The choice between monthly and annual memberships is really a trade between ease of joining and strength of commitment. Most successful membership sites offer both and let the member choose.
Monthly memberships
A low monthly price is the easiest yes — little risk, easy to try. The downside is that members decide to renew twelve times a year, and each renewal is a chance to cancel, so monthly plans tend to churn faster and bring in revenue more slowly.
Annual memberships
An annual plan asks for a bigger upfront commitment, usually at a discount — commonly 15–25% off the monthly equivalent. In return you get cash up front, far fewer renewal decisions (one a year instead of twelve), and lower churn. The trade-off is a higher barrier at signup and the occasional larger refund request.
Offer both
Offering both covers more buyers: monthly for the cautious, annual for the committed — with the annual discount nudging people toward the plan that retains better. A common pattern is to show both side by side and highlight the annual savings.
How Members Only approaches it
You define your prices — monthly, annual, or both — in your Stripe dashboard, and Members Only picks them up automatically so you can place checkout buttons for each. Because annual members renew far less often, leaning on an annual option is one of the simplest ways to improve retention.
Next step
See Connecting to Stripe to set up prices, and What Is Subscriber Churn? for why interval matters.
Related terms: What Is Recurring Billing?, Membership vs. Subscription