Memberships are not the only way to earn. A member who will not pay a monthly fee may still pay a few dollars once, to be seen by more people today. These one-off services often bring more than subscriptions, because they are cheap and the reason to buy appears again and again.

Six paid services are built into the platform. You decide which ones to switch on, what to call them, and what to charge.

Where to start. Featured users and highlighting first: they cost the member little, cost you nothing, and do not block anyone from using the site. Paid registration and paid search activity are the opposite — they earn from day one but stop your audience from growing. On a young site they usually cost more than they bring.

Admin panel: Services > Customize your service > Orders > Services (/admin/services/index/).

Want the site to be free? Switch the services off here. Or keep only the ones you need.

Click Edit service to give it your own name, description, price and activity period.

Payment type decides how members pay: from their balance on your site, straight through a payment gateway, or both. Allowing the balance is worth it — a member tops up once and then buys without entering card details, which means more purchases.

Paying members appear in a carousel at the top of every page on the site. This is the most visible place you have, and the easiest thing to sell.

The profile appears at the top of relevant search results. Works only when you already have enough members that search results run to several pages — on a small site there is nothing to rise above.

A contrasting border around the photo in search results. The cheapest of the visibility services, and the one members buy without thinking twice.

Nobody finds this person in search, and they do not show up in the list of profile visitors. Sells quietly but steadily, especially on sites where members care about privacy.

The service is called Administrator approval in the admin panel. A new member cannot go anywhere on the site until they pay.

Think before switching this on. It earns from the first day, but it also stops your audience from growing — and on a dating site an empty audience means nobody stays. This one suits established sites with a waiting list, not new ones.

Set the price in Services > Customize your service > Orders > Services > Administrator approval. Then switch it on in Customers > Settings (/admin/users/settings), option Paid service under Approve users:

This is how it looks to the member:

Short video introduction:

Members cannot open other people's profiles until they pay. Same warning as paid registration: it earns immediately and slows growth just as fast.

The six services above are part of the platform. Two more are add-ons — they are not in your plan, you buy them once and keep them.

Profile Boost — pushes a profile to the very top of search results for a set time, with a much stronger effect than the built-in lift. Members buy it before a weekend or a holiday, when they want to be seen now. See the Boost add-on in the marketplace.

Photo slider — turns the single profile photo into a swipeable gallery in search results. People decide from the search page instead of clicking through, which raises both attention and the value of the visibility services above. See the Photo slider add-on.

Current prices are on the pricing page and on each add-on card.

Start low. These are impulse purchases. Something a member buys without thinking earns more over a month than something they weigh up and skip.

Sell time, not the feature. A day of being featured, three days of highlighting. Short periods sell better and come back more often than long ones.

Do not switch everything on at once. A site where every step asks for money loses the members who have not paid yet — and they are the ones who make the site worth paying for.

Watch which service earns. Turn off what nobody buys instead of lowering its price: an unused service on the menu makes the paid ones look less valuable.