How to Upgrade from Monthly to Annual
Moving from the $9.99 monthly plan to the $90 year saves you $30 and takes about five minutes. The order of the steps is what keeps you from paying twice, so run them top to bottom.
Three Places, One Membership
Knowing which system does what makes every step below obvious.
Stripe
Where the $90 annual payment lives. Your receipt, your renewal, and your cancel option all come from Stripe.
Patreon
Where the community content lives: private podcast, live Q&A, chats, and posts. Monthly members pay Patreon directly. Annual members turn this on with an access link instead.
Training Academy
cert.grcengclub.com, where the courses, labs, and CGE certifications live. Access is granted off your email address, not off Patreon.
Upgrading changes how you pay for Patreon. It does not change your Academy account, your progress, or your certificates.
The Upgrade, Step by Step
Four steps. Run them in this order.
Check which email you use for Patreon
Open your Patreon account settings and note the email address on it. That address is the one to use at Stripe checkout. Using a different address creates a second Academy account and splits your history across two profiles.
Buy the annual membership on Stripe
Go to grcengclub.com/annual and pay $90 for the year. Enter the same email you just confirmed. If you are buying for a team, set the quantity at checkout. Promo codes apply on the checkout page.
Cancel your $9.99 monthly membership on Patreon
Go to your Patreon membership settings for GRC Engineering Club and cancel the monthly plan. Do this before you use the access link from your welcome email. Patreon keeps your access running through the end of the month you already paid for, so you lose nothing by canceling now.
Redeem the access link in your welcome email
Your welcome email arrives within a few minutes of checkout and contains a one-year access link. Click it while signed in to the Patreon account you already use. The link is single-use and it does not expire, so if Patreon says you still have an active membership, wait until your final monthly period ends and click it again.
Cancel the monthly plan before you redeem
Redeeming the access link while your $9.99 subscription is still running leaves both charges live, so you pay monthly on top of the year you already bought. Cancel on Patreon first. Your access continues through the period you already paid for, and the link waits for you.
Open your Patreon membership settingsWhat Happens After You Pay
Two emails, two systems, both within minutes of checkout.
Training Academy access, immediately
Stripe tells the Academy you paid, and every published course is unlocked on your account within a minute. If this is your first time on cert.grcengclub.com you also get a "Set your password" email with a one-time code. If you already had an Academy account, no password email arrives and nothing changes about how you sign in.
A welcome email with your access link
Separate email, same few minutes. It carries a single-use Patreon access link that turns on the community side of your membership: the private podcast, live Q&A, chats, and posts. The link is part of what you already paid for and it never charges you again.
Slack and the community
The welcome email also carries the Slack invite. Slack is where the daily conversation happens, and it is separate from both Patreon and the Academy.
Reminders if you do not redeem
If the access link goes unused, we email a reminder on day 3, day 7, and day 14, then stop. Your Academy courses work the whole time regardless, because they do not depend on that link.
About That Access Link
The single most misunderstood part of an annual membership.
The link in your welcome email is a Patreon redeem link. It looks like a gift link because that is the mechanism Patreon gives us to hand someone a paid year without charging them again. You already paid for it at Stripe checkout.
- It is included in the $90 you already paid. Clicking it never charges you.
- It is single-use. One link covers one person for one year.
- It does not expire, so an unused link is still yours to click months later.
- Redeem it while signed in to the Patreon account you already use. A different login builds a second, empty account.
- Team buyers get one link per seat in a single email, to forward one per teammate.
- Every renewal issues a fresh link, and you redeem the new one the same way.
Buying seats for other people
Set the quantity at checkout and the whole batch of links comes to you in one email, one per seat. Forward one link per person and have each of them cancel their own monthly Patreon plan first. Teams of five or more get a lower per-seat price on the teams page.
Four Mistakes Worth Avoiding
These are the ones that actually reach our inbox.
Redeeming before canceling the monthly plan
You end up paying $9.99 a month on top of the $90 you already paid for the year. Cancel on Patreon first, then use the link.
Paying on Stripe with a different email
The Academy provisions accounts by email address. A new address gets a brand new profile, and your course progress and certificates stay on the old one.
Clicking the link under a different Google or Apple login
Patreon signs you in with whatever account your browser is already using. That creates a second Patreon profile holding your year while your real profile looks unpaid. Check which account you are signed in as before you click.
Never opening the welcome email
Academy courses unlock without it, so the missing piece is easy to overlook. If the podcast and live Q&A are not showing up on Patreon, your access link is still sitting unredeemed. Search your inbox for "GRC Engineering Club" or reply to any of our emails and we will resend it.
Questions
Asked most often mid-upgrade.
Patreon does not prorate, and the two memberships are billed on separate systems. Canceling on Patreon keeps your access through the end of the month you already paid for, so the practical cost of overlapping is zero as long as you cancel before your next charge date.
Yes. The $90 annual is a yearly Stripe subscription, so it charges once a year until you cancel. Every renewal emails you a fresh access link for the new year. Cancel any time from the receipt Stripe sent you or by replying to any Club email.
Reply to any email from hello@grcengclub.com and we will look up your purchase and reissue access. Do not buy a second annual membership to get another link.
No, as long as you check out with the same email address. Progress, enrollments, and earned certificates live on your Academy profile and carry straight across. Using a new email is what splits them.
Yes. Cancel the annual subscription in Stripe and rejoin at $9.99 a month on Patreon whenever you want. Your annual access runs through the year you paid for.
Set the quantity at checkout and you get one email with one access link per seat, which you forward one per teammate. Each teammate cancels their own monthly Patreon plan before redeeming. Teams of five or more should use grcengclub.com/teams instead, where the per-seat price drops to $80, $65, or $50.
About five minutes. Checkout is two minutes, the welcome email lands within a few minutes, canceling on Patreon is three clicks, and redeeming the link is one.
Make the Switch
Same Club, same content, $30 less a year, and one receipt to expense instead of twelve card charges.
Stuck partway through? Email us and we will finish it for you. Already signed in? Open the Academy.