Why does a payment method say "not available for recurring plans" when a customer joins?

Monthly and Yearly plans renew automatically, so they need a payment gateway that supports recurring payments. Gateways that don't are still listed on the membership page but marked "not available for recurring plans".

You have a few options:

• Set up a gateway that supports recurring payments in Settings → Store Settings → Payment Gateway.
• Use Lifetime as the Billing period. That's a single payment any enabled gateway can take.
• Make the plan free (price 0) or give the membership yourself with Grant membership on the Members tab.

If no gateway can take the plan, the shopper sees a message that no payment method is set up yet.