Membership tag not granting course access

Diagnose tag-based access

1. Confirm the course is Paid

Open the course in Alva Courses, go to Settings, and check Pricing. Membership tags have no effect on Free or Free-with-account courses — those are already open to any signed-in customer, tag or not.

2. Check the customer actually has the tag

Open Members in Alva Courses, find the customer, and look at their Tags section — it shows the live tags on their Shopify profile. If the tag you expect is missing, the problem is upstream in your subscription app, not in Alva Courses.

3. Compare the tag spelling exactly

Open the course's Settings and check the tags listed under Membership Tags. Matching ignores upper and lower case, but extra spaces or a different word entirely (for example Active_Subscriber instead of Active-Subscriber) will not match.

4. Confirm your subscription app is actually applying the tag

Alva Courses never adds membership tags itself — a subscription app applies and removes them based on billing status. Check that app's active-tag setting is turned on, and that this specific customer's subscription is genuinely active rather than paused, trialling or cancelled.

5. Have the customer reopen the course

Tags are checked the moment an unenrolled customer opens the course, not continuously in the background. Ask the customer to reload the course link, or sign out and back in, once the tag is confirmed present.

6. Rule out an existing enrolment

If the customer previously purchased the course directly, that purchase-based enrolment grants access regardless of tags, and removing or changing a tag will not revoke it. Check Members to see whether they already have an active enrolment before assuming this is a tag problem.