As a Standard or Pro organizer, you can collect member dues for your group. Collecting dues can offset costs associated with leading a group like your organizer subscription, venue rentals, supplies, or refreshments.
Organizers on a Starter plan can't set up dues to become members of their groups.
⚠️Currently, it is not possible to apply received member dues directly to your Meetup bill to offset or lower your Meetup Organizer subscription. You will need to use a credit, debit, or prepaid card to pay your Meetup organizer subscription. Funds you receive from your members in form of dues cannot be used directly for this purpose.
Turning on member dues for your groups
Before you turn on member dues, you must set up a Stripe account.
After verifying your Stripe account, follow these steps to turn on member dues:
Desktop / Mobile web
On your Meetup group’s homepage, click Manage group then select Edit group settings.
Click Member dues.
Click Get Started.
Set the amount and free trial length, then confirm with Save.
Updating member dues
You can change the price and billign frequency of your members' dues at any time. However, any changes you make to the price or billing frequency will only affect new members. Existing members will continue to pay the original price, unless you turn off dues entirely and turn them back on, or they leave and rejoin the group.
Dues can be turned off at any time from your group settings. Turning off your member dues automatically cancels existing dues for all members, but also removes any members who are on a free trial or whose payment is still pending.
If you decide to enable dues again later, your group members will be affected as follows:
Members who have not paid dues before will be enrolled in the trial.
Members who have paid before, but whose dues paid period ended before the date you re-enable dues, will be enrolled in the trial.
Members who have paid before, and whose dues paid period extends after the date you re-enable dues, will not be charged until their paid period ends.
Past due members will be charged immediately.
❗️Note: If you turn dues off and then re-enable them, any members who were already enrolled in a free trial will retain their original trial length. Re-enabling dues does not reset or change the trial period for those members.
Will I be paying and transaction fees on the payments I receive?
A transaction fee of 7.5% + $0.50 is taken from the total amount an organizer charges.
How do members pay their dues?
Here’s what happens after you turn on member dues:
Free trial periods
A trial period gives new members a chance to attend events before paying their member dues. Here are three things to know about setting up a trial period:
If you’re turning on member dues for the first time, all of your existing members will be placed on the trial period that you set.
Trial periods for existing members cannot be changed. If you change your trial period, the change will only affect new members.
Members are sent reminders to pay three days before their trial expires.
Members cannot pay dues before their trial ends.
What happens to members who don’t pay their dues?
You can track which members have paid their dues in your Members list.
Members who haven’t paid by the end of their free trial will be automatically removed from your group. If you’ve set up organizer approval for new members, those who haven’t paid their dues will appear in the Pending tab of the Members list.
It's also possible that a member's first payment attempts failed and caused Stripe to retry a few times. During this period, members are still allowed to stay in your group, as their payments are being processed, and their status is marked as Grace so you can recognize who has been having troubles with their payments before you take any actions. The Grace status can last for up to two weeks.
Removed members who haven’t paid their dues will be prompted to pay before rejoining.
What currency can my members pay in?
Currently, the only currency available for Member Dues is USD. However, we are actively working on expanding currency options to improve this feature in the future.
One of my members requested their money back. Can I refund them?
You're free to decide to accept a refund request or proactively issue a refund for a payment you received. You can issue and review refunds for both member dues and event fees on your group’s Money page.
Refunds for Member Dues are managed via Stripe. To issue one:
Go to your Meetup group's Money page.
Scroll down to “All transactions.”
Select the arrow icon to the right of the transaction you want to refund.
Select Yes, I'm sure to confirm.
Payment resolution
We believe it’s essential for all Meetup communities to maintain trusting environments for their members. To ensure the integrity of the Meetup platform, we may process refunds directly from an organizer account - including member dues, event fees, and other monetary transactions.
We want organizers to feel empowered as community leaders, so we will only take action if we determine that there has been misuse of our Platform, or that the expectations originally communicated to members have not been met.
Meetup’s Trust and Safety team may intervene and provide a refund for dues or fees paid via Stripe in cases of fraud or misuse of our payment system.
Meetup cannot mediate disputes regarding payments made using any other payment processor, any fees associated with the use of third-party payment processors, or in cash. Please refer to our Terms of Service for the official fees, payment, and offers policy.