When someone buys a $27 template from you, you make $27 and that's usually where it ends. They download it, use it and maybe buy something else from you months later. Meanwhile your membership is sitting on its own sales page waiting for people to find it.
There's a simple way to connect the two. Make your membership the upsell on every product you sell, so every small sale has a chance to turn into a monthly payment. It's idea number seventeen on my list of 99 ways to make sales every day without launching.
I sell memberships in both of my businesses. There's Newsletter Profit Club and the Creator's MBA Mastermind on the Creator's MBA side and the Craft & Create Club on the HobbyScool side. In this post I'll walk you through what an upsell is, how to pick the right membership offer for each product, what to put on the upsell page, how to set it up in your checkout tool and email tool and the mistakes to avoid. There's a made-up example at the end.
What a membership upsell is
An upsell is an offer someone sees right after they pay for something. They've just bought your $27 template and before they get to the download page, a page shows up that says something like "Want the rest of this every month?" with an offer to join your membership. If they say yes, it's one click and their card is charged without them typing it in again. If they say no, they go straight to their download.
That's different from an order bump, which is a small add-on with a checkbox on the checkout page itself, before they pay. Order bumps work best for small add-ons. The membership belongs on the page after checkout, where it has room to be explained.
The reason this works is timing. Right after someone buys, they've just decided you're worth paying, their card is out and they're thinking about the exact problem your product helps with. That's a good moment to show them the place where you help with that problem every month.
Why the membership belongs after every product
It's common to put a membership after only one or two products, usually the bigger ones. But every product you sell brings in a different kind of buyer and many of those buyers might be a good fit for your membership.
- Every buyer has already said yes once. Someone who just paid you $17 is in a different place than someone who's only read your free emails.
- Small products are often the first thing people buy. If your membership only shows up after your $297 course, you're only offering it to the smallest group of buyers you have.
- A membership is recurring. One yes means a payment next month and the month after for as long as they stay.
- It works on every sale, any day. Once it's set up, every checkout you have becomes a way into your membership without a launch.
Step one: decide what you'll offer
The upsell doesn't have to be your membership at full price. Here are a few ways to offer it on the page right after checkout.
- A first month at a lower price. For example, a $29 a month membership with the first month for $7. After that it goes to the regular price.
- A free trial. Some checkout tools let you offer the first 7 or 14 days free, then start the regular payment.
- The regular price with a bonus. Full price, plus a bonus that only buyers of this product get, like a bonus training tied to what they just bought.
- Credit toward the membership. What they paid for the product counts toward their first month.
Pick one offer to start with and use it on every product. You can test a different one later once you see how it goes. Whatever you choose, the price on the page after checkout should be one that's only offered there, so the rest of your offers keep their meaning.
Step two: connect each product to the membership
The page after checkout works best when it talks about the product they just bought. Make a simple list with three columns.
- The product. For example, a $27 email template pack.
- What they'll want next. Once they have the templates, they'll want help writing emails that sell every week.
- Where that is in the membership. The membership has a monthly email workshop and a library of past trainings on email.
Do this for every product. Some products will connect in an obvious way and others will take some thought. If a product doesn't connect to the membership at all, that's useful to know too and you can use a different upsell for that one.
Step three: write the upsell page
The upsell page should be short, because they just bought something and want to get to it. Here's what to put on it.
Confirm their order
Start by telling them their order went through and their download is on the next page. People relax when they know they didn't lose anything.
Connect to what they bought
One or two sentences that link their product to the membership, like "Your templates help you write the emails. Inside the membership we work on them together every month."
What's inside
A short list of what members get, like the monthly training, the community, the library and any templates. Three to five items is plenty.
The offer and the price
Say exactly what they'll pay today and what they'll pay after that. Then say how to cancel. Clear pricing is what makes someone comfortable saying yes with one click.
A yes button and a no link
A big button to add the membership and a plain text link underneath that says "No thanks, take me to my download." Make the no easy to find.
A short video of you explaining the membership can help here too, but keep it under two minutes. Add one or two real member testimonials if you have them.
How to set it up in your checkout tool
I use ThriveCart for checkout and Kit for email. The settings have different names in different tools, but most checkout tools have a way to do each of these.
- Turn on one-click upsells. Look for a setting called upsell, one-click upsell or post-purchase offer. This lets buyers add the membership without typing in their card again.
- Create the membership upsell. Set the price, the trial or first month price if you're using one and the regular monthly price after that.
- Add it to every product's checkout. Go through each product and attach the upsell. If your checkout tool lets you save it as a template, you can reuse it and change the text for each product.
- Set up access. Connect the upsell to your membership platform so new members get their login right away.
- Connect tags to your email tool. Buyers who say yes should get a member tag. Buyers who say no can get a tag like "saw membership upsell" so you know they've been offered it.
- Add a downsell if you want one. A downsell is a smaller offer that shows up only when someone says no to the upsell, like a single workshop replay. It's optional, but it gives people a smaller way to say yes.
- Test it. Buy one of your own products in test mode, say yes to the upsell and make sure the access and the tags both work. Then do it again and say no.
How to set it up in your email tool
Your email tool does two jobs here, welcoming the new members and following up with the people who said no.
- Make a new member welcome sequence. When someone gets the member tag, send them a short sequence that tells them where to log in, where to start and when the next live call is. If they came in on a low first month, the first few weeks matter a lot, so help them use the membership right away.
- Follow up with the people who said no. A few days after the purchase, send a short email about the membership to people with the "saw membership upsell" tag. Don't push hard. Mention how it connects to what they bought and link to your regular membership sales page.
- Remove members from membership promos. Anyone with the member tag should be left out of the emails that sell the membership, including your weekly product email on the weeks it features the membership. I explain that rotation in One Email a Week, Forever.
- Plan the next step. Once someone is a monthly member, you can offer them annual or lifetime later on. That's its own sequence and I cover it in How to Move Monthly Members to Annual and Lifetime.
Make cancelling clear and easy. Say how to cancel on the upsell page and in the welcome email. People are more comfortable saying yes with one click when they know they won't get stuck.
Mistakes to avoid
- Putting the membership upsell on only one product. Every checkout is a chance, so add it everywhere it connects.
- Using the same upsell text on every product. Change the opening so it talks about the product they just bought.
- Hiding the regular price. If the first month is $7 and the second month is $29, say both on the page. A charge someone didn't expect can lead to refund requests and cancellations.
- Making the no thanks link hard to find. People who feel tricked may not buy from you again.
- Skipping the new member welcome. People who join from an upsell decided in a minute, so show them where to start that same day.
- Offering the membership to people who are already members. Set your checkout or your email tool to skip it for anyone with the member tag if your tools allow it.
- Never checking the numbers. Once a month, look at how many buyers see the upsell, how many say yes and how many are still members a few months later.
"Right after someone buys, they've just decided you're worth paying."
Dr. Destini CoppA hypothetical example
This example uses round numbers I made up to show how a membership upsell adds up. It isn't from a real business and it isn't a promise of what you'll see.
Say you sell three small products, a $17 checklist, a $27 template pack and a $47 workshop replay. You also have a membership at $29 a month. You add the membership as the upsell on all three checkouts, with the first month for $7.
Now say you sell 100 of those small products in a month between your welcome series, your weekly product email and your blog. If 5 out of every 100 buyers said yes to the upsell, that's 5 new members who pay $7 this month.
Next month those 5 members each pay $29. If 3 of them stay for six months, each of those 3 pays $7 plus five months at $29, which is $152 per member. That's $456 from 3 people who came in through a $17 or $27 product.
Then the next month, another 100 product buyers see the same upsell page. You set it up once and it runs on every sale after that.
Where to go from here
If you have a membership and more than one product, start by making the three column list for each product. Then write one upsell page, add it to your best selling product and test it before you copy it to the rest.
If you'd like help figuring out where a membership upsell fits with the other ideas, my free Sales on Repeat skill can help. It's a Claude skill that asks a few questions about your business and picks the first three Sales on Repeat ideas you should set up.
You can see the membership upsell and the rest of the ideas on the full Sales on Repeat list.
Find your first three Sales on Repeat ideas
The free Sales on Repeat skill asks a few questions about your business and picks the first three ideas you should set up, so you can see where a membership upsell fits.
Get the free Sales on Repeat skill →Frequently asked.
What's the difference between an upsell and an order bump?
An order bump is a small add-on with a checkbox on the checkout page before someone pays. An upsell shows up on the page right after they pay and lets them add something with one click, which gives a membership room to be explained.
Should I offer my membership as an upsell on cheap products?
Yes, small products are often the first thing people buy, so they bring you a lot of new buyers. If the membership only shows up after your biggest product, you're only offering it to a small group.
What price should I use for a membership upsell?
A lower first month, a free trial, the regular price with a bonus or credit toward the membership all work. Pick one, use it on every product to start and keep that price only on the upsell page.
What should go on a membership upsell page?
Confirm their order, connect the membership to what they just bought, list three to five things inside, show today's price and the regular price, say how to cancel and give a big yes button with an easy no thanks link.
How do I follow up with buyers who said no to the membership upsell?
Tag everyone who saw the upsell and didn't join. A few days later send a short email about how the membership connects to what they bought and link to the regular sales page.
Dr. Destini Copp helps digital product creators build sustainable, systems-based businesses through the Creator Growth Flywheel framework. She's the founder of Creator's MBA and HobbyScool, and has been teaching online business strategy for over a decade. Learn more →
