membership levels

Is there a way I can put the different payments on the sign up page so they can pay immediately instead of having to sign up then go to my memberships and upgrade their account?

 sure, 

though you are opening the door to a managers nightmare. 

ok you can create a custom page on dolphin

create your different packages that you want to sale. go to paypal or google checkout and build the buttons for each cost. 

though, in doing this, you are creating an astronomical amount of work for yourself, should your site grow, and you are having to manage these joins and the payments, and upgrading the member. 

Would be great, wouldn't it, if there was a way to make "Choose a membership level" on the join page where they would pay for their membership and immediately be assigned to that membership level? It would save the Managers the pain of disabling access for Standard membership, having to explain to members why they can't really do anything until they upgrade and walk people through everything. *fingers crossed* this will come in a future iteration of Dolphin!

I agree... the current two step process that requires new members to get a free standard membership then a paid custom membership is not an effective way of having people register.  Best thing I could think of was to immediately send people, after completing the JOIN form, to the membership info page and ask them to choose a paid membership type... trying to create the illusion that choosing a paid membership was the final stage of the JOIN process.