Hi there @david-279, thanks for the detailed question! A sports club with single, couples, and family options is exactly the kind of use case ProfileSwitch is designed for.
Some background that makes the rest make sense: in ProfileSwitch, each family member profile is a real WordPress user account linked under the primary account. Because of that, extra data per member (membership number, date of birth, phone) is stored as standard WordPress user data, and each member can optionally have their own email.
On your specific points:
Only storing the payer’s email: That’s the default behavior in both the free and paid versions. When a profile is created, ProfileSwitch auto-generates an email alias from the primary account’s address (e.g. parent+ellie@example.com), so no separate email is needed and everything routes to the paying member’s inbox. The paid version has an optional “custom credentials” setting that lets individual profiles have their own real email address and password, which would cover your emergency contact case for members who want it.
Membership number and DOB per member: The paid version already does this with BuddyPress and BuddyBoss. If you have custom profile fields set up there (date of birth, phone, etc.), they appear right on the Add Profile and Edit Profile forms and get saved per member automatically. If you’re using a different plugin for custom user fields, let me know which one. I’m actively adding integrations like this, so there’s a good chance I can add support for whatever fields system you’re already using. For membership numbers, those could be generated automatically when a profile is created rather than typed in.
Single / couples / family tiers: If you run memberships through Paid Memberships Pro, the paid version lets you set a different max profile count per membership level, so a family level could allow more profiles than a single or couples level. Which membership plugin are you using for the club?
Happy to answer any other questions here. If you go with the paid version, you can also reach out through profileswitch.com and I can work through the details of your setup with you there.
So it doesn’t matter which form builder I use? e,g Elementor Pro or Gravity Forms, I can set the fields up to process through your App ?
Currently using Woocommerce for payment as it can handle Multiple payment Methods and Currencies including the QR code system that Switzerland uses, and where some of our Members are based ( Oh Joy!)
Currently not actually looking at using a Membership Plugin per se, the idea is initially to Simply let new members sign up, and to keep them informed of what the club is doing, later we ideally want to be able to have certain things only available to club members, which is easy enough to do by setting new members as subscribers and restricting page visibility for those items to logged in members only ( That I can do !)
By using Gravity Forms I’d have an easy method of allowing our activity organisers to confirm people were active members
The Clubis over 100 years old now and I’ve been trying for the last ten years to persuade the powers that be to use online signups
PS Sorry for the delay in response, had to get a new laptop as old one was dying
Thanks for the details, and no worries on the delay!
On the forms: There are two ways to do this, and I’m happy to help with either.
Option 1 works today: the paying member creates their family’s profiles in ProfileSwitch, then switches into each profile and fills out your form once per member. Gravity Forms can save the fields (date of birth, phone, etc.) to whichever member is logged in using its User Registration add-on, so each member’s details land on their own account. Elementor Pro’s forms can’t update user profiles on their own, so Gravity Forms is the better fit here.
Option 2 is something I’d build with you on the paid version: your fields added directly into ProfileSwitch’s add and edit profile screens, so details are captured right when each profile is created. Option 1 gets you running immediately; option 2 is smoother for your members.
On payment and access: Your setup sounds like it will handle this neatly. WooCommerce stays exactly as-is for payment (ProfileSwitch doesn’t touch checkout, so your multi-currency and QR-bill setup is unaffected), and one family member pays as you planned. Every family member gets their own login under that account, so however you end up restricting member-only content, whether that’s logged-in-only or something more specific later, each family member qualifies individually rather than sharing one login. If down the line you need logic to “share” the primary profile’s membership access with sub-profiles, that’s something that we can look into as well.
If you decide to move forward with this, please feel free to reach out through the contact form on profileswitch.com and we can work through the details of your setup there. Happy to answer anything else here in the meantime!
