Most calls ask artists to submit artwork for sale or exhibition — each piece carries a price, medium, and dimensions. An Application call is different: it judges a person and their portfolio, not a priced artwork. Use it for membership intakes, scholarship and grant applications, fellowships, and open portfolio reviews.
When a call is set up as an application, the submission form drops all the sales-oriented inputs (price, availability, "not for sale" controls) and instead collects the things an application needs: an artist statement, a CV or bio, work samples, an essay, and any other questions you add. It's the same call, jury, and review tooling you already use, configured for a different kind of intake.
This article covers what makes an Application call distinct and how to stand one up. For the basics of creating any call, start with Creating Your First Call.
When to Use an Application Call
Reach for an Application call when you're collecting people and portfolios rather than works to sell or hang:
Membership applications — artists apply to join your organization, and accepted applicants become members.
Scholarship and grant applications — students or artists apply for an award, usually with a written essay.
Fellowships — applications that also carry a grant award (see the Start as Fellowship preset).
Portfolio or jury review — any free, juried intake where there's nothing for sale.
The fastest way to set up an application is with a one-click preset. When you create a new call, look in the Overview section, just below the Call Type selector, for a row of "Start as…" buttons. Each one pre-fills the form for a specific kind of application — you can still adjust everything afterward.
Note: The preset buttons appear only when creating a new call, not when editing an existing one. They set the call type, fee, sales mode, and starter questions in one click; the title, description, and dates are always left for you to fill in.
Start as Application
The general-purpose application. It pre-configures:
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Call Type: Application and Submissions are for sale: off (works are samples, not items for sale).
Free entry ($0 submission fee).
Starter questions: a required Artist statement, a required CV / bio, and an optional References field.
Document uploads on, so applicants can attach a PDF portfolio or full CV.
Ready for blind jury review.
It scaffolds no award — that's the one difference from Start as Fellowship, which adds a grant award.
Start as Membership application
Everything in the application preset, plus the two things a membership intake needs:
A $25 application fee (a standard submission fee through the normal checkout — you can change the amount).
Accepted applicants become members. When the jury accepts a submission on this call, Crafted Call creates a member record for the applicant and tags them as a member in your subscriber list.
Blind jury on by default.
This is the only way to turn on the "accepted applicants become members" behavior from the form, so use this preset (rather than building from scratch) when you want jury acceptance to mint members. See Membership Applications below.
Start as Scholarship
A free, juried scholarship intake with the questions a student application needs:
Free entry ($0) and sales off.
An Application essay (a Long Text question with a default 500-word cap you can adjust).
A Mentor / teacher name field.
A "Are you a current high-school student?" Yes/No question that conditionally reveals two more fields — High school name and Expected graduation year — only when the applicant answers Yes.
A default Scholarship Award scaffolded on the call, with the prize amount left blank for you to fill in.
Blind jury on by default.
A scholarship never creates members on acceptance — accepting a scholar awards the scholarship, nothing more.
What Makes an Application Call Different
Whichever preset you start from (or if you build one by hand), an application behaves differently from a sell-your-artwork call in a few consistent ways.
Submissions are work samples, not items for sale
The deciding switch is Submissions are for sale, in the call's submission requirements. When it's off, the submission form hides every pricing, availability, and "not for sale" control. Applicants upload work samples and tell their story; they never set a price.
Free (or fixed-fee) entry
Plain application and scholarship calls default to $0 — free to apply. A membership application carries a flat application fee (the preset uses $25), charged through the normal Stripe checkout. You can set any fee, or none, the same way you'd configure fees on any call.
Narrative questions instead of sale metadata
Instead of medium, dimensions, and price, applications collect written answers: an artist statement, a CV or bio, an essay, references, a mentor's name. These are ordinary custom submission fields, so you can edit, reorder, add to, or remove them. The essay uses the Long Text field type with an optional word limit. To learn how the field types and required toggles work, see Custom Submission Fields.
Conditional ("show this only when…") fields
The scholarship preset shows off a useful pattern: the High school name and Expected graduation year fields only appear when the applicant says they're a current high-school student. You can build the same kind of conditional reveal on any custom field — it's the standard "visible when" rule documented in Custom Submission Fields. Hidden fields aren't required and their stale values are discarded when the applicant submits.
Document uploads for portfolios and CVs
Application presets turn on document uploads (PDF by default) so a full portfolio or CV can be a first-class attachment alongside the work-sample images.
Membership Applications: Accepted Applicants Become Members
This is the one genuinely new behavior in the application flow. On a call created with Start as Membership application, accepting a submission does more than mark it accepted — it creates (or reactivates) a member record for the applicant and tags the matching subscriber as a member.
A few things to know:
It triggers on acceptance, through any path — whether you finalize jury decisions in bulk, mark a single submission "in," change a status by hand, or promote someone off the waitlist, an accept creates the member.
It's safe to re-run. Accepting the same applicant twice (or replaying a decision) won't create a duplicate member — the record is keyed to the applicant's email within your organization.
It's a member record, not a paid subscription. A juried-in member doesn't have a recurring Stripe subscription. If you want recurring dues, set up membership tiers and collect dues separately — see Managing & Renewing Memberships.
Only membership applications do this. A scholarship or a standard artwork call — even though a scholarship is also technically an "Application" type — never creates members on acceptance.
Reviewing Applications
Applications are juried with the same tools as any other call. Because applications often judge a portfolio rather than a name, the membership and scholarship presets enable blind jury by default, which hides applicant-identifying details from scorers. To set up scorers, rounds, and scoring criteria, see Setting Up Your Jury. Applicants move through the same submission statuses as everyone else — see Understanding Submission Statuses.
Building an Application Call by Hand
You don't have to use a preset. To configure an application manually:
Create a call and set Call Type to Application.
In the submission requirements, turn Submissions are for saleoff.
Set the submission fee (or leave it at $0 for free entry).
Add your questions as custom fields — for example a required Artist statement and a Long Text essay.
Turn on document uploads if you want PDF portfolios or CVs.
One caveat: the "accepted applicants become members" behavior can't be switched on by hand — it's set only by the Start as Membership application preset. If you want jury acceptance to create members, start from that preset (you can change the fee and questions afterward).
Plans & Limits
Application calls don't require a separate add-on. They count against your plan's call limits (active calls and calls per year) exactly like any other call, so the same plan rules apply whether you're running a juried exhibition or a membership intake. For what each plan includes, see Pricing & Plans.
Troubleshooting
I don't see the "Start as…" buttons.
They only appear when creating a new call, not when editing an existing one, and they live in the Overview section near the Call Type selector. If you're editing an already-created call, set Call Type to Application and adjust the fields by hand.
Applicants are being asked for a price or "for sale" details.
The Submissions are for sale toggle is still on. Turn it off in the call's submission requirements so the form treats entries as work samples.
The school fields show even for applicants who aren't students.
Those fields are conditional on the "current high-school student" question. Make sure that question still exists and that the conditional rule points at it — if you renamed or deleted the source question, the reveal rule no longer matches. See Custom Submission Fields.
I accepted a membership applicant but no member appeared.
The "accepted applicants become members" behavior only runs on calls created with the Start as Membership application preset. A standard application or scholarship call won't create members. Confirm the applicant has an email on file, then re-check your member list.
Accepting a scholar created a member by mistake.
It shouldn't — scholarship calls never create members. If you see this, the call was likely set up as a membership application rather than a scholarship. Check which preset the call was built from.
