Trying to figure out what’s possible in Shopify (with apps):
- Paid memberships, with the member discount applying automatically at POS checkout?
- One membership covering several people (e.g. a parent plus kids), where some are non-paying but still need to be booked into sessions and tracked for attendance?
- Booking people into scheduled, capacity-limited sessions, with access tied to membership status?
I’m also looking at a dedicated booking/membership platform (Momence-style) that handles the above well but is weak at POS and online retail, basically the opposite of Shopify. So really I’m trying to decide whether Shopify + apps can cover all of it, or whether people just run both and bridge them.
Most unsure about the multiple-people-under-one-membership and booking parts. App suggestions welcome, thanks!
Hey @ryanc10
I work with a booking app (Cowlendar, full transparency I’m on the team) so I can give you some perspective on what’s realistic in Shopify.
For booking people into scheduled, capacity-limited sessions, Shopify handles this well with booking apps. Cowlendar also supports recurring service subscriptions, so a customer can subscribe to a specific servic . That’s different from a full membership system though, just want to be clear on that.
For paid memberships with auto-discount at POS, you’d need a separate membership app combined with customer tags to trigger discounts. It works but takes some setup.
The multi-person membership part (parent buys, kids get booked individually, attendance tracked) is where Shopify genuinely falls short. That’s exactly what Momence and Mindbody were built for and no Shopify app combination handles it cleanly.
If multi-person memberships are core to your business, a hybrid setup is probably the realistic path: dedicated platform for memberships/attendance, Shopify for retail and POS.
Good luck with the decision!