7: Approve member requests for private groups

For private paid groups, go to the People tab inside the group, click the filter, and select Requested. Review each pending member and click Accept or Deny.

Members are notified of the outcome by email.

Step 8: Set up Private Channel-Based Course Access

If you want courses visible only to paid members, link those courses to a private channel inside the community. Go to the course settings and select the private channel.

Members outside that channel will not see the course in the Learning section.

Step 9: Build a post-payment automation workflow

In Workflow Builder, create a workflow triggered by payment or community group join. Send a welcome email, assign a tag, enroll the member in an onboarding course, or add them to a nurture sequence – all automatically after they pay and join.

How Does It Connect to HighLevel?

• Community Groups: Paid memberships are a feature of HighLevel Community Groups – the same groups that power discussions, posts, and engagement in the platform.
• Courses and Memberships: Paid group access can gate specific courses using Private Channel-Based Course Access, linking monetized communities to the Courses and Memberships system.
• Workflow Builder: Payment and membership approval events connect to Workflow Builder automations for welcome sequences, tagging, and onboarding.
• Affiliate Manager: If you run an affiliate program for your paid community, the Affiliate Manager can track referral commissions on subscription signups.
• Community Gamification: Once members are inside a paid group, Community Gamification features like points, levels, and badges keep them engaged and reduce churn.

Common Questions

What is a paid community group in HighLevel?

A community group that requires payment before members can access or interact with the group’s content. You set it as public or private and choose one-time or recurring pricing in the group’s Subscription settings.

What payment processors does HighLevel support for paid community groups?

HighLevel paid groups integrate with Stripe, NMI, and Authorize.net through the HighLevel Payments product. You connect your processor once and all community subscription transactions route through it.

Can I offer a free trial before charging for community access?

Yes. Trial days are available on recurring subscription plans.

Set the number of free trial days in the subscription settings. When the trial ends, billing starts automatically.

Trials are not available on one-time payment groups.

What is the difference between a public and private paid group?

In a public paid group, payment alone grants access with no admin review. In a private paid group, members pay first and then submit a request that you must approve before they gain access.

You can deny any request even after payment.

What happens when a member cancels their paid community subscription?

HighLevel automatically removes the member from the group. Both the member and all admins receive cancellation emails.

This happens whether the cancellation originates from the HighLevel Payments screen or directly from Stripe.

Can I restrict specific courses to paid community members only?

Yes. The Private Channel-Based Course Access feature lets you link a course to a specific private channel inside the community.

Only members of that channel will see the course in the Learning section.

What billing periods are available for recurring community subscriptions?

Monthly and annual billing periods are supported for recurring plans. You configure this in the group’s Subscriptions settings when setting up the paid group.

Do admins get notified when someone pays to join the community?

Yes. Every payment triggers an email to all group admins and owners with the full payment details. Admins are also notified when a subscription cancels or when a membership request is denied.

Can I manage member roles inside a paid community group?

Yes. Paid groups use the same four-tier role structure as free groups: Owner, Admin, Moderator, and Contributor.

Owners and admins can change roles, remove members, and control posting and moderation permissions at any time.

Can I use automations to add someone to a paid community group?

Yes. Workflow Builder includes actions to add contacts to community groups.

You can trigger this based on a purchase, tag, course completion, or any other platform event – bypassing the payment gate for members who qualify through a different path.

To Wrap It Up

Paid Community Memberships in HighLevel give you a clean way to monetize a community group without stacking another subscription tool on top of your existing tech. The billing, the member management, the course access controls, and the cancellation cleanup all live inside HighLevel.

The private paid group option is particularly useful if you care about community quality. Charging first filters out casual browsers, and manual approval after payment gives you a second gate to keep the group at the standard your paying members expect.

The automatic removal on cancellation is the feature that saves the most recurring time. No more manually cross-referencing a payment platform against a member list every month to find who lapsed.

Here is how to get started:

1. Decide whether your group should be public or private paid
2. Open the group Settings and go to Subscriptions
3. Set your price, billing type, and trial days if applicable
4. Enable Payment Test Mode and run through the full subscriber flow
5. Turn off test mode and make the group live
6. Build a welcome workflow triggered by the group payment event
7. Link any premium courses to a private channel for tiered access control

Once the first paid member joins and the workflow fires automatically, the system runs itself. Your job becomes delivering value inside the community, not managing the mechanics of who paid and who did not.