Complete checkout as a member or prospect

This guide shows you how to pay for a membership or an outstanding invoice through the member portal or during signup. Card details are handled directly by Stripe — they never pass through MapleGather’s servers. If your org has PayPal connected, you can pay with PayPal instead.

Who can do this: Any member or prospective member who has reached the payment step.

Before you start

• If you’re signing up for the first time, you’ll reach the payment step after filling in your membership application.
• If you’re renewing or paying an outstanding invoice, sign in to the member portal first.
• Have your payment card ready.

What you’ll be charged

Some organizations cover their card processing fee themselves. Others pass it on to you. Your organization’s choice decides what you see at checkout — and either way, you see the final amount before you confirm.

When a processing fee is added to your payment, a short price breakdown appears with the payment form, above the pay button:

Row	What it is
Subtotal	The membership fee or invoice amount itself.
Processing fee	The card processing fee your organization passes on.
Total	What your card is charged — the subtotal plus the fee.

Below the breakdown is a short sentence your organization wrote explaining the fee. The wording is theirs, so it reads differently from one organization to the next.

When no processing fee is added to your payment, none of that appears — no breakdown, no fee row, and no fee sentence. That happens when your organization covers the fee itself, and it also happens when the fee it passes on works out to nothing on a very small payment. You will never see a fee row reading $0.00. You can’t tell from the checkout page which of those reasons applies, and you don’t need to: the amount on the pay button is what your card is charged.

The pay button always shows that total, including any processing fee. On an invoice, that means the button can read more than the invoice balance.

Steps

Paying by card

1. Review the order summary. Check that the membership level, amount, and renewal date are correct, and compare it with the amount on the pay button. If the button is higher than the order summary, your organization has added its processing fee, and the price breakdown with the payment form shows the difference. If the button is lower, credit on your account is covering part of the payment — see Your account balance and credits.
2. Enter your card number, expiry date, security code, and billing name in the payment form.
3. Select Pay $[amount].
4. If your bank asks for extra verification (SCA or 3DS), complete the verification step shown on screen. Your payment details are preserved — you don’t need to re-enter them.

Paying an outstanding invoice (portal)

1. Sign in to the portal and go to My account > Billing.
2. If you have an open invoice, you’ll see a Pay now option. Select it.
3. Choose Settle (full balance) to pay the full amount, or Pay partial amount to enter a different amount.
4. If your account has credit on it, select the Apply my account balance checkbox to put that credit toward this payment. For how credit is worked out, see Your account balance and credits.
5. Complete the payment steps above.

Paying with PayPal (signing up)

PayPal is offered on the signup payment step. If your organization has PayPal connected and sends signup payments to it, you’ll see a choice above the payment form: Pay with card or Pay with PayPal. The order summary and the amount are the same either way — only the payment step differs.

Renewing a membership and paying an open invoice from the portal are card-only. There’s no PayPal choice on those two steps, even when your organization has PayPal connected.

1. Review the order summary — amount and membership level.
2. Select Pay with PayPal.
3. You’re taken to PayPal to sign in and approve the payment.
4. After you approve, PayPal returns you to MapleGather and your payment finishes automatically.

Your payment is held with your application while the organization reviews it, and nothing is set up until they accept you. Signing up with PayPal doesn’t set up automatic renewal. Once the organization accepts you, you renew manually.

To pay by card instead, select Pay with card and follow the card steps above.

Verify

You’ll know the payment went through when a payment confirmation appears. Where it appears depends on what you paid for: a signup takes you to a separate confirmation page, and an invoice confirms on the checkout itself. A renewal confirms on the renewal surface. A receipt goes to your email. If you’re renewing, that same renewal page shows the date your membership now runs through.

Payments are not always instant. If your card has cleared but the payment is still completing, you’ll see a note that it is going through instead of a confirmation, and an invoice you were paying may still show as unpaid until it finishes. Your receipt is emailed when it completes, so don’t pay again. If you’re unsure whether it completed, contact the organization rather than paying again.

If something goes wrong

• “Your bank declined this” — your card was declined. The exact reason appears on screen. Try a different card or contact your bank. Your information is still on the form — you don’t need to start over.
• “Bank requested verification failed” — the 3DS security check didn’t complete. Select Try again and complete the bank verification when prompted.
• “Payment already processed” — you’ve already paid for this. Select the receipt link to view your confirmation.
• Page closes mid-payment — your progress is saved. Return to the checkout page and your card details are preserved; if the payment went through, you’ll see “Payment already processed” when you return.
• “PayPal payment not completed” — you returned from PayPal without approving, or closed the PayPal tab. No charge was made. Select Try again to restart PayPal, or Choose another method to pay by card instead. Your order is saved.
• “PayPal couldn’t complete this payment” — PayPal declined the payment. Select Try again, or Choose another method to pay by card. Your order and amount are preserved.

For declined payments at checkout, see Payment declined at checkout.

Related

• View and manage your billing portal
• Resend or download a receipt
• Payment declined at checkout
• Your account balance and credits