Ask for Payment after 90 Day Free Trial Has Expired

[behladesign]

We are running into this situation more and more since our consulting clients # is growing.

Let’s say that I want to give someone a 90 free subscription to the Connection.
But, it is not appropriate to ask for a credit card (he or she is a consulting client).

Is there a way I can have that person use their credit card at the end of 90 days to sign up for monthly membership directly (he or she goes online to add their CC info) while still maintaining their same user name? (This would be ideal for us.)

If not, I suspect I could ask them to for their credit card information, enter it into PayPal as a recurring payment and then when the ID number is generated just plug it into their User account in S2. Correct?

Can you please recommend any solutions that other member sites have implemented for the above workflow?

[Raam Dev]

You could simply point the user to a page after 90 days that includes a Modification Button (see WP Admin -> s2Member -> PayPal Buttons -> PayPal Subsc Modification Buttons).

The Modification Button would send them to PayPal to make a payment and once the payment is complete, their existing account would be "upgraded" to whatever you chose in the Modification Button options.

The trick is notifying the member after 90 days that they need to pay. s2Member doesn't have an automatic way to do this for your scenario. If you were collecting payment information up front, you could simply set a PayPal Level Access button to charge $0.00 for the first 90 days, then X amount after that.

However, since you want them to subscribe for free, without providing payment information, you'll need to somehow get the user's attention after 90 days and ask them to pay.

Off the top of my head, the way I'd solve this problem is by using some PHP code on the Login Welcome Page that checks if the user is a free user, and if so, checks if their account is over 90 days old. Then, if it's over 90 days old, the PHP code would display a message asking them to upgrade and providing the PayPal Subscr Modification button.

Does that make sense?

[behladesign]

Thanks Raam! This all makes perfect sense. The bottom line is that we would need to have some custom code developed.

[Cristián Lávaque]

Not really, you can do it without custom code if you have s2Member Pro.

First the user would register through a free registration pro-form instead of the default one. With that pro-form you can give the free user Level 1 or higher, or custom capabilities, and an expiration time (e.g. 90 days). WP Admin -> s2Member -> PayPal Pro-Forms -> Free Registration

When the time is up, the auto EOT behaviour would be triggered, which can be set to demote and bring the user down to Level 0 and remove custom capabilities. WP Admin -> s2Member -> PayPal Options -> Auto EOT Behavior

In your Login Welcome page you'd have a conditional that checks the user's level and if 0, explain that the trial is over and he can get full access paying, and show the order button.
WP Admin -> s2Member -> General Options -> Login Welcome Page
WP Admin -> s2Member -> API / Scripting -> Simple/Shortcode Conditionals

I hope that helps.

[behladesign]

Thanks, I do have the pro version, will see if i can do this. Thanks Cristian!

[Cristián Lávaque]

No problem! Let us know how it goes.

[jackpelham]

First the user would register through a free registration pro-form instead of the default one. With that pro-form you can give the free user Level 1 or higher, or custom capabilities, and an expiration time (e.g. 90 days). WP Admin -> s2Member -> PayPal Pro-Forms -> Free Registration)

Cristián (or anybody else),
I have s2MemberPro and I'm trying to follow this thread to set up a very similar model. I have 4 membership levels (including the free one), and I want to set up the free registration pro-form to give 2 months of free access to my TOP LEVEL subscription. You post (quote above) says that the free registration pro-form can be set up to "give the free user Level 1 or higher". How do I edit the form to do this?

For the record, I want to minimize the barrier to entry for trial subscribers, so processing a credit card up front is out of the question. My business is seasonal, so I'm going to offer a free trial from now until February 29, at which point, I hope to convert most of them to paid accounts.

Thanks!

Jack Pelham

[jackpelham]

I'm sure you guys are busy, but if someone could reply to my post today, I'd sure appreciate it. Our whole 1st quarter marketing plan depends on your answer!
Thanks!
Jack

[Eduan]

Hi jackpelham.
You might be interested in this video for that sense:
http://www.s2member.com/free-registrati ... vel-video/

Hope this helps.

[jackpelham]

Eduan,
The video generally seems helpful, but what I discovered is that my default shortcode is different from the one shown in the video. At s2Member/PayPal Pro Forms/PayPal Pro Free Registration Forms, I have:

[s2Member-Pro-PayPal-Form register="1" desc="Signup now, it's Free!" /]

In the video, you have:

[s2Member-Pro-PayPal-Form register=”1” level=”3” ccaps=”” desc=”” custom=”localhost” tp=”0” tt=”D” captcha=”clean”/]

Notice that the "Level" attribute (among other things) is missing. Whether I insert the level attribute into my shortcode or use the shortcode shown in the video to which you linked, the result is a Level 0 subscription. I have s2Member Pro, Version 3.2.8 + Pro Module v1.2.7, and I have never seen any indication that this is out of date or that an upgrade is necessary. Further, to complicate matters, my programmer crashed and burned, so I cannot consult with him as to whether it would cause problems with my highly-customized site if I upgraded to a newer version.

I'm in quite a rush with this project and would gladly pay for some telephone time if I could get it. Can you help me?

Jack

[Raam Dev]

Jack,

Please regenerate your Free Registration shortcode in WP Admin -> s2Member -> PayPal Pro-Forms -> PayPal Pro / Free Registration Forms.

The attributes that the form generator adds to the shortcode are necessary (so, [s2Member-Pro-PayPal-Form register="1" desc="Signup now, it's Free!" /] won't work).

Once you generate the shortcode, simply change the attribute level="0" to level="X", where X is your highest level. To limit these free accounts to 2 months of access, you'll also want to change tp="0" tt="D" to tp="60" tt="D" (60 days).

What you'll end up with is something like this:

Code: Select all

[s2Member-Pro-PayPal-Form register="1" level="4" ccaps="" desc="Signup now, it's Free!" custom="example.com" tp="60" tt="D" captcha="clean" /]

[behladesign]

Thanks this is all very helpful information! S2 Member has the best support ever. I really appreciate all you do. Do you have a list of recommended providers in case I need outside support?

[jackpelham]

Raam,

...Please regenerate your Free Registration shortcode in WP Admin -> s2Member -> PayPal Pro-Forms -> PayPal Pro / Free Registration Forms.

There is no way in my version to "regenerate" the shortcode. It is what it is. In fact, the shortcode is exactly as you have it below:

The attributes that the form generator adds to the shortcode are necessary (so, [s2Member-Pro-PayPal-Form register="1" desc="Signup now, it's Free!" /] won't work).

So I don't understand what you're telling me here:

Once you generate the shortcode, simply change the attribute level="0" to level="X", where X is your highest level.

I say this because there's no "level" attribute to "change". As I already noted in my previous post on this issue, I did try to INSERT the level code, along with everything else you have shown here. And as I already noted, it had zero effect. That is, the registrations under this form came back as Level 0. This led me to believe that this earlier version of s2Member simply must not support the free trial at non-0 levels. Yet you seem to believe otherwise, so please advise me as to what to do now.

What you'll end up with is something like this:

Code: Select all

[s2Member-Pro-PayPal-Form register="1" level="4" ccaps="" desc="Signup now, it's Free!" custom="example.com" tp="60" tt="D" captcha="clean" /]

Right, but when I implement that code on a page, the result is still a Level 0 membership. In fact, I just tried it again, pasting in the exact shortcode you show above, and it still doesn't work.

Jack

[Raam Dev]

Thanks this is all very helpful information! S2 Member has the best support ever. I really appreciate all you do. Do you have a list of recommended providers in case I need outside support?

Thank you for the KUDOS!

There is no way in my version to "regenerate" the shortcode.

There is not a "regenerate" button. What I meant was generate the button code again with the button generator. The button shortcode that you showed me was missing required attributes.

What you'll end up with is something like this:

Code: Select all

[s2Member-Pro-PayPal-Form register="1" level="4" ccaps="" desc="Signup now, it's Free!" custom="example.com" tp="60" tt="D" captcha="clean" /]

Right, but when I implement that code on a page, the result is still a Level 0 membership. In fact, I just tried it again, pasting in the exact shortcode you show above, and it still doesn't work.

Have you tried upgrading to the latest version of WordPress and s2Member? Could you also try deactivating and reactivating s2Member? (Be sure that Deactivation Safeguards are enabled in WP Admin -> s2Member -> General Options -> Deactivation Safeguards.)

I will consult with another support rep to see what else might be going on and will get back back to you. Thank you for your patience.

[Raam Dev]

jackpelham,

Could you also please try disabling all your plugins (except s2Member) and testing again? It's possible there's another plugin conflicting with s2Member and causing problems.