How To Create & Launch A Membership Program For Recurring Revenue [Ep. 94]

By Jessie Festa | Updated on September 22, 2025

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By Jessie Festa. This episode on how to start a membership contains affiliate links to trusted partners!

Interested in learning how to create a membership program?

Then you’re in the right place, as in this episode of The Profitable Travel Blogger Podcast, we’ll be going over a step-by-step strategy for creating a membership program online for recurring revenue.

By the end of this episode, you’ll understand:

How to come up with your membership design
Advice for properly pricing your membership program
How to choose a membership site platform
Tips for successful membership site marketing
Insights into building a membership program—including the content & experience
And more!

In short, if you’re looking to increase your blogging income through an online membership program, you won’t want to miss this. By the end, you’ll have a membership plan template ready to use!

Table of Contents

How To Create A Membership Program [Podcast Episode Audio]

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Invite: How To Make Money As A Travel Blogger [Free Workshop]

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Myths related to monetizing a blog (that may be holding you back!)
Strategies for creating profitable content (so those blog posts, emails & social shares lead to income!)
Tips for earning recurring passive revenue as a blogger (so your income grows even when you’re away from your laptop!)
How to create products that you know your audience will buy (so you don’t waste your time!)
Advice for growing your affiliate income (with a strategy that truly works!)
And more!

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Click here to grab your seat in the free travel blog monetization workshop.

Launch A Membership Program With These Helpful Tools

Teachable. If you’re wondering how to create a paid membership site, Teachable makes it easy to sell digital products like courses, online memberships, coaching, and digital downloads and to set up sales funnels.

MemberPress. If you’re curious about how to make a membership website through WordPress, this feature-rich plugin can help you monetize your site through subscriptions, courses, paywalls, communities, and more.

Simple Membership. This simple yet free plugin allows you to add membership functionality to your WordPress website.

Samson Technologies Microphone. This budget-friendly yet high-quality microphone can help you elevate the professionalism of your membership video and audio content.

Starting A Membership Program [Episode Transcript]

There are many different ways you can monetize your travel blog, though if you’re looking for consistent, reliable income, I highly recommend considering how you can earn recurring revenue.

Instead of earning a one-time payment on a sale or referral, with recurring revenue, you continue earning an income until your customer or referral stops being a paying member of your product or service.

There are several ways you can earn recurring revenue, though one of my favorites is creating a membership site.

I’ve had my own membership, Travel Blog Prosperity, for years now, and launching it was one of the best decisions I’ve made for my blogging business.

Curious how to launch a membership site for yourself? Then keep reading, as that is exactly what we’ll be breaking down in this guide.

🎉 Also, don’t forget to grab access to my FREE 10 Ways To Make Money Travel Blogging Workshop. It’ll help you monetize your blog faster & easier—bonuses, Q&A, and replay included!

What is a membership website?

Before you can understand how to make a membership site, it’s important to grasp what it is.

A membership website is a type of online platform where access to exclusive content, resources, or services is restricted to users who have signed up or paid for membership.

Membership websites can serve various niches or industries, offering anything from educational courses and tutorials to forums, digital products, and personalized services.

They generate revenue through membership fees, which may be charged on a monthly, annual, or one-time basis, depending on the membership’s business model.

This can be amazing for you as a content creator, as it leads to recurring revenue!

female travel blogger typing on her laptop while sitting on a patio — Creating a membership program has allowed me to earn recurring revenue as a blogger

Why you should start a membership site

As mentioned, a membership is an excellent way to earn recurring revenue for more predictable income.

It’s also a great way to position yourself as an expert in your niche or industry. And, it’s a smart way to grow your relationship with your audience and better understand them.

Personally, I have standalone travel blogging courses as well as my Travel Blog Prosperity membership.

The relationships I have with my members are strong because I see them in calls and I’m just having conversations with them all the time about their problems, pain points, and challenges—which allows me to, like I said, get to know them better.

But then I also get ideas for:

how to make the membership better
other courses and products that I can create too

On that note, let’s dive into our step-by-step strategy for launching a membership for recurring revenue.

While there are a variety of different types of memberships you could create, in this episode we’ll be focusing on content-based memberships, starting with…

Step #1: Choose the recurring value you’ll deliver

When it comes to how to start a membership site business, you really want to think about what your audience wants from you.

For example, my Travel Blog Prosperity members want to learn how to grow their traffic, community, and income to turn their blogs into profitable full-time businesses.

You also want to think about how you can best deliver this recurring content.

For instance, another membership I run is my VIP Opportunities Newsletter for travel bloggers. Every Monday, I email five paid opportunities to people who subscribe to this newsletter. For this type of membership content, I felt that email was the best way to deliver it.

Finally, you want to consider why someone would join your membership. As in, how are you helping members achieve the transformation or solve the problems your membership claims to?

an example of an email content-based membership program — An example of an email-based membership is my VIP Opportunities Newsletter

Step #2: Design your membership

Successful membership programs have a very intentional design created with the member experience in mind.

To create this, you need to consider several things, including:

a) The big promise you’re offering. You can use the template: “This membership helps [audience] do [how it helps] through [process]”.

b) Content themes. What milestones do people need to reach to have a transformation?

c) Content structure. What exactly do people get each week/month/year?

d) How to add as much value as possible—which can also help you increase the price.

We’ll get back to membership pricing in a moment; but, let’s talk about a few ideas for adding value. You might offer:

office hours
work reviews
workbooks/checklists
expert interviews
captions and video transcriptions
an online community
virtual or in-person networking
your expertise—since, if people already know you as being an expert in your niche, they’ll pay more money to learn from you.

Also, professional production can help you charge more. It doesn’t have to cost a million dollars; but luckily, our phones and laptops come with some great built-in software.

This includes tools like QuickTime for recording and iMovie for editing if you’re using a Mac—which is the best laptop for travel bloggers, at least in my opinion.

One investment I made was my Samson Technologies Microphone, which currently costs about $70. The difference in sound quality made it worth the price for me.

Before we move on to the next step, I want to give you an example of designing your membership through the lens of my own Travel Blog Prosperity membership:

Big Promise: This membership helps travel bloggers grow their traffic and income through a mix of education, collaboration, and community support

Content Themes:

Branding/Foundations
Traffic/SEO
Community-Building
Monetization
Scaling
Productivity/Mindset

Format: Each course includes:

Workshop with captions
Text-based how-to guide
Workbook
Checklist
Resource list
5-day challenge
Journal prompts

Additionally, each month members get access to:

Minimum of 3 live calls
5 weekly VIP Opportunities sent to their inbox
Monthly giveaway to win a business book or a private Zoom call
Access to a private engaged Facebook group

By the way, if you’re interested in checking out this membership for yourself, I offer new members their first month at a discount.

Simply email me at [email protected] with the subject “Travel Blog Prosperity offer” and let me know you heard about it through the podcast, and I’ll send over a coupon.

What will you include in your membership? Here is a visual of my Travel Blog Prosperity membership assets!

Step #3: Price your membership

No guide on how to create a paid membership website would be complete without discussing pricing.

To start, think of the value you’re offering. There is a balance between charging too much where people feel ripped off, and too little where your time isn’t compensated.

One thing to keep in mind is that the more people you have in your membership, the thinner you’ll typically be spread.

I’ve talked to some creators who want to launch memberships for $7 per month and offer new content, live calls, group challenges, and more—with the idea being that the cheap price will bring in more people.

It might, and this strategy may work well for some; but, more people in your membership typically also means more work for you.

In my opinion, especially with a premium membership that includes high recurring value, it’s better to charge more and give yourself space to provide extra value to your members.

Additionally, charging more means you can still see success with a smaller group.

Step #4: Choose how you’ll deliver your membership content

When starting a membership website or program, you need to pinpoint where the membership experience will take place.

Personally, I use and love Teachable for creating memberships, courses, coaching programs, and digital downloads.

One main benefit of using Teachable—or another offsite platform—is the support. If one of my members has an issue with their credit card or is having a tech issue, I can loop in the Teachable team for assistance.

They also handle collecting taxes, sending out tax forms to affiliates, and other things that many creatives find to be a pain.

On the flip side, some creators choose to create their own membership website. In terms of how to create a WordPress membership site, you can use a membership website builder plugin like MemberPress.

This is great in terms of having full control over your membership design; however, it also means you’ll not only have to act as the membership creator, but also the tech, support, and finance departments, which can be a headache.

Keep these things in mind as you dive into how to build a membership site on WordPress, which I personally don’t recommend if you’re a blogger or solopreneur.

Teachable membership curriculum builder — A visual of Teachable’s curriculum builder

Step #5: Create your membership content

Another important aspect of your membership-only website is the content.

Pro tip with this:

Always be at least three months ahead. Things come up; maybe you get sick, maybe a trip gets booked, maybe you’re just really tired and aren’t feeling inspired one month.

Be three months ahead so that you always have that cushion with your content.

Now, if you are thinking: I want to make sure that people will really join this before I create all this stuff, consider pre-selling your membership.

This entails creating the sales page, outlining the content, knowing what it is, and getting people to join before you create everything.

So maybe people join by October 20th, and the first week of the membership is November 1st and you teach live every week or month from there.

Or maybe you have the first workshop’s slide deck ready, and you let people signup until the day the membership goes live.

You can really do it however you want; but, the idea is you’re selling it before you create it to make sure that the demand is there.

Another idea is onboarding a limited founding members group who join at a discount, and in exchange, you get feedback so you can improve the membership experience and get testimonials for your sales page before you promote to and onboard a larger group.

This idea doesn’t necessarily validate your membership idea; however, it can help you provide a truly incredible experience.

woman looking at camera — Always be at least three months ahead when creating your membership content (except at the beginning if you plan to pre-sell your membership)

Step #6: Launch your membership

Once your membership site creation is complete, it’s time to host a product launch event. Here are some tips for this:

1) Start by focusing on the user journey you’ll take potential members through.

Will your membership be open at all times, or will you open the doors at certain times of the year?
How will you funnel people to the sales page?

Tip: Even if the doors aren’t always open, you can consistently get people in the doors through your sales funnels.

There are many ways to set these up, though a few ideas include creating a tripwire funnel and setting up an automated welcome sequence funnel.

2) Consider creating an affiliate program so that other people can help you market the membership and you can compensate them when they refer new members to you. This is a great way to sell products with a small audience, since someone else is doing the promoting.

3) Can you collaborate with other creators to cross-promote offers, or at least opt-in freebies so you can get new people onto your email list where you can nurture them?

4) Will you have any checkout order bumps or upsells? Tip: If you have other relevant products, you can also promote your membership as an upsell within those checkout funnels!

5) In my experience, when it comes to how to market a membership site, the best thing you can do to set yourself up for success is to grow and nurture an email list of people who would be a perfect fit for your membership.

You can share an opt-in freebie that solves the same problem as your membership to help attract these people, and then nurture them with helpful and valuable emails that empower them with knowledge and also show that you know your stuff.

So, consider, what emails can you send to your list to build that know/like/trust factor with your audience?

Step #7: Work to retain members

When it comes to creating a membership program, it isn’t enough to get members to join. You need to also work to get them to stay.

First of all, look for ways to help members implement what you teach as quickly and easily as possible–such as by including implementation assets like workbooks, cheat sheets, and checklists.

Also consider ways to boost engagement—such as by hosting a monthly giveaway where you reward those who engage with the content.

You can also offer incentives to stay a member—such as discounted annual plans.

Finally, ask for feedback—such as in one of your onboarding emails—and implement it. You always want to be working to improve the membership experience for everyone.

excerpt from a membership onboarding email — Excerpt from my membership automation email asking members what they’re enjoying & what they’d like to see improved

Bonus tip for launching a membership site

I also want to provide some encouraging words to those just getting started with launching a membership.

In the beginning, you may find that your membership is on the smaller side, especially if this type of digital product is new territory for you and you’re still growing an audience and figuring out the best ways to market it.

This can be beneficial—as you’ll actually have time to work closely with and help each member.

Just make sure that you are charging enough to still make hosting this smaller membership worth your time.

How to create a membership website for free

One thing I haven’t addressed yet is how to create a free membership website.

Some membership platforms, like Teachable, offer a limited free plan that can help you get started without paying.

Additionally, you can create a free membership site through WordPress by loading content onto a password-protected page. To collect payments, you can set up a Paypal button.

In terms of how to create a membership site on WordPress using a plugin, Simple Membership is a free option with good reviews.

female blogger typing on her laptop and creating a membership program — There are many great tools you can use to create your membership program, so do your research

Final thoughts on creating a membership website

Alright, now I hope you enjoyed this episode on how to create a membership website.

I hope you feel inspired and empowered to launch a membership site that helps you grow your recurring income.

Don’t forget to grab access to the free 10 Ways To Make Money Travel Blogging workshop. If you’re looking to monetize your blog, this powerful training can help.

And of course, make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes sharing these bite-sized strategies for bloggers who want to turn their blogs into profitable full-time businesses.

Happy blogging!

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