When someone buys a membership package, chapter dues, or section dues, Rhythm checks the buyer’s membership record to choose the right price. Rhythm also checks whether the buyer is eligible to buy the item. Use these rules to explain why someone was charged a specific amount, or why an option was not available.
How Rhythm Prices a Membership Package
Rhythm uses the buyer’s own membership record at the moment they buy the package:
- No membership on file. The buyer pays the package’s ordinary non-member price. An inactive membership still counts as a membership record, so Rhythm does not treat that buyer as having no membership, even when the membership type sounds like it should qualify them as new. To make a contact count as a non-member for this pricing rule, delete the membership record.
- An active membership. The buyer pays the package’s member price. If the package does not have a separate member price, Rhythm charges an active member nothing for that line instead of charging the non-member price. If members should pay for the package, make sure the member price is set. Renewal options use this same member price, so if a renewal price looks wrong or shows $0, check the package’s member price first. Because Rhythm prices the package based on the buyer’s status at the exact moment of purchase, processing can cancel the first transaction and create a replacement transaction at the other price if that status changes while the order is being completed.
- A lapsed membership with no termination date yet. The buyer is still treated as renewing, so they pay the same price as an active member, no matter how long ago the membership lapsed.
- A fixed number of organization seats. For an organization package that covers a set number of contacts, replacing one assigned member with another during the same active term is a substitution, not a new purchase. The incoming member is not billed again for a seat the organization already paid for.
- An item bundled into a membership. When a package bundles another item, such as a product or add-on, Rhythm grants that bundled item using the membership package’s configuration. The bundled item’s own standalone purchasing eligibility rules do not apply when it is granted this way.
Warning
Rhythm needs the buyer’s own current membership record to calculate the price. If a member is charged the non-member price and you are confident they have an active or lapsed membership, check that the purchase was tied to the correct contact or organization record.
If your account has multi-currency enabled, the join or renew purchase flow shows a currency selector so the buyer can change the currency. Accounts without multi-currency enabled do not show this option. The Test Special Pricing Rules tool for Special Pricing Logic has returned a server error when the business unit behind the package uses a currency other than USD and multi-currency exchange rates are set up. If that test says the account's currency code is not supported, confirm the business unit's own currency before assuming the pricing rule is wrong.
Tip
A few additional settings affect Special Pricing Logic and pricing formulas on a package:
- A pricing formula that reads the buyer’s own record should use the Bill To Contact merge field, not Ship To Contact, or it will not calculate as intended.
- Rhythm checks special price eligibility against the purchaser record. When you price a package for an organization, build the rule with an organization field, such as Name (Organization); a contact field, such as Organization Name (Contact), will not match. If a rule needs to evaluate a custom field on the bill-to contact, set Customer Type to Contact so Rhythm evaluates that field.
- Special pricing logic applies only in your account’s primary currency. A fixed price you set for a foreign currency is not recalculated by a special pricing rule.
- Special pricing logic does not read or stay linked to the package’s regular price. If you change the regular price later, update the special pricing amount by hand so the two amounts do not drift apart.
- Special pricing logic cannot count how many child organizations are linked to a parent organization to add a charge for each one.
- An amount calculated automatically from another value, such as a salary entry, is still special pricing logic. It is not a separate pricing type.
- On the package-selection step of a join or renew flow, a package with organization-based special pricing can briefly show $0 in the dropdown before Rhythm evaluates the special price for display. This only affects the initial display; Rhythm still applies the correct price after you continue.
- When a package uses Special Pricing Logic with a pricing formula, choosing a different billing entity during checkout can change the calculated price partway through. For example, selecting a parent organization to bill a child organization’s purchase causes the formula to reevaluate against the newly selected billing entity.
- If no special pricing rule matches the buyer, such as a rule based on country, Rhythm uses the package’s default price. If that default price is $0, the resulting order, invoice, and payment can also be $0.
- You can use special pricing logic as a temporary way to lower a package or chapter dues product price for eligible purchasers, such as by state, to offset a separate fee. This changes only the amount charged; it does not exempt the order from the fee itself.
- If you move a pricing offset from a component, such as chapter dues, up to the package level, or from the package level back to the component, validate how the new amount affects reporting, revenue splits, allocation, and finance reconciliation before you rely on it. A change at the wrong level can throw off a report that was built around the old one.
How Rhythm Prices Chapter and Section Dues
- A dues product with no separate member price charges everyone the same price, whether they are a member or not. A member price of exactly zero counts as no member price, so you cannot use a zero member price to make dues free for members. Use a different approach for that.
- A dues product with its own member price gives that price to any renewing buyer. This includes someone with an active membership, a lapsed membership with no termination date, or a membership inside its reinstatement period when renewal pricing is turned on for that period. A first-time buyer pays the dues product’s ordinary price instead.
- Chapter dues billed alongside a membership. A membership and its chapter dues can appear as two separate lines on the same invoice. The chapter is included with the individual membership, and the extra line is the chapter dues fee charged on its own. Seeing both lines does not, by itself, mean the member was charged twice.
This renewing-or-not rule works the same way for every chapter and section in your account. You cannot turn it on for some chapters or sections and off for others.
Bundled dues are included only when inline bundling is configured for the bundle. If inline bundling is not set up, Rhythm leaves out the bundled amount, and the Portal can show a dues price without it. When a membership package is bundled with a product, the resulting transactions can show a negative balance due and negative deferrals if the bundle price is not zero while that product’s member price is zero. The setup flow does not warn you before this happens, so check both prices together before you save.
Warning
The price your account’s Portal shows in its section picker is calculated separately from this rule. Because of that, the Portal can quote one price for a section, while the order charges a different price for the same section and buyer. The same kind of mismatch can appear earlier in a renewal: an earlier package or dues-selection step can show a prorated renewal amount, while the order summary, subtotal, discount, or invoice total shown later in the same renewal reflects the non-prorated price instead.
Tip
Portal invoice payment can let a member pay just one line item on a membership invoice, such as chapter dues, instead of the whole invoice. There is currently no setting that requires an entire membership invoice to be paid together.
When a Package Isn't Available to a Buyer
A package can be limited to first-time joiners or to renewing buyers. If the buyer is outside that audience, they cannot buy it. For example, Rhythm does not offer a renewal-only package to someone with no existing membership. This restriction works only when purchasing eligibility is configured on the package. If no purchase eligibility is set, the package can appear to every member in the Portal, including people who should not see that offer. To limit a discounted or complimentary offer to non-members, create a separate package for that offer, limit any coupon to that package, and use purchasing eligibility so only non-members can reach it.
Package availability can also depend on eligibility criteria tied to a contact field, such as a professional status field. That field must already match the target package before the membership process runs. If the field is out of date when someone applies, the package can appear unavailable even though the person should otherwise qualify. A practical fix is to add the field used by the eligibility rule to the contact update form, so the record can be updated before the application loads.
An eligibility mismatch can appear during checkout, not just while the buyer browses packages. A package limited to non-members or new members can fail during order preprocessing if the purchaser’s record already has membership-related status or history. That failure can appear as a generic purchase error instead of a clear explanation. Choosing an ineligible package in event registration or general registration can also show a generic message, such as one stating that a valid membership is required, instead of telling the buyer they do not qualify for that package and should choose a different one. When advanced eligibility rules are involved, the order processing error states only that one or more rules were not met. It does not name the specific rule or condition that failed, which limits how far you can troubleshoot without contacting Support. Exceeding a package’s purchase limit behaves the same way: the failure appears on the payment page of the membership process rather than earlier in the flow.
In event registration, the add-membership flow follows package purchasing eligibility rules. A registrant who is not eligible for a membership package should not see it as an option there.
Passing a package's age, previous-membership, or other eligibility requirements in testing does not guarantee that checkout will assign that package. An application process can carry its own order-generation rules that assign a different package once its conditions match. Because of that, a buyer can qualify for the package they expect and still be priced into another package the process routed them to instead. If a tested buyer ends up on a different package than eligibility alone suggested, check the process's order-generation rules before assuming the eligibility criteria are wrong.
Warning
An eligibility rule using the "is in list" operator inside an Any/All subgroup has, in some cases, failed even when the record met the condition. If a rule seems to reject a record that should qualify, try rebuilding the condition without the nested subgroup before assuming the record itself is wrong.
Whenever you change the allowed values for a field, also update any eligibility criteria in chapter dues products and membership packages that depend on those values. Rhythm does not update them for you. Test eligibility changes in your live account rather than relying only on your sandbox, because configuration changes made in your live account are not automatically reflected in your sandbox. A sandbox test can pass or fail without matching what buyers actually experience. Console’s Check Eligibility test can disagree with the real membership application flow, especially while a defect is active, so treat a failed test as a signal to try the actual application before you conclude the pricing rule is misconfigured.
Tip
Meeting a package's age and previous-membership requirements does not always guarantee a buyer receives that exact package at checkout. If your account uses custom order generation logic for a membership type, that logic can assign a different package after eligibility is checked. If you need to confirm which package a member will actually get, test the checkout or application path itself rather than relying on eligibility criteria alone.
How Proration Stacks on a Dues Line
If a chapter or section dues line qualifies for monthly proration, see Create or Edit a Membership Package for setup details, including how to scope proration to new members only, existing members only, or both. That scope matters when you convert current members to a new renewal cycle, because the wrong setting can prorate members you meant to charge in full, or charge members in full when you meant to prorate them.
When proration is turned on, Rhythm first calculates the product’s full price using all normal pricing rules, including any special pricing. Rhythm then applies the proration percentage to that final amount. Proration adjusts the already-calculated price; it does not replace or bypass the other pricing rules.
When that same line also qualifies for a separate reduction because it is part of a change of affiliation, both reductions apply in the same order every time. The monthly reduction runs first, and the change-of-affiliation reduction is calculated on the remaining amount, not the original price. No setting changes this order or prevents the two reductions from compounding. Change-of-affiliation proration is intentionally based on the time remaining in the current membership term. It is not meant to price the change using chapter dues as a standalone calculation.
For example, dues normally priced at $120 are reduced to $60 when they are prorated to half price for the purchase month. If half the term also remains after a change of affiliation, the second reduction cuts that $60 in half again, to $30.
Warning
Because these two reductions compound, do not also turn on the chapter or section dues product’s own prorated pricing for a renewal or change-affiliation process that already applies this automatic proration. Using both together reduces the amount twice and produces an incorrect result.
Proration is calculated from the invoice creation date or the date the membership order is completed, not from the member’s current expiration date. If a prorated amount looks wrong, check the order’s sale date and completion date rather than the expiration date. Updating the sale date can change the calculated amount. You can only test proration for the current calendar month; there is no way to simulate membership creation in an earlier month to confirm what it would have prorated to.
Standard proration settings do not provide a way to exclude a terminated membership from proration entirely. They also do not let you deny proration only while someone is inside the reinstatement window and allow it again for people returning after a longer lapse. If you need either behavior, the available workarounds are purchasing eligibility rules based on relative time, a custom expression, or custom order logic. None of these is a built-in proration setting.
Tip
Proration does not automatically change how deferred revenue is split for a prorated dues line. If a split looks inconsistent with the invoice amount, check the split configuration directly instead of expecting it to have recalculated on its own.
What to Do If a Price Looks Wrong
Check the buyer’s own membership status and termination date. Active or lapsed without termination means renewing pricing; anything else does not.
For dues, check whether the chapter or section dues product has its own member price. Also check whether someone used a member price of zero when they meant to make the dues genuinely free.
For a package that could not be bought, check whether it is limited to new or renewing members. Then confirm which one the buyer is, and whether a discount or coupon tied to that package or the buyer’s organization is set up the way you expect.
For a line with proration, work through the monthly reduction and the change-of-affiliation reduction in order to see where the amount comes from.
Before assuming a displayed price is wrong, compare it with the package’s or dues product’s actual configured value. It may simply reflect a price staff already set, rather than a calculation error.
If you are planning a dues increase, review any special pricing rules that apply to the package or dues product first. A special price can change the final amount from what you expect the increase to produce.
If a package seems to be missing rather than mispriced, check whether it has a custom display name configured for the Portal. It may be listed under that name instead of the one you expect.
To confirm special pricing logic step by step, use Test Special Pricing Rules to check the expected result. Then repeat the purchase from the contact record, for example, Contact Options › Add Section, and compare the actual order amount against it.
If a chapter dues amount is missing from a membership record, check whether that chapter membership was imported without a dues value. If so, edit the membership information to add the correct amount.
To review or change tier pricing, first identify which membership package owns that tier configuration. Tier settings are hard to find without knowing the specific package.
To correct a transaction that was billed under the wrong membership or dues category after it has already been paid, replace the order and carry the value forward with a credit instead of editing the paid invoice directly.
Open the package or dues product record. Packages are listed at Setup › Membership › Packages, where the list shows each package's price. Open a package to see its own pricing and, if it prorates dues, its month-by-month proration schedule for people who join during the year.
Check the buyer's own membership status and termination date. Active or lapsed-without-termination means renewing pricing; anything else does not.
For dues, check whether the chapter or section dues product has its own member price, and whether a member price of zero was used where a genuinely free price was intended.
For a package that could not be bought, check whether it is limited to new or renewing members, then confirm which one the buyer is.
For a line with proration, work through the monthly reduction and the change-of-affiliation reduction in order to see where the amount comes from.
If a membership type appears to offer more pricing options than you expect, check how many packages are associated with that type. An inactive package can still count toward the total until you remove the association or reassign it to a different type.
To confirm a special pricing or eligibility rule before you rely on it, test the rule, then check the same scenario against a real transaction — for example, open the contact record, choose Contact Options, select the matching purchase action (such as Add Section), and compare the resulting order amount with what you expected.
Tip
Special pricing and eligibility rules can use expressions to inspect add-ons or count selected values. For example, an expression like this can check whether a specific add-on was selected:
arrayIncludesPropertyValue(add_ons, 'add_on_id', 'ID_OF_ADDITIONAL_CITY_ADD_ON')An expression like this can count how many values are selected in a field, which is useful for eligibility rules based on a quantity:
length(split(field_value, ',')) == 4Warning
If your account's primary business unit uses a currency other than USD and you have multi-currency exchange rates enabled, testing a package's special pricing rules can return a server error instead of a result. If you see this while testing pricing in that setup, treat it as a limitation of the test tool rather than a problem with the package itself, and confirm the price with a real transaction instead.
Expected Result
You can explain why any package or dues purchase charged the member price, the ordinary price, or nothing, and why a package was or was not available to the buyer.