Upgrades based on monthly paid subscriptions

[Dennis Toman]

My plan is to let users upgrade their initial free listing, with paid upgrades billed monthly. I had expected to set the subscription term as monthly, but automatically renewing (and let JReviews tell Paypal to bill the user's account) unless the user stopped their paid upgrade, or changed the upgrade (choosing instead a better/more costly upgrade, or choosing a lower/less expensive plan). This would only commit the user for 1 month, but it would automatically renew unless they took action to terminate the paid upgrade.

 

I'm running into a couple of issues for renewals and upgrades.

 

1. Renewals: If I set this up for a one-month subscription term, am I correct that the user must manually re-subscribe each month in JReviews? I don't think that there is an automatic renewal provision in JReviews, is there, after the subscription term expires?

 

Assuming that is the case (that there is no autorenew), to accomplish my plan for a continued monthly payment unless the user decides to stop, should I instead set this up as a 12-month listing, with a subscription. In that case, would the payment handler (paypal) be told to bill the transaction one month at a time for those 12 months, and the user would have to sign up again to renew after the 12 months is gone? Would the user be able to end their subscription before the 12 months is up so that the future billings (though paypal) would stop (this is not really a paypal question, more how to set up the susbscription in JReviews so the billing handler knows what to do). In other words, I want to give the user the ability to stop their paid upgrade even if the 12 months has not yet stopped, rather than locking them in for the entire 12 months.

 

If someone has a thought on this, I could use some direction.

 

2. Upgrades. As mentioned, my plan is that users pay on a monthly subscription for their chosen upgrade (the initial listing is free). To control the price for each level upgrade (given that there is no way to control the upgrade path in JReviews) I have set each upgrade as exclusive, with stand-alone pricing. The user can 1. submit and/or claim their free listing, or 2. sign up for the Plan A upgrade for $10/mo, or 3. sign up for Plan B upgrade with more features for $15/mo.  (There are also plans C and D for even better upgrades at a higher monthly cost, but they work the same way.)

 

However, the way that JReviews works is that after the user signs up for a monthly paid subscription upgrade, they cannot do a further upgrade (to a better/more costly plan or downgrade, for that matter), until after the current subscription expires.

 

So, assuming that my user has a 12 month subscription and wants to upgrade or downgrade, and they try it and get an error, do I just need to have a message to say that if they want to chose a new upgrade they will first need to go their account and terminate their current upgrade, then sign up for the desired upgrade? Does terminating an upgrade plan automatically tell the payment handler to stop further monthly billings on that terminated upgrade plan?

 

This is an amazing product, and it has so many capabilities. It absolutely works great. I'm trying to work within the structure to design an attractive offering to users. Many thanks. Dennis

[Alejandro]

This section is only visible with a valid subscription. If you have a valid subscription, please login.

[Janna Schneider1424296246]

This section is only visible with a valid subscription. If you have a valid subscription, please login.

[Alejandro]

This section is only visible with a valid subscription. If you have a valid subscription, please login.