Somewhere in your office is a folder, a spreadsheet, or a stack of sticky notes that answers the question "who has paid?" Membership dues come in by check. The festival sponsor needs an invoice. The farmers market vendor wants to Venmo you for a booth. Each one is a separate email thread, and the money lands in three different places.

Here is how to put memberships, sponsorships, and vendor fees on one checkout page, send the link, and watch the "who has paid" list fill itself in. The whole walkthrough is seven minutes on video if you would rather watch.

How Main Street Organizations Price Memberships and Sponsorships

Before you build anything, it helps to know what peers are charging. We looked at published packages from chambers and Main Street programs around the country, and a few patterns show up again and again:

• Three or four membership levels with benefits that grow at each step. Bondurant, Iowa, runs Regular, Silver, Gold, and Premier, and the number of social posts a member gets rises with each tier. Haines, Alaska, keeps a small-business tier for shops with a few employees and a higher partner tier for banks and anchor institutions.
• A "Friends of Downtown" tier for people who are not businesses. Gainesville, Georgia, sells a Friend level at $50, a Business level at $100, and a Heritage level at $250, and Waterloo, Iowa, runs a $100 challenge each year. These bring in residents who love downtown and would never fill out a business application.
• Event sponsorships sold in tiers. Pilot Point, Texas, publishes a top event tier that includes a booth and a dedicated social post, and lower tiers that get a name listing. Canton, Illinois, bundles membership with sponsorship of one event for a single price.
• Vendor fees collected per booth, per date, or per season. Most markets we found still send vendors to a PayPal link or ask for a mailed check after approval.

The common thread is that the packages themselves are simple. The hard part has always been the collecting, and the part after collecting: proving to the sponsor or member that it was worth it.

What a Sponsor Actually Wants to Buy

Debbie Combs runs community events for the Forsyth Humane Society in Winston-Salem. Her Paw Crawl is an eight-month series of brewery visits, one host per month, with the breweries as sponsors. For years she reassured them with anecdotes. In 2025 she ran it as a digital passport and the conversation changed. "Being able to show the bars tangible results has been one of the most valuable things," she told us. "They can actually see how many people came in, when they checked in, and even whether they were new customers." JuggHeads Brewing alone logged 46 check-ins. When she goes back to those breweries for 2026, she is selling a sponsorship with a number attached.

PropTalk Magazine, which covers boating on the Chesapeake Bay, built its summer See the Bay Challenge the same way. Supporter locations are worth more points than regular stops, and a handful of bonus locations are worth five. That turns a sponsorship from a logo in the magazine into a reason for paying customers to walk through the door. A boater who would have passed Cantler's makes it a dedicated stop because it is worth five points. PropTalk is no longer selling ad space to its sponsors. It is delivering documented visits.

Kickin' It In Cameron, a community group in Cameron, Missouri, does a version of this for chamber members. Member and sponsor locations earn passport participants 10 points per visit. Non-members earn 5. It costs the chamber nothing and it is a membership benefit you can explain in one sentence.

Notice where those benefits come from. Debbie's check-in counts, PropTalk's bonus-point stops, and Cameron's member multiplier are all things the passport in Proxi produces on its own. That is the reason to sell sponsorships from inside Proxi instead of from a PDF and an invoice. The passport that generates the benefit, the sponsor who paid for it, the check-in data that proves it, and the email you send them afterward all live in one place. Y You are selling "featured stop on the holiday passport, worth double points," and the report at the end shows exactly what the sponsor got.

And whether it is a membership, a sponsorship, or a vendor fee, the money goes straight to your bank account through Stripe. One checkout, one roster, one deposit.

Step 1: Pick a Package Template

In your Proxi dashboard, go to Earn, then Sponsorships and Memberships, and click Create New. You can start from scratch, but the templates are faster. There is a membership template with Storefront, Partner, and Anchor levels, a newsletter sponsor template sold by issue (November, December, January), and a Farmers Market Vendors template with booths broken out by date.

Other templates waiting in there: Festival Sponsors, Street Fair Booths, Passport Stop Sponsors, Holiday Booths, Holiday Light and Window Sponsors, and Friends of Downtown.

Step 2: Set Your Levels, Prices, and Billing Terms

Click Edit on any level to change its name, description, price, and billing term. Billing can be monthly, yearly, or one time, so the same tool handles a $25 a month storefront membership, a $1,000 annual anchor membership, and a $150 one-time booth fee.

Each level carries a list of benefits with a quantity. That is where "4 social media posts per year" or "logo on the printed map" lives, and it is what the member sees before they check out. You can also customize the signup page so it matches your branding. If you are building event sponsorship tiers specifically, our sponsorship packages guide goes deeper on what to put in each tier and how to price them.

When it looks right, click Publish.

Step 3: Invite Businesses (or Just Share the Link)

After publishing, click Invite and search your listings. Pick any business in your directory, let them choose a level or choose one for them, and either email the link directly or copy it to paste into your own message. The confirmation shows you the link too, in case you need it later.

If you would rather run an open campaign, grab the link and put it in your newsletter, on your website, or on a QR code at the next merchant meeting.

Step 4: They Check Out, You See Who Paid

When a business opens the link, they see your workspace name, the business they are joining as, and the levels you offered. They pay with a card or Apple Pay, get a thank you screen, and you get the same confirmation on your side. The money goes straight to your bank account through Stripe. No invoice to send, no check to deposit, no waiting on a treasurer.

From there your dashboard shows every member and their level. You can manage their benefits, resend a receipt, open their listing, or cancel the membership. Under Listings, each business carries a label showing it is a member and at what level, so your directory and your membership roster are the same thing.

Step 5: Message Only Your Members

Because members are labeled in your listings, you can go to Newsletter and Messaging and send an email or text to members only. Renewal reminders, a members-only mixer, a heads-up that holiday booth sales open Monday. No exporting a list and hoping it is current.

Businesses see it too. When a business owner logs into their profile, their active memberships and vendor fees sit at the bottom of the page, alongside any other packages you currently have open. That last part matters: a storefront member who logs in to update their hours will see the Holiday Window Sponsor package sitting right there.

How to Set Up Membership Fees, Sponsorships, and Vendor Fees for Your Type of Organization

Every package below is a one-time, monthly, or yearly level in the same tool. Pick your organization and start with the ones you already collect by check.

How to set up membership fees for a Main Street or downtown organization

• Business membership with Storefront, Partner, and Anchor levels, billed yearly.
• Friends of Downtown for residents and fans at $50 to $100 a year.
• Nonprofit and individual member tiers at a lower rate.
• Monthly merchant membership for shops that prefer a small recurring charge over one annual bill.

How to set up membership dues for a chamber of commerce

• Tiered dues (Regular, Silver, Gold, Premier) with benefits that grow at each level.
• Dues by employee count, set up as separate levels for 1 to 5, 6 to 20, and 21 plus employees.
• Associate, nonprofit, and individual memberships for members outside the business category.
• Enhanced directory listing as a yearly add-on for a featured spot on the map.

How to set up partner fees for a DMO or tourism office

• Tourism partner membership for lodging, attractions, and restaurants.
• Featured listing fees in the visitor guide and on the destination map.
• Co-op marketing buys sold as one-time packages per campaign.
• Trail and itinerary sponsors for a wine trail, ale trail, or scenic drive.

How to set up sponsorships for a downtown festival or street fair

• Presenting, stage, and kids zone sponsors in tiers from a few hundred dollars up.
• Passport stop sponsors for a restaurant week, sip and stroll, or holiday passport.
• Parade entry fees and car show registration as one-time payments.

How to set up sponsorships for streetscape and beautification

• Hanging flower basket and planter sponsors, renewed every spring.
• Lamppost banner sponsors and holiday light and window display sponsors.
• Bench, bike rack, and public art sponsors as one-time gifts with a plaque.

How to set up sponsorships for chamber events

• Annual gala or awards dinner table sponsors.
• Golf tournament hole sponsors and foursomes.
• Luncheon, after hours mixer, and ribbon cutting host sponsors.
• Leadership program and young professionals sponsors.

How to set up newsletter and map sponsorships

• Newsletter sponsor by issue (November, December, January) for your email list.
• Printed map and visitor guide ad placements sold yearly.
• Best Of contest sponsors for a voting event.

How to set up vendor fees for a farmers market

• Daily booth fee with one level per market date.
• Seasonal vendor fee billed once, with a discount over paying by the day.
• Application fee collected up front, then the booth fee after approval.

How to set up vendor fees for a holiday market, craft fair, or food truck rally

• Holiday market booths by size or location (indoor, outdoor, corner).
• Craft fair and maker market tables with an early bird level.
• Food truck and pour partner fees for a truck rally, sip and stroll, or beer fest.
• Artist fees for an art walk or studio tour.

How to set up booth fees for a business expo or job fair

• Expo and trade show booths with a member and non-member price.
• Job fair employer tables as a one-time fee.
• Conference exhibitor packages that pair a booth with a passport stop.

How to set up memberships and sponsors for a local publication or media company

• Reader membership or supporter tiers, monthly or yearly.
• Business directory listing fees for the publication's local guide.
• Event and contest sponsors for the festivals and Best Of votes you run.

What to Set Up First

If you are starting from nothing, build the Friends of Downtown package. It is the easiest yes, it reaches residents as well as businesses, and the $50 to $100 entry point is what most programs we looked at use. Then add your business membership levels, then your next event's sponsorship tiers.

And if there is a package you wish existed as a template, tell us. We built the current list from what customers asked for, and the next one can come from you.