When a former member comes back, Rhythm can charge the renewal price they would have paid as a member in good standing, instead of the higher new-member price. Your Membership administrator decides whether reinstatement pricing is available for your Rhythm account and how long it remains available after the membership ends.
When This Applies
This applies when a person or organization with a terminated membership buys the same membership package again. The order can come from a Portal application, a group application, or an order that staff create in the Console. It does not apply when the membership is still active or lapsed without a termination date, because those memberships follow the normal active or lapsed pricing rules. If the buyer chooses a different membership package, Rhythm treats that as a first-time purchase for that package, even if the buyer previously had a closely related package, so reinstatement pricing does not apply.
Terminating a membership does not delete the member’s record or remove their membership history. The history stays visible, and the person can still reinstate within your configured window. Rhythm does not add a termination date just because a membership expires or becomes inactive. It adds the date only when a drop/terminate-members billing run processes the membership, or when staff enter it by hand. A lapse date alone does not remove the renewal or reinstatement process, because the termination date controls which process Rhythm offers. A membership also cannot remain active with a past termination date, even when its expiration date is still in the future. Correct or clear the termination date before you expect the membership to behave as active again. For that reason, administrators need to run regular membership drops to terminate expired memberships. A membership that expires but is never dropped keeps offering the ordinary renewal process instead of sending the member to join or reinstate.
Prerequisites
- The membership being repriced must be terminated and have a termination date. Without a termination date, Rhythm does not check the reinstatement rules.
- Reinstatement pricing must be switched on for your Rhythm account in Membership's Setup › Other Settings. If it is off, a returning buyer pays the ordinary price regardless of any other details.
- The package the person is buying must still exist in your catalog and have a member price set. If the buyer is inside the window and the package has no member price, Rhythm quotes no price for that returning buyer.
How the Renewal Price Is Applied
- When an order prices a membership package line for a terminated buyer, Rhythm first checks whether reinstatement pricing is switched on for your Rhythm account and whether the buyer is still inside the reinstatement window. A membership package can also turn on Override Global Reinstatement Settings and set its own reinstatement period and renewal-pricing choice. When that override is on, the package’s settings control the price instead of your Rhythm account’s settings.
- Rhythm measures the window from the membership’s termination date, not from today or from the membership’s original expiration date. This is true even if your Rhythm account is set to measure from the expiration date. Rhythm counts the days up to the moment the order is priced.
- If the buyer is inside the window, Rhythm charges the package’s member price instead of its ordinary joining price.
- If the same order also includes a chapter or section, and that dues product has its own member price, Rhythm charges the member price for that dues line too. This happens only when the dues line is priced after the package line on the same order. If the dues line prices first, or the order has no package line, Rhythm charges the ordinary price instead.
Result
The returning member or organization pays the package’s member price for the reinstated membership. Chapter or section dues added at the same time get the same discount when the order builds the package line first. A successful reinstatement is also expected to clear the membership’s termination date because the membership is active again.
Tip
If renewal pricing during reinstatement is not applying the way you expect from your Rhythm account’s settings, check the membership package for an Override Global Reinstatement Settings switch. When that switch is on, the package’s own reinstatement period and renewal-pricing choice control reinstatement pricing for that package, and for chapter or section dues on the same order, independently of the account-wide setting.
How Long the Window Lasts
Your Rhythm account’s reinstatement settings include the number of days the reinstatement window lasts, measured from the membership’s termination date. If that number is blank or set to 0, Rhythm treats the window as unlimited. A returning buyer then gets the renewal price no matter how long ago the membership ended. To stop offering the renewal price to returning members, turn reinstatement pricing off instead of setting the window to zero, because zero means “no limit,” not “no reinstatement.”
Warning
Rhythm always measures the reinstatement window from the membership’s termination date. If your Rhythm account is configured to measure from the expiration date instead, that choice does not apply to reinstatement pricing. Rhythm uses the termination date regardless.
A terminated membership can still have an older pro forma invoice attached from before it lapsed. If that invoice is paid well after it was created, Rhythm is expected to advance the reinstated membership's dates based on the payment date, not the date the original order was placed. This has not been confirmed for every situation, so check the resulting dates on any reinstatement that involves an old pro forma invoice.
Why a Chapter or Section Wasn't Discounted
The member-price discount reaches a chapter or section’s dues only when both of these are true on the same order:
- The membership package line prices before the chapter or section dues line.
- The dues product itself has a member price that is different from its ordinary price. If it does not, this reinstatement rule has no price to apply, and any flat-price rule for that product decides the price instead.
If the dues line prices first because of how the order was built, Rhythm charges the ordinary price. Rhythm also charges the ordinary price when the buyer adds only a chapter or section and no package on the same order, even if the buyer is inside the reinstatement window.
How Dues Proration Can Override Reinstatement Pricing
If a membership package has dues proration switched on for new members, that scope also includes people who do not currently have a membership and people whose membership has been terminated. A reinstating member is terminated, so dues proration for new members can still apply and charge a prorated price. When that happens, dues proration takes precedence over the reinstatement setting that gives renewal pricing during the reinstatement period.
Tip
If you want reinstating members to pay the renewal price but new members to pay a prorated price, put them on separate membership packages. Leave dues proration off on the package reinstating members use, and use purchase eligibility rules to keep new members on a different package where proration is on.
Why the Full Price Was Charged Instead
A terminated buyer pays the ordinary joining price, not the renewal price, when any of these are true:
- Reinstatement is switched off for your Rhythm account.
- Renewal pricing during reinstatement is switched off, even if reinstatement itself is on.
- The buyer is outside the reinstatement window.
- The package has no distinct member price to apply.
Outside the window, the renewal price applies again only if you use a coupon or extend the window in your Rhythm account’s reinstatement settings. Once a membership has been dropped, the ordinary renewal process is no longer available for that membership. The person can only reinstate, if they are within the window and reinstatement is enabled, or join as a new applicant. Even when someone rejoins outside the window and pays the ordinary joining price, Rhythm rejoins them on their existing record instead of starting a disconnected record, so their prior history stays associated with them.
If a membership was terminated by a drop/terminate-members billing run and later renewed, that renewal advances the term by only one year from the prior expiration date. It does not make the membership fully current again. To bring a member fully current after a billing-run drop, process them through the join flow instead of a renewal.
For a member imported into Rhythm as inactive who never had a Rhythm membership application of their own, reinstatement can behave unpredictably because there is no original application to base it on. In that situation, terminate the membership with a drop and have the member complete a join flow instead, so dates and related processing flow correctly.
Tip
A renewal-window message that says renewals open a certain number of days before expiration can still appear for a member who is already expired. Do not take that message at face value. It usually means the account is missing reinstatement configuration or the package’s join or reinstate criteria, not that the renewal window is really the issue. Check the reinstatement setup and the package’s eligibility rules first.
A misleading sanctioned-country error during a Portal rejoin can have nothing to do with the member’s actual country. If the real cause is an inactive membership with no termination date, the record cannot activate correctly, and Rhythm can show that as a sanctioned-country message instead of the real problem. Check the membership’s status and termination date before assuming the country itself is at fault.
Charging a Different Price for Rejoining Members
Rhythm’s reinstatement pricing gives a returning buyer the same price as a renewing member. If you want to charge former members a different price than either renewing or new members, use special pricing logic on the membership package with Advanced Rules & Logic instead of changing the base package price for everyone.
Tip
Membership > Termination Date is not blank is a useful rule condition because it separates people who were dropped or expired and terminated from members who are completing an ordinary renewal. Avoid a broader condition such as Membership ID is not blank because that can match ordinary renewals too and apply your special price or fee to members who are not rejoining at all.
Warning
Cancelling a membership's renewal order has, in some observed cases, also ended the member's chapter affiliation by adding an end date to it, even though that was not the intent of the cancellation. If you are reinstating a membership that was previously cancelled, check whether its chapter affiliation is still correct. It may need to be re-added along with the membership itself.
If your Rhythm account uses a special pricing rule to charge returning members an extra rejoin fee, watch how broadly its criteria are written. A condition such as "Membership ID is not blank" for inactive members can also match members who are simply doing an ordinary renewal, not rejoining after a lapse, and would add the rejoin fee to their order too. Write rejoin-pricing criteria narrowly enough that they match only the members you intend.
Related
The reinstatement window and its renewal-pricing switch are in your Rhythm account’s dues proration and renewal pricing settings. Separate articles cover the general rules for member and non-member pricing outside reinstatement, and what else changes on a membership when its order is paid or cancelled. See the Related articles listed with this page.