Make members verify their phone or email

At sign-up, members verify only what they sign in with. Their other contact (the phone of a member who signs in with email, or the email of one who signs in with phone) is saved as they typed it, unchecked. Turn on verification, and members must prove that contact too before they can enrol, order or pay.

In this video · 2:17

1. 0:00Two contacts
2. 0:38Turn it on
3. 1:00What members see
4. 1:25Verify by SMS
5. 1:47All set

Read the narration

1. 0:05At sign-up, members verify only what they sign in with. You can have their other contact checked too.
2. 0:13Open Settings, General, the Members tab, then Configure student onboarding.
3. 0:22When members sign up with email, the setting at the bottom is Phone verification.
4. 0:28If they sign up with phone instead, it becomes Email verification, and works the same way.
5. 0:35This academy signs members up with email, so back to Email.
6. 0:40Set Phone verification to Required.
7. 0:43Each code is one SMS from your SMS balance. If it runs out, members cannot get a code and stay blocked, so keep it topped up.
8. 0:53Click Save changes.
9. 0:56The summary shows it is on, with your SMS balance beside it.
10. 1:03Now meet Nusrat. She joined with her email and typed a phone number, but never verified it.
11. 1:10Across the site, a notice asks her to verify her phone number.
12. 1:15Until she does, she cannot enrol, order or pay. At checkout, Pay now stays off.
13. 1:25Verify takes her to her account…
14. 1:28…where the number is marked Not verified.
15. 1:31She clicks Verify, then Send code, and LessonQ texts a code to that number.
16. 1:38She types the code and clicks Verify.
17. 1:43The number is verified, and the notice is gone.
18. 1:47Back at checkout, Pay now is open.
19. 1:59A member who never gave a phone number is not asked. To have everyone verified, also set the phone number to Required.
20. 2:08The written guide covers every case.

Which setting you’ll see

There’s always just one, for the contact members don’t sign in with:

How members sign up	Setting shown	Code sent by
Email	Phone verification	SMS, from your SMS balance
Phone number	Email verification	Email, from your email balance

Both work the same way. The examples below use phone verification.

Turn it on

1. Open Settings → General → Members → Configure student onboarding.
2. Scroll to Phone verification (or Email verification) at the bottom.
3. Set it to Required.
4. Read the SMS warning and check your balance.
5. Click Save changes.

1. Not required (the default) or Required.

When members sign up with phone, the same place shows Email verification:

The Members tab then shows it as Required, with your SMS balance beside it (in a phone sign-up academy: Email verification, with your email balance):

1. Your current SMS balance (or email balance). It turns red at zero, when no member can get a code.

Who has to verify

Member	What happens
Holds an unverified phone number	Must verify it before enrolling, ordering or paying.
Phone already verified	Nothing changes.
No phone number on their account	Not asked. Nothing to verify.
A phone number SMS can’t reach	Blocked, and asked to change the number.

This covers every role (students, instructors and admins who hold a phone) and members who joined before you turned it on. It applies to signed-in members only: if you allow guest checkout, a visitor buying without an account isn’t asked.

Want every member verified?

Members with no phone aren’t asked. To make sure everyone has a verified phone, also set the Phone number field to Required under Sign-up fields. New members then always give a number, and must verify it before buying.

What a member sees

A notice across the site

Until they verify, a notice sits at the top of every page, on your website and in their dashboard.

1. Verify opens their account, where they verify the number.

They can close the notice; it comes back on the next page load until the number is verified. Everything else keeps working: they can sign in, open the courses they already have, and use Q&A.

Checkout is blocked

In checkout, Pay now stays greyed out, with a note telling them why. This applies to courses, products and bundles, free ones included.

1. Why they can’t continue, with a Verify link.
2. Pay now stays off until the number is verified.

How a member verifies

1. Click Verify on the notice, or open Account in the dashboard.
2. Beside the number, which shows Not verified, click Verify.
3. In Edit profile, click Send code. LessonQ texts a 6-digit code to the number.
4. Type the code and click Verify.

1. The email they sign in with: always verified.
2. The phone: Not verified.
3. Verify starts the check.

1. The code from the SMS.
2. Verify. Resend code works again after a minute; Use a different number lets them change it first.

The number shows Verified, the notice disappears, and checkout opens.

Note

A member can ask for up to 5 verification codes in 24 hours, one a minute. The code lasts 5 minutes and allows 3 tries.

Numbers SMS can’t reach

A member whose number can’t receive our SMS can’t get a code. So with verification Required they’re blocked, and a notice, Use a phone number that can receive SMS, asks them to change the number instead.

They click Change number, put in a number that can receive SMS, and verify that one. A member with no phone at all isn’t blocked.

Turning it off

Set it back to Not required and save. Nobody is blocked any more, the notice disappears, and the account page no longer offers verification. Numbers that were verified stay verified.

What if…

A member says the code never arrives. Check your SMS balance first: at zero, no code is sent and the member is told SMS service is off. Then check the number is typed correctly. After 5 codes they see Too many verification codes requested today and must wait until 24 hours after their first code.

A member changed their number after verifying. A new number is only saved after they type the code sent to it, so it’s verified the moment it’s saved.

I turned on verification and my old members are blocked too. Yes: it applies to everyone who holds an unverified number, whenever they joined. They verify once, from their account.

I need members to verify their phone at sign-up itself. Make the phone what they sign in with: set How members sign up to Phone number. See Sign up by email or by phone.