Some things you sell belong to one member — a child's season of classes, a pet's grooming pack. Others belong to the whole account — a family registration fee, a household membership. Purchase rules tell Bizzly which is which, so buyers are only asked "who is this for?" when the answer matters, and nobody is charged a once-only fee twice.
Where to Find This
Navigate to Services → Bookings → Booking Management → Overview sub-tab, open Quick actions and choose View products & prices. Each product card carries its purchase rules just under the product name.
The same Who is this purchase for? and How many times can it be bought? controls also appear on each plan's heading inside a service's Pricing & access section, so you can set them without leaving the screen you're on. (The joining-fee control is only on the products screen.)
These settings belong to the product, not to one price or one service — so changing them changes the rule everywhere that product is sold. They save the moment you change them: a small Saving… then Saved appears beside the control, with no Save button to press. Only an admin can change them; with view-only access the controls are disabled and read "Only an admin can change this."
Who Is This Purchase For?
The dropdown offers two choices, worded to match the kind of customer your site is set up for — a kids' club sees Each child / The whole family, a tutoring business Each student / The whole family, pet care Each pet / The whole household, and vehicle services Each vehicle / The whole account. The two options behave like this:
- 1
Each [member] — the default
The purchase is recorded against one member and the entitlement is theirs. At the checkout the buyer is asked "Who is this for?" and picks from their children / pets / vehicles (or adds a new one there and then) before paying or adding to the basket. Basket lines then read "For Ella", and the sessions or credits belong to that member alone.
- 2
The whole [family / household / account]
The purchase belongs to the account, so the buyer is not asked who it's for — it goes straight to payment, or straight into the basket marked Once per family. This is the setting for a registration fee, a joining fee or a family membership.
An account-level purchase is once per account by definition, so No limit can't be chosen for it — the limit dropdown flips to Once if it was on No limit. Once the customer has paid it, the product's card on your site reads Already paid — once per family and can't be clicked again.
Only an explicit The whole … setting exempts a product from the question. Anything else — including a product Bizzly can't read a rule for — is treated as belonging to one member, on purpose: an entitlement recorded against the account can never afterwards be applied to a particular child.
If your site doesn't book on behalf of anyone (no children, pets or vehicles are recorded), buyers are never asked the question whichever setting you choose.
How Many Times Can It Be Bought?
(A Standard/Pro feature. On the base plan this dropdown is disabled and reads "Purchase limits are available on the Standard plan." — the "who is this for?" setting above still works on every plan.)
The second dropdown caps how often the same thing can be bought:
- No limit — the default for a per-member product. Buy it as often as you like.
- Once — a single purchase, ever.
- A set number of times… — type the number in the box that appears beside it.
Whenever a limit is set, a second dropdown asks over what period:
- With no time limit — the cap is for good.
- Within a rolling window of… — enter a number and choose Days, Weeks, Months or Years. Only purchases inside that look-back period count, so an older purchase stops standing in the way. The window moves with the calendar rather than resetting everyone on a fixed date.
The cap counts per member when the product names one, and across the whole account when it belongs to the account. A full refund frees the allowance again; partial refunds and expired credits still count as bought.
Where several products share one allowance, a line under the controls says so — for example "Shared allowance across 3 products — changes apply to all of them."
What your customers see when the allowance is used up
- A per-member limit — that member's chip in the "Who is this for?" chooser is greyed out and reads — already used, so a parent can still buy for a different child. If every member has used theirs, the card stays visible but can't be clicked.
- An account limit — the card reads Already paid — once per family.
- At checkout, a basket that breaks the rule is refused with a plain sentence rather than a silent failure — for example "That's a once-per-family item — it's already in your basket.", "You've already paid this — there's nothing more to pay.", or "This has already been bought for this member — there's nothing more to buy." Nothing is charged.
This is how you sell a paid taster once per child: set Who is this purchase for? to Each child and How many times can it be bought? to Once. For a free first session, use the Free trial sessions setting on the service instead — see Creating Bookable Services.
Joining Fee on First Purchase?
This third control only appears once your catalogue actually contains an account-level fee product, and never on that fee product itself. It decides whether buying this product makes a family a joiner:
- Added automatically (the default) — a new customer picks up the once-per-family joining fee alongside this purchase. In the basket it's a clearly labelled, removable line; on a purchase made straight from a card or booking window it's a second line on the payment page.
- Not with this product — buying this doesn't trigger the fee. Tasters and trials usually sit here, so someone trying a class isn't charged to join. The fee still arrives with their first ordinary purchase.
"Taster" here means whatever you mark that way — there's no special product name. The setting is available on every plan, and applies wherever that product is sold: your website basket, a purchase made straight from a card, an enrolment, and an assisted checkout you compose.
The full behaviour is described in Account Fees: Joining and Registration Charges and How the Basket and Checkout Work.
Still in the setup wizard? The same controls appear there, and your choices are staged with the rest of your draft — they're applied when your products are created at the end of setup.
Tips
- Fees and memberships go to the account; everything a person attends goes to the member. That one line covers almost every catalogue.
- Set the rule before you launch. Changing it later doesn't rewrite purchases already made.
- Check the wording your buyers see by opening your own storefront card — the question, the chips and the "already paid" states are all driven by these two settings.
Related Articles
- Account Fees: Joining and Registration Charges - The once-per-account fee, and every route it reaches customers by
- How the Basket and Checkout Work - The shared basket, and the joining fee that adds itself
- Managing Your Products and Prices - The products screen these rules live on
- Plans & Booking Quotas - What a purchase books, and per-plan allowances
- Account Profiles - Recording the children, pets or vehicles a purchase can name