Sutra lets you charge for access to a space — as a one-time purchase, a recurring subscription, or a pay-what-you-can offering. This guide covers everything involved in selling a space: connecting Stripe, building payment plans, adding coupons and bundles, configuring checkout, and tracking what you earn.
Before you start
You must be a manager of the space.
Payments are processed through Stripe, so you'll connect (or create) a Stripe account.
Set the space's privacy to Paid so visitors check out before they can join.
Connect Stripe and set your space to Paid
In Space Settings, open Privacy and set it to Paid.
Click Connect Stripe and complete the Stripe connection. Once connected, you'll see your Stripe account ID, and you can Disconnect later if needed.
Until Stripe is connected you can still build plans, but you won't be able to accept payments.
Create a payment plan
In the Payment Plans section, click Add plan. Each plan is one purchasable option, and a space can offer several. Use Preview to see how your plans look to buyers, and drag plans to reorder them.
Each plan has the following options:
Amount and Currency — set the price and pick a currency. Sutra supports USD, EUR, GBP, CAD, AUD, SEK, CHF, NZD, BRL, MXN, INR, and PLN.
Frequency — One time, Monthly, Quarterly, or Yearly.
Billing limit (recurring plans only) — keep it Ongoing, stop after a Fixed number of payments, or bill Until a date.
Free trial (days) — give recurring plans a trial period before the first charge.
Pay What You Can — let buyers choose their own price, with optional Minimum, Maximum, and Suggested amounts.
Plan name, Short description, Features, and Long description — the name, one-liner, checklist of benefits, and optional extended description shown on checkout and registration pages.
Spaces included in this plan — choose which spaces a purchase unlocks. If a plan includes more than one, pick a Landing page where buyers arrive after paying.
Visibility and Mark as recommended — hide a plan from checkout, or highlight one with a "Recommended" badge.
Require membership in other spaces before purchase — only let people who already belong to certain spaces buy this plan (prerequisites).
Limit number of purchases — the plan shows as sold out once your cap is reached.
General payment settings
The General Payment Settings section controls checkout behavior for the whole space:
Allow multiple plan selections — buyers can choose more than one plan at checkout, each billed separately. All selectable plans must share the same currency and payment type.
Allow guest checkout — visitors can pay with just an email address and finish creating their account afterward. When it's on, you can add an Invitation message that's included in the email they receive after purchase.
Require terms acceptance — buyers must agree to your terms before paying. Set the link label and the full terms content.
Collect taxes on every transaction — buyers enter their address at checkout and tax is calculated automatically via Stripe Tax (which must be activated in your Stripe account).
Note: Guest checkout and plan prerequisites can't be used at the same time — a guest has no account yet, so Sutra can't verify their membership in other spaces. Remove prerequisites before turning on guest checkout, and vice versa. Sutra will show a dialog explaining the conflict if you try.
Coupons
Create discount codes buyers can enter at checkout. When you add a coupon you can set:
Coupon code — up to 30 characters; it's saved in uppercase.
Discount type — Percentage (set the percent off) or Fixed amount (set an amount for each currency you sell in).
Duration — apply the discount to the First payment only, or to All payments (forever) for subscriptions.
Expiration date — optional; coupons have no expiration unless you set one.
Plan restrictions — limit the coupon to specific plans, or leave it open to all.
At checkout, buyers enter the code and click Apply coupon to see the discounted price.
Bundles
Bundles no longer need to be configured, since Sutra allows multiple plan selection during payments. Several options can be selected simultaneously and paid for in one go to simplify the whole process.
How buyers check out
For a Paid space, the registration page is the checkout gateway — share its link to start selling. At checkout, buyers pick a plan (with any "Recommended" badge, sold-out state, or free-trial note shown), review the order summary, accept your terms if required, and pay by card through Stripe.
With guest checkout enabled, a visitor can pay using only an email address. Right after payment they land on a confirmation page where they create an account or log in, and Sutra also emails them an invitation so they can finish setting up later.
Track payments and earnings
Go to Settings > Members and open the Payments tab to see each payment — member, amount, date, and status — along with your total earnings. You can export the data as an Excel or CSV file.
Refunds, cancellations, and failed payments
Members manage their own subscriptions — cancelling or updating their card — from their account settings.
To refund a charge, issue the refund from your Stripe dashboard; Sutra updates the payment's status automatically.
If a recurring payment fails, Sutra notifies managers and the member may lose access until payment succeeds.
Grant free access
Plans can't be priced at $0. To give someone free access to a paid space, send them a free invitation instead (see Inviting members). If you'd rather let people decide what to pay, enable Pay What You Can on a plan.
About fees
Two kinds of fees apply to each transaction: a Sutra platform fee that depends on your Sutra subscription, plus Stripe's standard payment-processing fee. The Sutra fee by plan is:
Basic (free plan) — 10% transaction fee on collected payments.
Bronze — 2% transaction fee on collected payments.
Silver and Gold — no Sutra transaction fee.
On top of the Sutra fee, Stripe charges its standard processing fee of 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction. Upgrading your Sutra plan lowers or removes the Sutra fee — see the Sutra pricing page for current rates, or your billing and subscription settings to check or change your plan.
Troubleshooting
No checkout appears / you can't accept payments — connect Stripe and set the space's privacy to Paid.
Can't enable guest checkout — remove any plan prerequisites first; the two can't be on at the same time.
A plan won't save — the amount must be greater than $0. Use a free invitation to grant free access, or turn on Pay What You Can.
Multiple plan selection is blocked — all selectable plans must use the same currency and the same payment type (don't mix one-time and recurring).
Tax collection won't turn on — activate Stripe Tax in your Stripe account, then try again.
What's next
Once your plans are set up, create and share your registration page so people can purchase, and invite members or send free access where you need to.