# Paid group chat on Cherry: SOL entry and USDC subscriptions

> How paid group chats work on Cherry: one-time entry fees, USDC subscriptions billed on-chain, the 70/30 split as of September 2026, paywalls, and reviews.


A paid group chat on Cherry is a public group or broadcast channel that members pay to enter with their own wallet: a one-time entry fee, or a USDC subscription that renews daily, weekly, or monthly. Cherry (cherry.fun) is a wallet-to-wallet messenger and community app for crypto: you sign in with a wallet, DM any wallet address, and join or create token-gated, NFT-gated, and paid group chats, with no phone number, email, or KYC. This page is for community owners who want to charge for access, and for members deciding whether a paid room is worth joining. As of 10 September 2026 the owner receives 70% of every payment and Cherry keeps 30%.

## What a paid group chat does on Cherry

A payment rule on a group turns the join button into a checkout that settles in the member's wallet, and the rest of the room behaves like any other Cherry group.

- One-time entry: the member pays once and holds a durable receipt. Leaving and rejoining is free.
- Recurring membership: 1 to 10,000 USDC per day, week, or month, billed through the official Solana Subscriptions and Allowances program.
- Split: as of 10 September 2026, 70% of each payment goes to the owner's wallet and 30% to the Cherry treasury, in the same transaction.
- Paywall: a member whose subscription lapses keeps the room in their chat list, but the message content is withheld until they renew.
- Storefront: every paid group has a public page at `chat.cherry.fun/@<handle>` with rules, up to six "what you get" benefits, a member preview, and reviews from active members. Search engines can index it.
- Paid channels: a channel (only the owner and admins post) with a payment rule is a paid newsletter or alpha feed.
- Combination with holdings rules: a payment rule can sit next to up to four token, NFT, or domain rules, and the owner decides whether members must meet all of them or any one. See [token-gated chat](https://cherry.fun/learn/features/token-gated-chat/) and [NFT-gated chat](https://cherry.fun/learn/features/nft-gated-chat/) for the holdings side.

## How it works

Three payment modes exist, and the differences are in who signs what and when.

| Mode | Price range | Owner setup | What the member signs | Renewal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One-time SOL entry | 0.0001 to 100 SOL | Add the rule | One transfer with two legs (70% owner, 30% Cherry) | None; durable receipt |
| One-time USDC entry | 1 to 10,000 USDC | Add the rule; no plan, no fee | One USDC transfer with two legs (70% owner, 30% Cherry) | None; durable receipt |
| Recurring USDC | 1 to 10,000 USDC per day, week, or month | One signed transaction, 0.01 SOL setup fee | A one-time plan authorization; Cherry pulls each period | Automatic; paywall on a failed pull |

New paid groups created in the web app are priced in USDC. Groups that already charge a one-time SOL entry keep it.

### One-time entry, step by step

1. The member opens the storefront and taps `Join · 5 USDC` (the button shows the price).
2. Cherry checks every other rule first, so nobody pays and then fails a token check. In a group that asks for any one rule, the fee alone gets the member in.
3. The wallet shows one transaction with two transfer legs: 70% to the owner's wallet, 30% to the Cherry treasury. The payment is tied to this one join, so it cannot be reused for another room.
4. Nothing happens until the transfer confirms on-chain. On confirmation Cherry records a receipt for that wallet and room, then activates the membership.
5. If the join fails for a moment after the payment confirmed, the member can try again without paying twice, because the receipt already exists.

Receipts are permanent, which is why a one-time member who leaves, or is kicked and re-invited, walks back in for free.

### Recurring USDC, step by step

1. The owner turns on `Paid entry`, types a price, picks Daily, Weekly, or Monthly, and confirms "Activate subscription pricing". That one signed transaction pays the 0.01 SOL setup fee and creates the on-chain plan.
2. Each room, price, and period gets its own plan. Changing the price creates a new plan (and costs the setup fee again); existing subscribers keep the terms they signed up on.
3. A member taps `Subscribe · 20 USDC/month`. Their wallet may ask for one setup transaction first and then for the plan authorization itself. If the wallet already authorized this plan, the period is charged with no new signature.
4. On confirmation Cherry charges the first period, 70% to the owner's USDC account and 30% to Cherry, and the member joins.
5. Before a paid period ends, Cherry pulls the next one from the standing authorization. A successful pull renews access without a prompt. A refused pull (the member cancelled on-chain, or has too little USDC) paywalls the member.
6. The member manages the subscription from their profile: amount, interval, next charge date, and a cancel or resume action. Cancel keeps access until the paid period ends.

### What the paywall does

A paywalled member is still a member. The room keeps its place in their chat list and they see the paywall screen with `Renew` (if they ever paid) or `Subscribe` (if they were grandfathered in before the group turned paid). What they cannot do is read: message lists, pinned messages, images, and the chat-list preview stay hidden until they pay. Owners and admins are never paywalled.

## What is different from a Telegram or Discord paid group

The usual paid crypto group is a Telegram or Discord room with a payment bot in front of it, and the mechanism is where the problems live.

| Mechanism | Telegram or Discord with a payment bot | Cherry |
|---|---|---|
| Who verifies the payment | A bot, a Stripe page, or a screenshot sent to an admin | The wallet transaction, checked by Cherry before the membership activates |
| Where the owner's share lands | A bot vendor's balance, paid out on a schedule with a fee | The owner's wallet, in the same transaction as the member's payment |
| What happens on lapse | A bot removes the member when it notices the lapse | The member keeps the seat and loses the content until they renew |
| Identity | A phone number or a Discord account | The wallet that paid, which is the same wallet that holds the tokens you gate on |
| Reviews | None, or on another site | Ratings from active members on the storefront; the owner cannot rate their own group |
| Renewal | Card on file with the bot vendor | A standing USDC authorization on Solana that the member can cancel on-chain |

Towns, the closest onchain comparison, announced recurring memberships on 21 October 2025 and USDC pricing on 16 January 2026. Towns memberships are NFTs minted on Base, and every Towns account gets an embedded wallet; Cherry bills the wallet you already use, on Solana.

## Who uses it and for what

**A caller selling a signal room.** You have 400 people in a free Telegram group and a paid tier you manage by hand. On Cherry you create a public group, set 30 USDC per month, and paste the storefront link in your bio. New members see your rules, benefits, and rating before they pay. When someone's USDC runs out, Cherry paywalls them and you do nothing. Your 70% arrives in your wallet on every pull.

**A research desk running a paid channel.** You publish two or three posts a day and want no replies. Create a channel, which hides the composer for everyone but you and your admins, and add a weekly or monthly USDC price. It works like a paid newsletter whose subscribers are wallets, so a token-gated room or an [airdrop to your subscribers](https://cherry.fun/learn/features/airdrops-and-quests/) can reuse the same list. Mango Inner Circle shows the channel shape at scale: a broadcast-only room with 1,671 members and a 5-star rating from 2 reviews on 11 September 2026 (it is free to join; add a payment rule and the same room becomes a paid feed).

[Mango Inner Circle on Cherry](https://chat.cherry.fun/@mango)

**A holder room with an entry fee against spam.** Your token has 3,000 holders and the open Telegram is unusable. Gate the Cherry room on a minimum token balance and add a one-time 2 USDC entry. Bots and burner wallets pay or stay out, and every member is a wallet that provably holds. Cherry re-checks holdings in the background, so a member who sells loses access to the messages even though their entry receipt remains.

### If you are joining rather than running a paid group

Read the storefront before you pay. The rating comes only from active members of the room, with one review per wallet, and brand-new wallets cannot review at all. The price on the button is the whole price. For a subscription, your profile lists the next charge date and a cancel button; cancelling keeps access to the end of the period and then stops the pulls on-chain. If you want to reach the owner first, you can [DM their wallet address](https://cherry.fun/learn/features/dm-a-wallet-address/) before joining.

## Limits and honest caveats

- Group chats are not end-to-end encrypted. Cherry's DMs are; groups are stored so that moderation, bots, and paywalls can work. Alpha posted in a paid group is protected by the paywall, not by encryption.
- Paid groups must be public: the app blocks the private setting while a payment rule is on.
- Removing all gating from a gated group asks for explicit confirmation that names how many access requirements go away and warns that active subscriptions stop renewing, paywalled members regain access, and already-paid periods are not refunded.
- Members who joined before a group turned paid keep reading until the owner uses the "charge existing members" switch, which paywalls everyone without a valid receipt.
- A brand-new wallet can create a paid group, but it cannot post in a public group until it has a confirmed on-chain transaction, so fund the wallet before you start writing. It can always pay to join a paid group: the paid path stays open to new wallets.
- Recurring billing is USDC on Solana only, and the setup fee (0.01 SOL) is paid by the owner each time the price changes. One-time entry has no setup fee.
- A subscriber pays their own network fees, and any token-account rent, when they authorize a plan.
- The cheapest subscription cycle is daily. Prices run from 1 to 10,000 USDC, and the editor steps in whole USDC.
- The 70/30 split is Cherry's policy as of 10 September 2026, shown in the editor under the price field.

## How to start

1. Open the Cherry web app at https://chat.cherry.fun, sign in with your wallet, and choose Create group (or Create channel for a broadcast-only feed).
2. Name it and set Visibility to `Public`; the editor notes paid communities are always public.
3. In the access rules, switch on `Paid entry`. Enter a price in USDC and pick Billing: `Once`, `Daily`, `Weekly`, or `Monthly`. The editor shows the split under the field.
4. For a recurring price, confirm "Activate subscription pricing" and sign the one transaction that pays the 0.01 SOL setup fee and creates the plan. A one-time price needs no extra signature.
5. Add holdings rules if you want them (token balance, NFT collection, `.sol` or `.skr` domain) and choose whether members must meet all rules or any.
6. Fill the storefront: cover image, community rules, and up to six "what you get" lines. Claim a handle so the page lives at `chat.cherry.fun/@<yourhandle>`.
7. Share the link. Members pay from the storefront and rate the group from inside the chat.

Create a paid group at https://chat.cherry.fun: a price, a billing cadence, and one signature are the whole setup.

## FAQ

**Is Cherry a paid alpha group app?** Yes. A public group or a broadcast channel on Cherry can carry a payment rule, so members pay in USDC (or SOL for one-time entry) from their own wallet before they see the messages. As of 10 September 2026 the owner receives 70% of every payment and Cherry keeps 30%.

**How does a USDC subscription group chat work on Cherry?** The owner sets a price between 1 and 10,000 USDC per day, week, or month and activates it with one signed transaction (a 0.01 SOL setup fee). A member authorizes the plan once through the Solana Subscriptions and Allowances program; Cherry pulls each period, renews access, and paywalls the member if a pull fails.

**Can I charge a SOL entry fee for a group chat?** New paid groups created in the Cherry web app are priced in USDC, either once or as a subscription. Groups that already charge a one-time SOL entry fee (0.0001 to 100 SOL) keep it: one transaction, two legs, 70% to the owner's wallet and 30% to Cherry, and membership activates when the transfer confirms on-chain.

**What happens when a member stops paying?** They stay a member of the room but the message content is withheld until they renew. A cancelled subscription keeps access until the paid period ends. Leaving and rejoining a one-time-fee group is free because the receipt is durable.

**Can a paid group on Cherry be private?** No. A paid group must be public: its storefront page at `chat.cherry.fun/@<handle>` is where people find it, read the reviews, and pay. Remove the paid entry rule to make the group private.

**What is a paid channel on Cherry?** A channel is a broadcast-only group where only the owner and admins can post. Add a payment rule and it becomes a paid newsletter or alpha feed with the same 70/30 economics, USDC billing, and storefront.

**Do invites let people skip the paywall?** An invite from the owner or an admin is a lifetime guest pass. An invite from anyone else lands the invitee on the paywall, where they pay through the normal join flow.

## Sources

- [Mango Inner Circle on Cherry](https://chat.cherry.fun/@mango)
- [Towns](https://www.towns.com)
- [Towns docs: Space Membership](https://docs.towns.com/towns-smart-contracts/space-membership)