> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://guides.paynow.gg/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://guides.paynow.gg/content/tier-groups.md).

# Tier Groups

Tier Groups let you group related products into a ranked ladder — for example, Bronze / Silver / Gold, or VIP / Elite / Premium — so customers who already own a lower tier only pay the difference when they upgrade. It works for both subscriptions and one-time purchases, across all game types including Minecraft, and is available on every plan, Free and up.

Create a tier group, assign your products to it, and the upgrade and downgrade logic handles itself. No separate upgrade products, no manual math.

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### How It Works

When a customer already owns a product from a tier group and tries to buy a higher-tier product from the same group, PayNow treats it as an upgrade rather than a brand-new purchase. The customer is only charged the difference between what they already own and the tier they're moving to.

The same logic applies in reverse for downgrades — the customer's existing access stays in place and the move to the lower tier is handled cleanly.

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### Subscriptions

For subscription products in a tier group:

* **Upgrades are applied immediately.** The customer is charged the prorated difference for the remainder of the current billing period and gets the new tier right away.
* **Downgrades are scheduled for the next renewal.** The customer keeps their current tier until the renewal date, then drops to the lower tier.
* **Pending tier changes are visible to the customer** on the storefront, so they can see when a scheduled downgrade will take effect.

### One-Time Purchases

For one-time products in a tier group:

* **Pricing is cumulative.** If a customer has already purchased Bronze and wants Gold, they only pay the difference between the two prices.
* **No separate upgrade products needed.** You don't have to create Bronze-to-Gold, Silver-to-Gold, etc. as their own products — the tier group handles the math based on what the customer already owns.

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### Tier Order

The order of tiers inside a group comes from the order your products appear on the **Products** page. The first product listed is the lowest tier; the last is the highest.

To change the tier ladder, reorder the products on the Products page — the tier group uses that same order.

{% hint style="info" %}
Because tier order follows the Products page, price is not what determines rank. If you want VIP → Elite → Premium as the ladder, make sure that's the order they appear in on the Products page, regardless of how they're priced.
{% endhint %}

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### Creating A Tier Group

Tier Groups are managed from [**Content → Tier Groups**](https://dashboard.paynow.gg/tier-groups):

1. Click **Create** in the top right of the Tier Groups page.
2. Enter a **Name** for the group. This is for your reference and can be anything recognizable (e.g. "Ranks").
3. Click **Create**.

The new tier group will appear in the list. It starts empty — products are assigned from each product's edit page, not from the tier group itself.

### Assigning Products To A Tier Group

Open the product you want to add to the group, then in the right sidebar look for the **Tier Group** section ("Used for cumulative pricing and subscription upgrades/downgrades"). Select the tier group from the dropdown and save the product.

Repeat for every product that should belong to the tier ladder. Products can belong to one tier group at a time.

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### Email Verification

Stores where customers sign in with just a username or IGN (no Steam login) require email verification before a tier change goes through. This stops someone who only knows a player's name from interfering with their subscription or upgrades.

Stores using Steam login skip this step — the identity is already verified through Steam.

You don't need to configure this; PayNow applies it automatically based on how customers authenticate on your store.

***

### Storefront Support

If you're running a **custom storefront** or headless integration, you'll need to implement the upgrade and downgrade flows yourself using the Storefront API. See the [Tier Groups API reference](https://docs.paynow.gg/storefront-headless/storefront-api/tier-groups) for the endpoints and expected behavior.