---
title: Managing members and expiry
description: Roles, bans and the member cap, how access expires and members are removed, letting former members rejoin, and handing out free access with invite codes.
---

Once people are in, most of the day-to-day runs itself: Insy tracks who has paid, reminds people
before they lapse, and removes them from the group when access ends. This page covers the controls
you have and the automatic behaviour behind them.

## Roles

Every membership carries a role, from lowest to highest reach:

- **Member** — a regular paying member.
- **Moderator** — a helper role.
- **Admin** — can manage the community.
- **Owner** — you, the creator. Created automatically when you make the community.

Managing the community — editing it, changing plans, connecting Telegram, banning people — is
available to the **owner and admins** only. Members and moderators can't reach those controls.

> **These are your community's roles, not platform staff**
>
> There's a separate, platform-wide admin area (anything under `/admin`) that belongs to **Insy staff
> only**. Being an owner does not give you access to it — everything you manage lives on your own
> community's screens.

## Banning and removing members

You can **ban** a member: it asks for a reason, removes the person from the Telegram group, and
stops them coming back — even if they still hold a link. Insy remembers the ban against their
account and Telegram identity, so re-entry stays blocked. You can **unban** later to reverse it.

Removing someone (a kick) takes them out of the group but isn't a ban — a kicked member with active
access could rejoin. Use a ban to keep them out for good.

## The member cap

A community can have a **member limit** — a maximum number of active members. At the cap, new buyers
are turned away at checkout until a spot frees up. Leave it unset for no cap.

> **Member cap versus community limits**
>
> Don't confuse the member cap with the setting labelled **community limits** — that one is about your
> **SMS allowance**, not how many members you can have. The member cap is the number described here.

One catch, repeated from [Create your paid community](/communities/create): you can't change the
member limit while a limited drop (a fixed number of spots) is running. Finish or cancel the drop
first.

## How access expires and members leave

The automatic part. Insy checks memberships continuously in the background:

- **As access nears its end**, members whose access doesn't renew on its own (anyone paying by BLIK
  or crypto, or on a one-time monthly plan) get reminders during the final stretch — nudging them to
  pay for the next period. Each member is reminded as the days count down, not spammed.
- **When access lapses**, the membership is marked inactive and the member is automatically
  **removed from the Telegram group**. They keep their account; they just lose access until they buy
  again.
- **Card subscriptions are the exception.** A member paying by card on a monthly plan keeps access
  as long as the card subscription is live, even past the nominal date, because it renews itself.
  They're only removed if the subscription genuinely ends (e.g. repeated failed payments). See
  [Pricing plans and how members pay](/communities/pricing) for why card, BLIK and crypto differ.

> **Lifetime members never expire**
>
> Someone on a lifetime plan has no end date, gets no expiry reminders, and is never removed for
> lapsing. The only way they leave is if you ban or remove them.

## Letting former members rejoin

By default, once someone has been a member, Insy treats them as a known past member. There's a
setting — **allow past members to rejoin** — that lets a former member buy in again rather than being
treated as blocked. Turn it on to let lapsed members return on their own; leave it off if a
departure should be final unless you invite them back.

## Giving free or comped access with invite codes

To let someone in without a payment — an affiliate, a guest expert, a friend, a refunded customer —
use **invite codes**. You generate a code and choose:

- **How long the access lasts** — a number of days, after which it expires like any membership (or
  leave it open-ended).
- **What role** the person gets on redeeming — member, moderator, and so on.
- **When the code itself stops working** — an optional expiry on the code, separate from the
  membership length.
- Optionally, **who it's for** — tie it to a specific email so only they can use it.

When they redeem it, they get a free membership and join the Telegram group exactly like a paying
member — the bot lets them in the same way. A comped membership with a duration still expires on
schedule, with the usual reminders and removal.

> **Invite codes are per community**
>
> The codes you create belong to your community and are managed from its screens. The platform-wide
> list of every code across all communities is a staff tool — you only see and control your own.