In a nutshell, I would like to use Stripe for as much as possible (new signups registration and payment form and also offering option of membership renewal prior to EOT) but I don’t know how to do all within Stripe. I am now and have been using s2Member Pro for several years now but simply with PayPal “Buy now” buttons for the initial, non-recurring membership registration payments, and PayPal buttons for (manual) renewal, either prior to or after expiration. Membership terms are always one year.
I really like the single page registration form available with Stripe (in our case, the fees involved in getting a PayPal Pro account aren’t justified so I’m looking into Stripe instead) so I’m looking into setting up forms with Stripe but I just can’t find the equivalent of the Buy Now buttons that I can set up with PayPal to allow manual renewals prior to EOT. With the PP renewal (technically, a “membership modification”) button, s2Member smartly adds any remaining membership time to the new term, so the member has no “lost” membership term fees. As far as I can tell, with Stripe you can renew anytime (via an “upgrade” transaction) but you lose the remaining membership term if you so upgrade early.
Assuming I understand the way Stripe works with s2Member, I just can’t figure out any way other than to do signup (registration) forms with Stripe and renewal prior to expiration with PayPal “Buy now” (modification) button. So, I’d be using Stripe for new membership registrations and PayPal for renewals… I’d like to use Stripe for everything, though.
Am I missing something, or is this indeed how to achieve what I want (registration form and offering option of renewal prior to EOT), or is there a way to do everything (including early renewals) with Stripe? If so, I’d much appreciate pointers…
Many thanks in advance!
PS: what I’ve done, is create conditionals for renewals: a member must log in to be able to renew, and depending on whether membership is still active (level > 0 or not) either membership modification button is shown or a Buy Now button for an upgrade (from post-EOT demoted free subscriber back to appropriate membership level). As there’s no signups for free membership, and returning (former) members can’t re-register, it cleanly splits out.