Offer a sliding scale
A sliding scale lets each person pay what fits their practice. It is off until you turn it on, and nothing changes for you or your members until you do.
Turning it on
- Go to Settings, Payments, and turn on Sliding scale.
- Add a note if you like. It shows under every sliding price, for example “Everyone gets the same class, whatever they pay.” Your studio is a business, so a payment is a purchase: the note warns you if it says “donation” or “tax-deductible”.
- Name the low, middle and high part of a range, with a line for each that tells people which one is theirs. They start as Community, Sustaining and Supporter; leave a name blank for no label.
- Keep Below the lowest on to show members a way to ask you privately (below).
Pricing a product
Under Products, every drop-in, class pack and membership now asks How is it priced?
- One price: as before.
- A range: a lowest and a highest in whole dollars, and, if you like, what one costs you to run. Members choose any amount from the lowest up, and may type more than the highest.
- A few prices: two or three, named by your three names, with one marked standard.
Most people pay at or near the lowest, so set it to what you could live on if everyone paid it. The slider starts at your cost to run, marked on it, or the middle if you leave the cost blank. You can change how a product is priced at any time from its edit page; members already on a membership keep what they pay.
Classes and workshops
- A class still costs credits. Someone with no credits pays your drop-in once per credit, so with a drop-in of $10 to $30, a 1-credit class is $10 to $30 and a 3-credit workshop is $30 to $90.
- On a class template, under Money, Sliding scale for this class is on for every class. Turn it off and that class charges your drop-in's starting price, once per credit.
What members see
- On the schedule a class reads 1 cr · $10 to $30. On the class page, or pay what fits, $10 to $30 opens a sheet with the slider, a box to type an amount, the name and line of the part of the range they are in, and your note.
- In the store, a product priced as a range shows the slider; one with a few prices shows them as cards to tap.
- A member on a sliding membership sees their amount on My account and can change it there. The change starts at their next renewal.
- Canceling a drop-in booking in time gives back class credits, not cash, whatever was paid.
Below the lowest
Under the price, members see Can't manage $10? Ask us privately. Their note comes to you, the owner, by email; reply to answer them. To let them in, grant credits on their member page. Nobody is asked to prove anything, and a member can send one a day.
Low-price spots
A drop-in priced as a range can limit how many people a class can pay in its low part: Low-price spots in each class. Members see how many are left. When they are gone, the low part is unavailable for that class, and the ask still shows. If two people pay for the last one at the same moment, the second is refunded on their own and told why.
What you see afterward
- A member's page shows what each purchase and drop-in actually charged, with “sliding scale” beside it. Owners and admins see amounts; staff never do.
- Reports shows What people chose: how many paid in each part of the range, how many paid the lowest, and the average a class beside your cost to run.
- Booking someone at the desk on a sliding class, note what they paid there; it counts in Reports and charges nothing.
Turning it off
Each product goes back to one price, its starting price or its standard choice. Members on a membership keep paying what they chose until they cancel, and bookings already paid stay as they are. Everything you set is kept, so turning it on again brings it back.
Good to know
- There is no $0 price: Stripe cannot charge less than 50 cents. The ask and granted credits are the way in for someone who cannot pay.
- Stripe's fee is a bigger share of a small payment; Frontmat adds no fee of its own.
- The amount a member chooses is the total; Frontmat does not add sales tax.