Overview
Use Marketing > Automations to view, edit, and create automations. The list is split into two sections:- Built-in automations - Seeded by 1club into every gym (the booking reminder and the membership-expiration reminder). You can adjust timing, channels, and entry conditions, but the step structure is fixed.
- Your automations - Custom workflows you build from scratch, plus any suggested blueprints you have accepted. Available on the Grow plan.
How an automation runs
- A trigger event happens in the system (for example, a booking is created).
- The contact is matched against the automation’s entry conditions (membership type, tags). If they don’t match, nothing happens.
- A run is created and the first step is scheduled.
- The background worker picks up scheduled steps and executes them in order.
- Each step records its outcome. Failed steps are retried up to three times before being marked failed.
Triggers
Choose one trigger per automation. Triggers are grouped by domain:Bookings
- Booking created - A member books a class or area.
- Booking cancelled - A booking is cancelled (by the member or staff).
- Booking checked in - A member checks in for their booking.
- Booking no-show - A booking is marked as no-show.
- Upcoming booking - Fires before the booking starts. Configure how far in advance (minutes, hours, or days). Used for reminders.
Memberships
- Membership created - A new membership is activated for a contact.
- Membership cancelled - A membership is cancelled.
- Membership expiring - Fires before a membership expires. Configure the advance window.
Payments
- Payment succeeded - A transaction is successfully captured.
- Payment failed - A transaction fails (card declined, insufficient funds, etc.).
Messaging and reviews
- Message received - A contact sends an inbound message.
- Review submitted - A member submits a review.
Contact lifecycle
- Contact created - A new contact is added.
- Contact birthday - Fires on the contact’s birthday.
- Tag added - A tag is added to a contact. Optionally restrict to a specific tag.
- Tag removed - A tag is removed from a contact. Optionally restrict to a specific tag.
Entry conditions
Entry conditions filter who the automation runs for after the trigger fires. Both conditions are optional and combined with AND.- Membership types - Only run for contacts whose active membership matches one of the selected plan types.
- Tags - Only run for contacts who have at least one of the selected tags.
Steps
Drag steps from the palette onto the canvas to build the workflow. Steps run in order, top to bottom, except where a Condition step branches the flow.Send message
Send an App, email, SMS, or WhatsApp notification to the contact.- Channels - Pick one or more delivery channels. App covers the notification center and an alert on the contact’s devices. Email, SMS, and WhatsApp require the corresponding integration to be configured (see Integrations).
- Content - Either write content inline (subject + body) or bind to a message template. Bound content is snapshotted when you save the automation, so later edits to the template do not change what the automation sends.
Send AI message
Generate the message content with AI at send time, using a rule and tone you provide.- Mode - Auto sends the AI-generated content directly. Draft saves it for staff review in the Messaging inbox before sending.
- Tone - Set the voice of the generated message.
Send review request
Send a post-booking review request with a one-tap link.- Instructor chat bubble - Optionally include a personal message from the instructor in a casual, professional, or motivational tone.
- Sessions between requests - Ask again only after the member attends this many sessions, counted across every club in your organization since their last request. Set it to 1 to ask after every session. Also ask after the member’s first session lets a brand new member hear from you right away instead of waiting out a full interval.
- Frequency limit - Cap how often a single contact receives review requests (for example, at most once every 30 days). This is a ceiling on top of the session interval, and a request goes out only when both allow it.
- External review CTA - After a positive in-app rating, optionally surface a Google review link.
Wait
Pause the run for a fixed duration.- Duration - Minutes, hours, or days.
- Anchor - Measure from the trigger event, the booking start, or the booking end (where applicable).
Wait until
Pause until a condition becomes true, with a timeout.- Condition - The check that, when true, lets the run continue.
- Timeout - Maximum wait before the run gives up and ends.
Condition
Branch the workflow. The condition is evaluated and the run follows the Yes path or the No path. Supported checks:- Has tag / Does not have tag
- Has active membership
- Engagement above / Engagement below - Compare the contact’s email open or click rate to a threshold.
- Booked in period - Did the contact book a class in the last N days, hours, or minutes?
Modify contact
Update the contact in place.- Add tag or Remove tag
- Update field - Set a contact field to a new value.
Notify staff
Send an App, email, or SMS notification to staff.- Recipients - By role (admin, manager, instructor, staff) or to the booking’s assigned instructor.
- Content - Subject and body, with variables for the contact and trigger event.
Blueprints: prebuilt automations
A blueprint is a prebuilt definition of a complete automation (a trigger plus a full step graph) authored by 1club. A blueprint is never executed on its own - it becomes a real automation only when it is turned into an org-owned row. There are two ways a blueprint reaches your gym: it is either auto-provisioned (seeded and locked) or suggested (offered to you, and built only when you accept it).Auto-provisioned (built-in) automations
Two blueprints are seeded into every gym at creation. They appear under Built-in automations and are locked: you cannot change their step structure, and you cannot delete them.
Both ship paused. Sending unconfigured reminders the moment a gym is created would be surprising, so they stay off until you turn them on.
For a built-in automation you can change:
- The advance window (how long before the event it fires).
- The channels used by the message step.
- The message subject and content (edit the step directly).
- The entry conditions (membership types, tags).
- The on/off state.
Suggested blueprints
Suggested blueprints are never seeded automatically. They appear as a strip of one-click cards above the automation list. Accepting one instantiates it: 1club builds a fully wired, paused, editable custom automation, stamped with the blueprint’s identity so the same suggestion won’t be offered again. A suggestion appears only when all three are true:- Your gym is on the Grow plan (custom automations require it).
- You don’t already own an automation from that blueprint (accepting is idempotent - one per gym).
- Every prerequisite the blueprint declares is satisfiable for your gym (see Prerequisites and gating).
After you accept a blueprint it lands paused in Your automations. Open it in the builder, review and tweak the copy, timing, and channels, then turn it on. Because it is a normal custom automation, you can freely add, remove, or rewire steps.
Prerequisites and gating
Each blueprint declares typed prerequisites - dependencies it needs before it makes sense. Prerequisites fall into two kinds:- Providable - 1club can create the thing for you when you accept. Today this is tags: the tag is found-or-created (scoped to your gym) as part of instantiation, so a providable prerequisite never hides a suggestion. If instantiation fails, any tag it created is rolled back.
- Gating - 1club cannot create it, so the blueprint is simply not suggested until you have it.
So a brand-new gym with no classes, no plans, and no payments connected sees only the blueprints that don’t depend on those things (for example the onboarding drip and birthday celebration); the win-back and payment-recovery blueprints appear as you set the rest of the product up.
Template catalog
The Send message step’s content picker draws from a template catalog so you don’t have to write every message inline. The catalog combines:- System templates - a curated set of 1club-authored message templates that are eligible for automations. If your gym has customized one of these templates, the picker shows your customized version.
- Custom templates - your own reusable message templates.
Building a custom automation
- Go to Marketing > Automations.
- Click Add Automation.
- Give it a name and description.
- Select a trigger and configure its options.
- Set entry conditions if you want to limit who the automation runs for.
- Add steps from the palette and configure each one in the right sidebar.
- For each Send message step, choose channels and either write content inline or select a template.
- Click Save.
Activating and pausing
New custom automations and accepted blueprints always land paused so you can review them before they touch a real member. When you’re ready, flip the toggle on the automation’s row (or save it as active from the builder) to start it. Flip it back to pause without deleting. Steps run for real once an automation is active - real emails, real SMS, real staff notifications. If you want to see how a workflow behaves before opening it to your whole audience, narrow the entry conditions to a tag that only a test contact carries, turn it on, trigger the event yourself, then widen the conditions once you’re happy.Limits and behavior
- Steps are executed by a background worker that polls every minute. Expect up to a minute of delay between when a step is scheduled and when it runs.
- A step that errors is retried up to three times (with exponential backoff) before being marked failed. Failed steps stop that branch of the run, but other branches continue.
- Completed and cancelled runs are archived after about 90 days; processed trigger events after about 30 days. Failed runs are kept indefinitely so you can investigate.
- One trigger event creates at most one run per contact per automation.
Worked examples
Membership win-back for a jiu-jitsu gym
A member cancels their unlimited plan. You want a considered follow-up, not an instant plea.- Accept the Membership win-back blueprint (or build the same shape by hand). It fires on Membership cancelled.
- Step 1 tags the contact At risk so you can also see churn on the member list.
- Step 2 is a Wait of 3 days - enough space to feel human.
- Step 3 sends an email and App notification with a reason to return (a free open-mat week, say).
- Optionally add a Condition on Has tag before the message so members who already resubscribed drop out.
Post-session review request for a padel club
You want reviews from players who actually showed up, without nagging regulars.- Accept the Review request blueprint. It fires on Booking checked in.
- The first step is a Wait anchored to booking end (2 hours after the match), so the ask arrives once they’ve left the court.
- The Send review request step is set to ask every 10 sessions, with Also ask after the member’s first session left on. A regular who plays four times a week hears from you about once a month; a player who books once a month is asked once after their first match and then not again for the better part of a year.
- The step also carries a frequency limit of one request per contact every 7 days, which caps the handful of players who train daily and would otherwise clear the 10-session interval every fortnight.
- Turn on the External review CTA so a happy in-app rating offers a Google review link.
Birthday message for a yoga studio
- Accept the Birthday celebration blueprint. It fires on Contact birthday.
- The single Send AI message step is set to Draft and a warm tone, so each greeting is personalized but a staff member approves it in the inbox before it sends.
- Prefer fully automatic? Switch the step to Auto mode once you trust the output.
No-show win-back for a spinning studio
- Accept the No-show win-back blueprint. It fires on Booking no-show.
- A Condition on Has active membership splits the run: members who missed a class get a light “we missed you, rebook anytime” nudge on the Yes path.
- Contacts with no active membership take the No path and get a stronger win-back offer instead.
Tips and best practices
- Start from a blueprint. Even if you plan to customize heavily, accepting a suggested blueprint gives you a correct trigger, timing, and step graph to edit rather than a blank canvas.
- Keep automations paused until you’ve read every step. Content is snapshotted from templates on save, so proofread inside the builder, not in the template.
- Use entry conditions to avoid overlap. If two automations react to the same trigger, scope each one with a membership type or tag so a contact doesn’t get two messages at once.
- Anchor waits deliberately. A reminder should measure from the booking start; a review request should measure from the booking end. The wrong anchor sends at the wrong moment.
- Prefer Draft mode for AI messages until you’ve seen a few generated examples for your gym’s voice.
- Pace review requests by sessions, not just by time. A time cap alone never fills up for an infrequent visitor, so they get asked after every single visit. Set Sessions between requests and keep the frequency limit as the ceiling.
- Notify staff, don’t just message members, on high-stakes triggers like failed payments - the sooner a human follows up, the more you recover.
Troubleshooting
Related
- Marketing overview - How automations fit alongside promotions, pipeline, and the rest of the Marketing hub.
- Messaging templates - Reusable content you can bind to Send message steps.
- Messaging overview - Inbox, AI drafts, and one-off sends.
- Member list - Tags and segments used in entry conditions and Modify contact steps.
- Analytics: marketing - Automation run history and cross-feature performance.
- Integrations - Configure email and SMS providers before using those channels.