A vinyl club is the simplest membership there is: fans pay a set amount, and once a month a record shows up. Fans get pressings nobody else can buy. You get predictable pre-orders and a group of people who buy far more than the record itself. On the clubs running on Single, members routinely place several times more orders than non-members and take up a large share of each limited pressing before it's on sale to anyone else.
This guide is the shape we recommend for a first club. Keep it small and boring. The clubs that run into trouble are almost never the ones with a simple setup.
1. Decide the shape before you touch settings
One tier, two ways to pay. One membership level, offered monthly and annually. Annual members are pre-paying for twelve records, and their record still goes out every month. More tiers means more perks to keep in sync every month. Add them later if you need to.
Pick your billing day once, and pick it around your release dates. Every member is billed and gets the month's record on the same day, called the anchor date. Choose a day that lands a week or two before your records release, so the club order exists before the general public can buy. The anchor date can't be changed after the club is published, so decide it with your release calendar in front of you. See Set a Membership Anchor Date.
Decide who pays shipping. Either members pay shipping on each record's order, or you build it into the membership price and mark the perk "Exclude from Shipping Rates". Both work. Say which one you chose on the club page so nobody is surprised.
Set a member limit that matches what you can press. Cap the club at a number you can ship every month. You can raise it later. A club that oversells its pressing has to disappoint members on month one.
Price for the record plus the extras. Members expect the record, a members-only discount on the rest of your store, and first access to anything limited. A monthly price a little above your usual LP price with those extras attached is the normal shape. Annual at ten or eleven months' worth is the usual discount.
2. Set up Shopify first
Run the Required Shopify Settings for Communities checklist: a live payment gateway, new customer accounts, and the Membership Checkout Validation rule turned on. That last one stops a fan from adding the membership to the cart twice and being charged double every month, which does happen.
Then get shipping right, because that's where clubs actually break:
One shipping profile for club records. In Settings → Shipping and delivery, create or choose the profile that covers every country you'll ship to, with real rates. Every month's record goes into this same profile.
Stock at a location that ships. The record's inventory has to sit at a location that fulfils online orders. If a fulfilment partner or 3PL app owns your inventory location, confirm with them that it can ship subscription orders.
Stock the record before the billing day, with enough units for every active member plus a small buffer.
3. Build the club in Single
Follow Create a Paid Community Tier: one tier, a 1-month term and a 1-year term, renewal date set to your anchor date. Add the members-only discount with Create Members-Only Discounts. If you want a welcome item in the first order, add it as an At Sign Up perk.
If you're announcing before you're ready to ship, use a presale so fans can join early: Set Up a Community Presale.
Don't edit the membership product in Shopify after publishing. Changing its price or purchase options in Shopify admin can detach it from the subscription plan and break the join button. Change the tier in Single, or add a new tier.
4. The monthly rhythm
This is the whole job. Do it the same way every month, at least a week before the anchor date:
Create the record as its own Shopify product. No variants: the perk feature doesn't support them. Set it Active or Unlisted (not Draft). Unlisted is fine and keeps it off your storefront.
Put it in your club shipping profile and stock it at your shipping location, with at least as many units as you have members.
In Single, add it as the Automated Product Perk for that specific month on your tier, and set the shipping choice you decided on. See Create Automated Product Perks.
Also gate the product to the club so members can buy extra copies or earlier months, and so non-members can't. See Gate Products, Videos or Posts.
Update the club page with this month's record and the upcoming schedule.
On the anchor date Single creates the orders. Monthly members get one order with the membership charge and the record. Annual members get a record-only order. You ship them and mark them fulfilled in Shopify like any other order.
If a month's perk isn't in place when the anchor date arrives, members are billed without a record and the month is skipped. It doesn't catch up on its own. Set a calendar reminder a week before every anchor date.
5. What to tell members
Put these on your club page or in the welcome email. They answer most of the questions you'll otherwise get one at a time:
When you're billed and when the record ships. Name the anchor date. Explain that joining after it means the current month's record only if it's still in stock, and otherwise next month's.
How to change address or card. Members change these on the membership account page in your store, not on their general Shopify profile, or the change won't reach their club orders. Send them How Fans Update Their Address, Payment Method, or Membership.
How to pause or cancel. There's no skip-a-month. Members can cancel and rejoin. If you want to let someone sit out a month, refund that month's order; refunding an order never cancels the membership.
6. Launch checklist
Shopify: payments live, new customer accounts, checkout validation rule on.
Shipping profile with real rates for every club country; records stocked at a shipping location.
One tier, monthly and annual terms, anchor date set against your release calendar, member limit set.
Month one's record created, in the shipping profile, stocked, added as that month's perk, and gated.
Club page states the record, the schedule, who pays shipping, and how to change address or card.
A recurring reminder one week before every anchor date.
Keep it this simple for the first three months. Once the rhythm is automatic, that's the time to think about a second tier or a bigger pressing.