memberarea is one place to run a membership business. You publish content, you sell access to it, and your members sign in to a space that carries your name and your colours. This article explains how the parts fit together so the rest of the Help Center makes sense.
Two sides of the same platform
Everything you build lives behind two doors.
The Admin area is where you work. You create courses, write posts, set up products and check your numbers. Only you and the people you invite can get in. Inviting your team and setting roles explains who sees what.
The Member area is what your customers see after they sign in. Same platform, different door, and it carries your brand, not memberarea's.
The building blocks
You switch these on and off as you need them, so your platform stays as small or as complete as your business.
Five blocks are available today: Community with its areas and forums, Courses, Hubs, Events and Payments, which also brings the affiliate program. What each one adds is set out in Turning features on and off.
A membership usually starts with one of them. A coach sells courses. A network sells the community. A club sells events. You can add the rest later without starting over.
You do not have to decide today. Turn on what you need now, and switch the rest on when your business asks for it.
How access works
Nothing in memberarea is public unless you say so. A member gets access in one of three ways:
- You give it to them. Add the member and give them access by hand to a course, a hub, a forum, an event or a group.
- They buy it. A paid order unlocks whatever that product is mapped to, and a full refund takes the access back.
- They belong to a group. Groups carry access, so adding someone to a group hands them everything that group can reach.
Most businesses use all three. The first for your early customers, the second once you are selling, the third to keep it manageable as you grow.
Where your platform lives
Every account starts on a memberarea address. When you are ready, you point your own domain at it and your members no longer see memberarea in the address bar. Once your own domain is primary, the memberarea address forwards to it. Your logo, your colours and your domain are what they experience.
See a finished example
If you would like to see a complete platform before you build your own, open Settings, then General, and press Browse next to MemberArea Demo. The demos are ready-made workspaces. Show All use cases or pick an industry under By industry, or find one with Search demos. Click one to step inside.
A demo is for looking only. The banner at the top reads Demo mode with the note "Read-only. Changes are not saved." You look around as an admin, and your account does not appear in the demo's team list. Press Exit demo to return to your own platform.
What to read next
If you are new, work through the Get Started checklist on your dashboard. It puts the first steps in a sensible order and marks them off as you go. Creating your workspace explains what your setup answers switched on and how to remove the sample content.
If you would rather look around first, take the tour of the admin panel. And when a word in this Help Center is unfamiliar, the glossary explains the terms used throughout.