What Does It Take to Run a Space?
You've read what Commonspace is and decided it's the right fit. Before you start clicking, this page gives you a map of what's ahead — the setup sequence, the decisions you'll make along the way, and what the experience looks like for your Members once you're live.
In this article
How setup works
Setting up a Space follows a natural sequence. You don't have to do everything at once, but this is the order that makes sense:
1. Create your Commonspace Account. You need an account before you can create a Space. This takes a minute — email, password, and a username for your profile.
2. Create your Space. Give your Space a name and a handle. This is the foundation everything else is built on.
3. Set up Memberships, Items, and Benefits. Decide what you're offering and at what price. Attach Benefits to your products — content access, digital downloads, physical redemptions. This is the core of what Members get when they join.
4. Publish your first content. Before you invite anyone, have something waiting for them. Publish an Update Post — even a brief welcome message sets the tone and gives new Members something to land on.
5. Configure your branding. Upload your logo, set your colors, and connect your custom domain if you're on the Pro plan. Your Space should look like yours — not a generic page on someone else's platform.
6. Go live. When your Space is ready, you'll publish it so it can accept Members.
7. Invite your audience to join. Share your Space link with your existing audience — through your newsletter, social accounts, wherever your people already are. They click, they join, they're in.
Decisions you'll need to make
These are the questions worth thinking through before you start.
Which plan?
Basic is free and supports up to 100 Monthly Active Members. Pro is $29/month and supports up to 3,000, with a lower commission rate, a custom domain, and advanced branding options. Additional Members beyond your plan's included amount cost $0.01/member on either plan.
If you're just getting started or want to test the setup before committing, Basic is a reasonable place to begin. You can upgrade any time. For a full comparison, see Choosing a Plan.
What should your Membership structure look like?
Some Space Owners keep it simple — one free tier and one paid tier. Others build out multiple Membership levels with different price points and Benefits. There's no right answer, but simpler is usually better to start. You can always add tiers later.
You can also offer a free join option with no Membership required, giving people access to your Space at no cost while keeping premium content or Benefits behind a paid Membership.
What Benefits will you offer?
A Benefit is what a Member actually gets when they buy a Membership or Item. Commonspace supports three types:
- Access — unlocks specific content within your Space
- Download — delivers a digital file to the Member
- Redemption — a claimable Benefit you fulfill (a physical good, a service, event access, etc.)
Think about what your audience values and what you can realistically deliver. You don't need all three types — start with what fits your use case.
Will you use Channels?
Channels are discussion areas within your Space. They're optional.
If you want Members to be able to talk to each other (or to you), add a Channel or two. You can gate Channels to specific Membership tiers, or open them to all Members.
What your Members will experience
When your audience become Members of your Space, they can browse your content, access whatever Benefits their Membership includes, and participate in any Channels you've set up.
They also get a Dashboard Feed — a single view showing posts from your Space and every profile they follow. It's chronological, with no algorithm deciding what surfaces. Your posts reach them directly.
From your Members' perspective, joining is low-friction. The main thing to know as a Space Owner: their experience is only as good as what you've built for them to land on. A Space with published content, clear Memberships, and visible Benefits will give Members more to engage with.
When you're ready
When you're ready to start building, the Run Your Space section walks through each part of setup in detail.