"Give members 10% off" sounds like a one-afternoon build on Shopify. Tag your members, create a discount code restricted to those customers, done.

It does work — until member 101.

From Shopify's help center page on discount codes:

A discount code can apply to up to 100 specific customers, products, and variants. If you exceed that, then an error message displays: There is 1 error with this discount code: Item entitlements exceeded max number

One hundred combined. Name 100 members and you have zero budget left to narrow which products the discount touches.

Below: what native Shopify actually supports for member pricing, the four numbers where a DIY design breaks, and why three membership apps can't be compared on price until you notice they bill on three different things. Research date: September 1, 2026. Prices are USD as listed on the Shopify App Store.

The short version

Members numbering in the dozens, not growing fast? A customer-restricted discount code is fine. Skip the apps.

Over 100 members, or heading there? Native discount codes can't express it. It's an app, or custom development on Shopify Functions.

Want gated content — videos, PDFs, member-only pages? There's no admin setting for it. Shopify discounts act on price calculation and nothing else, so gating lands in theme code or in an app.

If you're buying an app, choose by billing denominator first. All three are structurally different:

• Predictable member count, under 750 — Appstle℠ Memberships (free to 25, $19 to 100, $39 to 500, $79 to 750)
• Unlimited members, low membership fee — Conjured Memberships ($19/month + 1.9% of membership transactions, no member cap)
• Tier-first program design — Inveterate by Onward, though it publishes no pricing on the App Store

All three are English-only interfaces.

What Shopify does natively

There is no member price

A Shopify product has one price field. There's no second field for a member price sitting alongside it.

So member pricing is always implemented as a discount. Native gives you two vehicles:

Discount codes — the customer types them; you can restrict them to named customers.

Automatic discounts — applied when conditions are met, no typing.

Automatic is the better member experience: log in, see member pricing. That's where the ceilings start.

The four numbers that break it

Four documented limits bear directly on member pricing design.

One: the 100-entitlement cap on discount codes. Customers, products, and variants share one budget of 100. Name 100 members and you can't scope the discount to a collection. Fifty members and fifty products just fits. Sharding across multiple codes as membership grows isn't a design; it's a maintenance burden.

Two: 25 active automatic discounts, app-created ones included. The help center is explicit that the total includes app-based discounts. Three tiers across five product categories is fifteen automatic discounts before you've run a single sale. The ceiling arrives faster than it sounds.

Three: stacking product discounts on the same item is Shopify Plus only. Want "member 10%" and "seasonal 20%" both landing on one product? Plus plan. On other plans, when discounts can't combine, only the better one for the customer applies.

Four: combining product with order discounts is conditional. Available on all plans: order + shipping, product + shipping, and product + product on different items. Product + order, and order + order, are limited to merchants meeting eligibility requirements — no checkout.liquid customizations or features, and not using the Licensify app.

What native can't reach at all

Gated content. The admin has no setting that shows members a video, PDF, or page non-members can't see. Discounts touch price calculation and nothing else. You can branch on customer tags in Liquid, but that means editing theme code — and you still need something to keep the tags current.

Recurring membership fees. The first-party Shopify Subscriptions app (3.7, 752 reviews) handles recurring product purchases; it isn't built to bind a fee to a set of perks.

Membership lifecycle. Drop the member tag when a payment fails, suspend perks at expiry — none of that runs natively.

Verdict

Under 100 members, price perks only, no gating: native is enough. Anything else, an app is warranted.

Three apps, three denominators

Shopify App Store listings as of September 1, 2026.

App	Billed by	From	Free tier	Rating (count)	BFS	Launched
Appstle℠ Memberships	Members per month	$19/mo (100 members)	Yes (25 members)	5.0 (863)	Yes	Feb 3, 2022
Conjured Memberships	Monthly fee + % of transactions	$9.99/mo + 2.9%	Dev stores only	4.9 (83)	No	Oct 14, 2021
Inveterate by Onward	Not published on App Store	Not disclosed	Free to install	4.9 (12)	No	Apr 22, 2022

All three list English as the only interface language.

Three readings.

The denominators aren't comparable without doing arithmetic. Appstle is flat-rate, banded by member count. Conjured has no member cap but takes 0.9–2.9% of membership transactions. Same category, completely different cost curves.

Inveterate doesn't publish pricing. The listing says only "Free to install. Additional charges may apply," and the pricing panel reads "See our website for full pricing details!" You can't line it up against the other two from the App Store. Evaluating it requires contacting the vendor.

Review depth varies by two orders of magnitude. 863 reviews, 83, and 12. For Inveterate, the most recent review visible on the App Store listing is dated October 2024 — no 2025-or-later merchant record is available there.

Running the break-even

Whether Appstle's flat rate or Conjured's take rate wins depends on member count and fee. Both publish enough to compute it.

Assumption: a $10/month membership fee. That's my illustration, not a published figure.

25 members ($250/month in membership transactions)

• Appstle FREE: $0
• Conjured Limited Special: $9.99 + $250 × 2.9% ≈ $17.24

100 members ($1,000/month)

• Appstle STARTER: $19
• Conjured Starter: $19 + $1,000 × 1.9% = $38

500 members ($5,000/month)

• Appstle BUSINESS: $39
• Conjured Starter: $19 + $5,000 × 1.9% = $114
• Conjured Growth: $69 + $5,000 × 0.9% = $114

Note what happens there. At exactly $5,000/month in membership transactions, Conjured's Starter and Growth tiers cost the same — ($69−$19) ÷ (1.9%−0.9%) = $5,000. Above that, Growth is cheaper. Worth knowing as a plan-selection threshold.

750 members ($7,500/month)

• Appstle ENTERPRISE: $79
• Conjured Growth: $69 + $7,500 × 0.9% = $136.50

So: under this assumption, flat-rate wins everywhere inside Appstle's 750-member ceiling. Conjured's take-rate model earns its keep past 750 members, or when the membership fee is low enough that the percentage stays small.

That's price only. Change the fee and the answer moves; feature differences aren't in it at all. Run it with your own numbers.

The apps

Appstle℠ Memberships

Appstle Memberships (Menlo Park, California), live since February 2022. Built for Shopify badge, and at 5.0 across 863 reviews it's the largest of the three by a wide margin.

The free tier covers 25 members per month and includes member-only discounts and gated access, tiered customer and order tagging, a member portal, automatic billing, and customizable email notifications. Paid: STARTER $19 (100 members), BUSINESS $39 (500), ENTERPRISE $79 (750), each 20% cheaper annually.

Higher tiers add dunning management, third-party integrations, cancellation and retention management, member portal HTML editing, custom email domains, bulk automations, and activity logs. Above 750 members the listing directs you to contact them about enterprise, APIs, and webhooks.

The "Works with" list includes Shopify Checkout, Customer accounts, Shopify POS, and Shopify Flow. POS support is shared only with Inveterate here.

Multiple reviews cite support responsiveness. An August 6, 2026 review describes struggling with configuration across Shopify and the app until support resolved syncing issues; an August 26, 2026 review notes that a billing cycle problem has since been fixed — implying there was one.

Best fit: stores expecting to stay under 750 members that want a predictable monthly line item. The 25-member free tier makes it a cheap way to validate the flow.

Conjured Memberships

Conjured (Boulder, Colorado), live since October 2021. 4.9 across 83 reviews, no Built for Shopify badge.

It's the only take-rate model of the three. Limited Special $9.99/month + 2.9% of membership transactions (minimum $0.10 per transaction), Starter $19/month + 1.9%, Growth $69/month + 0.9%. The free tier is restricted to Shopify Partner and Shopify Plus development stores.

The Starter feature list specifies unlimited members and unlimited membership revenue, fully customizable HTML and emails, and members-only pricing, perks, and content. No member ceiling is the core design difference from Appstle.

Listed integrations include Shopify Checkout, Customer accounts, Shopify Flow, Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Sendgrid, and Sky Pilot. The permission list includes Shopify Functions (cart and checkout validations), suggesting membership evaluation happens at the checkout layer.

One caveat worth checking before you build: a February 12, 2026 review states that Shopify can't register customers on a $0 charge, and that enabling free access for some members took extra configuration. If your program includes a free tier, confirm the mechanics first.

Best fit: stores that want membership to grow without a headcount ceiling, or that will clearly exceed 750 members.

Inveterate by Onward

Inveterate (Nashville, Tennessee), live since April 2022. 4.9 across 12 reviews, no Built for Shopify badge.

The positioning is tiered program design — complimentary tiers alongside paid ones, with distinct price points, billing frequencies, and benefits per tier, plus store credits, free shipping, and member-only products handled in one place. Listed integrations include Shopify Checkout, Customer accounts, Shopify POS, Klaviyo, Postscript, Rebuy, and Tapcart.

The material caveat is the missing pricing. "Free to install. Additional charges may apply," and nothing else — no band, no denominator. Putting it beside the other two requires a sales conversation.

With 12 reviews and the newest visible one dated October 2024, third-party evidence about its 2025–2026 operation is thin on the App Store listing.

Best fit: stores that specifically want free and paid tiers coexisting, and are willing to run a scoping call before comparing cost.

Before you install

• Project member count 12 months out. Past 100, native discount codes are off the table
• Fix your membership fee, then recompute flat-rate versus take-rate for your own numbers
• Decide whether gated content is in scope. If it is, native cannot do it
• If you want a free member tier, confirm how $0 charges are handled first
• Count your existing active automatic discounts. The 25 cap includes app-created ones
• Decide whether member and sale discounts must stack on the same product. That's Shopify Plus
• Check POS coverage in the listing's "Works with" section if in-store perks matter
• All three are English-only, which matters if non-English staff will administer the program
• Ask what happens on uninstall: member tags, recurring billing, and content gating each have a different answer

Bottom line

One: project the member count first. Under 100, native discount codes work. Over 100, they structurally cannot. That line, not feature preference, decides whether you need an app.

Two: pick the billing denominator. Member count (Appstle), a share of membership revenue (Conjured), or undisclosed (Inveterate). Same category, different cost curves — run the math on your own fee and headcount before shortlisting.

Three: list the non-price requirements. Gated content, recurring fee collection, lifecycle automation. These change both which app and which tier you need.

Pricing, ratings, and badge status reflect Shopify App Store listings on September 1, 2026; native limits come from the Shopify Help Center. Verify on each listing before committing.