Tier List name ideas

The Complete Guide To Naming Your Membership Levels

Are you wondering about the best way to name your membership levels?

It can be tricky, right?

Do you stick to the standard Bronze Silver Gold naming convention?

Or do you get creative and name your membership levels something like, Padawan Jedi Knight Jedi Master?

Heres the thing: what you choose to name your membership levels is incredibly important. The reason for this is because the names of your membership levels will be most carefully scrutinized while your prospective members are still in the buying process. Theyll be paying the most attention to your membership level names during the time when theyre actually deciding whether or not to join your membership.

That means your membership level names are more than just names. They are vital ingredients in the conversion process itself.

Ask yourself:

Do your membership level names stick in the minds of your prospects and reinforce the value of your membership?

Or are they an afterthought that your prospects can essentially glaze over as they bounce from your sales page to go watch yet another cute cat compilation video on YouTube?

If you want to learn how to name your membership levels in a way that actually assists your conversion process, this in-depth article is for you.

In it, you will discover:

A clear definition of membership levels

The seven main ways to name your membership levels

15 real-life examples of expertly named membership levels

And more!

After you read this article, youll have the information and inspiration you need to confidently name your own membership levels.

Lets dig in!

What Are Membership Levels?

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself what the actual definition of a membership level is?

Its kind of weird to even think about, right?

These days it seems like just about everything from entertainment, groceries, and yes even alcohol comes in the form of a subscription or membership. Since were so used to seeing and selecting membership and subscription levels, its easy to rely on our intuitive understanding and overlook their definition.

Before we dive in and explore all the different ways you can name your membership levels, lets take a look a practical example that nearly everyone can relate to: the name of your cell phone plan. After all, your cell phone plan is just another subscription you pay on a monthly basis.

Ask yourself:

Are you on an Unlimited plan? Or a Prepaid plan?

We can even drill down further into one of those membership level names and see just how specific you can get when youre naming your own plans.

For instance, are you on an Unlimited Starter, Extra, or Elite plan?

[who knew so much could be added to an unlimited plan ]

Now that were all on the same page with what membership and subscription levels are, lets take a look at the definition well be working with throughout this entire article:

In essence, a membership or subscription level is a mechanism you can use to define what your members will receive, how & when it will be delivered, and what type of payment is required.

That said, the function of a membership level extends far beyond that definition. The names you choose for your membership levels can help your members select the level that will best meet their current needs. You can also use this opportunity to name your membership levels in a way that reinforces the benefits of your membership and communicates the desired outcome your content will help them achieve.

If that sounds a little *too* conceptual, heres a practical example thatll help anchor this concept into reality:

Imagine that you run a membership site that teaches people how to run their first marathon. You know that people come to your membership with all different levels of running experience. And, they will have specific needs depending on where they are in their own journey. In this case, you could name your membership levels something like:

Jogger Runner Marathoner

Each one of these membership level names communicates the desired outcome of your membership while at the same time giving your members the opportunity to select the level that best meets their needs.

By naming your membership levels in this way, you speak directly to your ideal customer and let them know theyre in the right place. Your membership level names also give you an opportunity to connect the value of your membership with the actual price. In fact, naming your membership level based upon the price itself can be a way for you to encourage signups at a specific level.

Well cover all of this and look at real-life examples in this post. For now, the important thing to remember is that what you name your membership levels is vitally important. Its a strategic decision. You shouldnt just arbitrarily name your membership levels something like Bronze, Silver, and Gold [unless that makes sense for your membership]. Instead, approach naming your membership levels as an opportunity to connect with your members.

Now, lets take a look at the 7 primary types of membership level names weve discovered in our work with thousands of membership site entrepreneurs as well as our research in the world of online subscriptions.

The 7 Ways You Can Name Your Membership Levels

1. Price-Based Membership Level Names:

When it comes to membership and subscription businesses, your membership levels and their prices almost always go hand in hand. It should be no surprise then that many subscription businesses choose to name their membership levels based on their price or billing frequency.

For example, the popular alternative health & healing streaming site Gaia has two primary membership options named specifically for their price and billing cycle:

As you can see, their membership levels are named Monthly and Annual. These names are simple, clear, and to-the-point.

Could they be more creative? Certainly. Do they need to be? Probably not.

For someone who already knows they want to explore Gaias library of 8,000+ unique movies, the annual plan makes a lot of sense. Gaia does a great job here of communicating the value of the annual plan and making its selection appealing to the user.

If your membership site is like Gaia with essentially only one access level you might consider a price related name [like Monthly, Quarterly, or Annual] for your membership levels.

2. Membership Level Names Based On Content Access

Naming your membership levels based upon the type of access they give your members is one of the most common ways to name your membership levels especially in the world of online membership and subscription sites. The content-based naming structure typically follows a basic Bronze Silver Gold convention.

A perfect example of this way to name your membership levels comes from one of our own customers Option Alpha.

Take a look:

You can see there are three specific membership levels Free, Pro, & Elite. Each one of these plans gives the member a different level of access to the content on the site. This is a really smart way to name your membership levels because each level communicates its own value without undermining the others. If a potential member wants to get started with your free resources, they can. And when a Pro member is ready to go deeper, they can upgrade to the Elite level.

You may have also noticed a subtle psychological characteristic of these membership level names. Not only do Free, Pro, & Elite describe the membership levels themselves, they also describe and name the person who joins at each level.

This a powerful way to allow your members to identify themselves within your naming structures. Are you a Pro trader? Or an Elite trader? Both are good, but theres something about that word elite that just stands out. And if you are a Pro, theres always that next step to strive for.

Later in this post well look at some real-life examples like this one that can give you some ideas for naming your own membership levels.

3. Naming Your Membership Levels Based On User Access

The distinction between naming your membership levels based on user access vs. content access is important enough for us to categorize it on its own. Membership level names based upon user access have more to do with who get access, rather than what they get access to.

Spotifys subscription level names are an excellent example of what we mean here:

The main thing these subscription level names communicate is who gets access to them. Are you signing up for Spotify just for yourself? Or, is your entire family ready to press play on their favorite songs without hearing ads? If youre a student [or are scrambling to find your old college .edu email address ], youll immediately notice the Student membership level and be glad to cash in on these exclusive savings.

If your membership is designed to be used by more than one person by a team or an organization for example you may want to consider naming your levels in this way.

4. Membership Level Names Based On Content Delivery

Can you think of an example of some membership level names that are based solely on how the content of that membership is delivered? Any guesses?

Heres a hint: think about memberships or subscriptions that have both physical and digital products.

If you havent already guessed, naming your membership levels based on content delivery is very popular with publications. Take the Wall Street Journal, for instance:

Here you can see that they have three distinct membership level names: Classic Print, All Access Digital, and Print & Digital. The names of these three subscription levels directly correspond with how the content from WSJ will be delivered to you.

Do you only want the print newspaper? Or are you fine with reading it on your iPad? Or for only $1 more than the Classic Print level, you can have both Print & Digital.

While the choice to sign up for both seems obvious, this naming convention and pricing strategy is actually a perfect example of a marketing concept called price anchoring.

The subject of how pricing affects conversions is a topic for another blog post [leave us a comment below if youd like to hear more about that]. But, if youd like a crash course in price anchoring for membership sites, check out this podcast episode we recorded with Mike Morrison. Fast forward to minute marker 20:08 to hear Mike explain what price anchoring is and how you can use it.

If your membership or subscription includes both digital and physical product, naming your membership levels accordingly could be a great strategy for you.

5. Naming Your Membership Levels Based On Supporters

Is your online membership or subscription based on the patronage model? Are people signing up because they love your content and want to support you in creating more of it? This is the online subscription model at the heart of sites like Patreon or Facebook Subscription Groups. Your supporters can choose to contribute to you and your efforts at different levels of financial support.

This model is becoming more and more popular and gives you a fantastic opportunity to get creative and specific with how you name your supporter levels. One of our favorite examples of this comes from the Smarter Every Day Patreon account:

These six membership level names Cat Flipper, Thinker and Doer, Gentleman/Lady Scholar, Prince Ruperts Drop, Backwards Bicycle Rider, and Researcher Assistant are fun, creative, and highly relevant to this audience. If these names have you scratching your head, check out this video where they explain the physics of how cats always land on their feet.

If your members really are your supporters or patrons, how could you name your membership levels in a way that was both fun and engaging for them?

6. Interest-Based Membership Level Names

Does your membership cover a lot of different topics and attract a wide audience? If this is the case for you, you might want to consider naming your membership levels based upon your members interests.

What do we mean by that?

Lets take a look at a real-life example that illustrates this idea perfectly:

As you can see in this example from the online fitness platform Daily Burn, they have distinct membership levels designed to appeal to their members specific interests. If youre a yoga enthusiast, chances are youll gravitate towards the yoga membership. But, if you prefer running or high-intensity interval training, theres an option for you as well.

This naming strategy is perfect if you have specific segments in your membership. By naming your membership levels according to an interest, you can get very specific in your communication to each interest and avoid sounding bland or generic by speaking to everyone and no one at all.

When someone clicks on the Running membership option, for example, the language you can use to communicate the benefits of this level can be specifically tailored to appeal to runners. Same goes for the Yoga and HIIT levels as well.

This naming strategy might be perfect for you if youve never felt like youve neatly fit into a hyper specific niche. Definitely consider it if you have a wide variety of content that attracts different people to your membership.

7. Time-Based Membership Level Names

Wait did we just say time? Yes, we sure did!

This way of naming your membership levels might not seem obvious at first, but itll make perfect sense in just a second. Just like your prices are joined at the hip with your membership levels, so too is the amount of time that a member will have access to your content. So, it makes a lot of sense to actually name your membership levels based upon the amount of time that someone will have access. This is especially true if your members only have a need for your membership for a specific amount of time like a dating site, for example.

Heres an example of time-based membership level names that youre probably familiar with from Rosetta Stone:

Here you can see that theyve chosen to name their membership levels based upon the amount of time that a member will have access: 3 Months, 12 Months, 24 Months, and even Lifetime.

This makes a lot of sense for a subscription business like Rosetta Stone. If youve ever tried to learn a foreign language, you know that gaining any level of proficiency in the language takes more than 3 months. Sure, you may be able to learn some basic vocabulary and essential conversation lines but anything more than that and youll need at least 12 months. And when the cost of the 12-month plan is paired up against the Lifetime plan, it seems like a steal to get forever access to unlimited languages for only $79.12 more than the year-long plan.

You might consider this naming strategy if you have a membership that is closely linked with the time it takes to learn the skill youre teaching. Plus, if you know the Lifetime Customer Value of your members, you can price your lifetime plan above that number so you dont lose money on recurring subscriptions.

Real-Life Examples Of Expertly Named Membership Levels

Now that weve covered the seven main types of membership level names, lets take a look at some additional examples. Some of these examples youll be familiar with, but some will be new to you. As youre going through these examples, pay attention to how the seven main ways to name your membership levels often get blended together.

Membership Level Names Based On Price

Workweek Lunch

Membership Level Names Based On Content Access

Peloton

Membership Level Names Based On User Access

Netflix

Membership Level Names Based On Physical Facility Access

Idea Fab Labs

Membership Level Names Based On Content Delivery AND Supporter Level

The Point Magazine

Membership Level Names Based On Supporter Levels

Divine Harmony

Membership Level Names Based On Time

Pianu

How To Use Membership Level Names On Your Site

If you use MemberMouse to power your membership or subscription site, there are some pretty cool ways you can strategically use your membership level names on your site. We wont go too far into the weeds about this in this post, but heres a quick overview of how this could look for you.

When you create and name a membership level in MemberMouse, this data can be displayed anywhere on your site or in the email communications you send from MemberMouse. Lets go back to our example of a membership site that teaches people how to run their first marathon. Imagine that your three membership levels are named Jogger, Runner, and Marathoner.

You could use these membership level names to greet your members on pages or in email using our SmartTag features. Heres how this would look on your members dashboard, for example:

Hey, [MM_Member_Data name='membershipName']! Welcome To Your Members Area.

Then, depending on the membership level a specific person belonged to, it would display one of three versions:

Hey, Jogger! Welcome To Your Members Area.Hey, Runner! Welcome To Your Members Area.Hey, Marathoner! Welcome To Your Members Area.

The possibilities for implementing this across all areas of your site and in email communications are nearly endless. We hope this quick trip into these nitty-gritty details has been helpful for you.

How Will You Name Your Membership Levels?

Whew! We sure covered a lot in this blog post. We hope youve enjoyed learning all about how to name your membership levels and are now walking away with some ideas you can implement on your site.

Now its your turn!

As you go through the process of naming your own membership levels, keep in mind the seven main types of membership level names. Ask yourself what kind of membership or subscription you are and name your levels accordingly.

What did you think of this article. Are there any categories of membership level names that weve forgotten? Do you have an awesome idea youd like to share with us? Leave us a comment below and join our discussion. Wed love to hear from you!

Receive our latest blog posts direct to your inbox!

Related content

• Share