Joining & Access
Who can find your Coterie, who can get in, and whether they pay to do it.
The two settings that decide access
| Setting | Where it lives | What it controls |
|---|---|---|
| List in Discover | Settings → Discovery | Whether your Coterie appears in the Discover directory at all |
| How people get in | Settings → Joining & Access | Whether people join immediately, or apply and wait for your review |
How people get in applies to both doors at once — people browsing Discover and people arriving at your public apply page from a link you shared. There's deliberately no way to set those two differently. Vetting one door and leaving the other open isn't a useful configuration; it just means anyone holding your link skips the review you thought you'd set up.
Choosing your combination
Vetted and discoverable. List in Discover: Public. How people get in: Apply. People can find you and ask to join, but you approve everyone. This is the default and the right choice for most Coteries — the quality of a reciprocal-engagement circle depends entirely on who's in it.
Fully open. List in Discover: Public. How people get in: Join immediately. Anyone who finds you is in straight away. Good for a large, low-friction community where volume matters more than vetting. You still see everyone's answers afterwards.
Invite-only. List in Discover: Private. How people get in: Apply. You're not listed anywhere; the only way in is a link you send or an invitation you issue. Good for a private cohort or a mastermind you fill yourself.
Unlisted but open. List in Discover: Private. How people get in: Join immediately. You're not in the directory, but anyone with your apply-page link walks straight in. Useful when you're driving signups from a newsletter or a launch post and don't want directory traffic.
What you ask applicants
On the same tab you can shape your apply page. Name and email are always asked and can't be turned off. Beyond that you can request a profile link, ask which niche fits them, ask why they'd be a good fit, and add up to five custom questions of your own.
Keep it short. Every extra question costs you applicants, and the ones you lose aren't reliably the ones you wanted to lose. Two or three well-chosen questions tell you more than a long form that people abandon halfway.
If How people get in is set to Join immediately, these questions still get asked — you just don't review the answers before the person joins. They're saved, so you can read them later.
Paid membership
If you've set up plans, payment happens after approval, never before. The sequence is:
- Someone applies
- You approve them
- They're notified, and they choose a plan and pay
- They become a member
You're never charging someone you might turn down, and they never pay before knowing they're in. If How people get in is set to Join immediately, steps 1 and 2 are skipped and they go straight to choosing a plan.
Approvals expire after 30 days. If someone doesn't complete their payment in that window they'll need to apply again. They get a reminder at day 25.
If your Coterie has no paid plans, none of this applies — approval alone makes someone a member.
Free tiers alongside paid ones
You can run a free plan and paid plans side by side. Someone picking the free tier joins immediately at step 3, with no payment step. This is a good way to let people in the door and give them a reason to upgrade later, rather than making the very first interaction a payment decision.
Approving someone vs inviting them directly
These two do different things, and the difference is money.
Approving an application grants the right to join, not membership itself. If your Coterie has paid plans, the person you approve lands on your plans page and becomes a member once they've paid. You're never charging someone you might have declined, and they never pay before knowing they're in.
Inviting someone directly (Admin → Staff access) gives them access without payment. That's intentional — it's how you bring in a co-admin, a moderator, a co-founder, or a first member you want to comp. It's a Pro feature and a deliberate action, not something that happens by accident.
Because a direct invitation skips payment entirely, don't use it as a shortcut for admitting ordinary paying members — you'd be giving away access you meant to charge for. Approve their application instead.
What happens to applications
Applications you never review expire after 90 days, and the applicant is told. Once an application reaches a final state — joined, declined, or expired — the personal details on it are removed after 12 months. Your application counts and conversion stats stay accurate; the personal data doesn't sit around longer than it's useful.