Thank you. They’re all sound suggestions, and many in agreement with what I will do. 
Happy New Year! (Big Announcement!)
Hi Cristian, I am new to the S2 Member user family. It seems that I came in at a good time. I’m really glad to be here and wish you the best in your goals. Looking forward to getting to know more about how best to use S2 Member. Thanks for being here to help. 
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I manage a very little site and I cannot pay 100 $ annually (even 20 $ is big relative to my incomes). I choose S2Member because of the lifetime price and paying annual fees will force me to search for another solution. But I can understand the need of new money plan.
Don’t worry, Li-An. I may implement the annual updates for new customers, and any existing ones could subscribe voluntarily as a form of support for the project. Or it will be for a new product that I release.
Anyone that got the s2Member Pro license with lifetime updates, will keep that. Any annual plan that I implement won’t invalidate what you already have.
It’s a very good news for me. I hope you will find some good solution to give you the opportunity to develop these products. Thanks a lot.
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Hi Cristián,
Congrats on the new position. Will you be working on all projects by yourself or do you work with a team?
Cheers
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So far it’s been myself, but looking for help. I’ve hired freelancers, although I want a developer I can hire full time. Right now I have someone doing a trial and we’ll see how it goes.
Hi Cristián, glad to see you back here!
I’ve been with s2M for ages and was recently considering moving to MemberPress or something else, mainly because it seemd that s2M was dying and the lack of integrations is becoming a huge roadblock.
I got in touch with Krum to setup some things but it’s been difficult and moving away seemed to be the best choice. Until I came here and saw you’re taking over! I’d LOVE to stay with s2M and I’ll gladly pay a yearly fee for upgrades and proper support
Currently I’m urgently in need of integration with ThriveCart, which integrates with all major membership plugins except for s2M. It could also integrate with the newer autoresponder softwares out there (I’m on Drip and will be moving to ConvertKit soon - s2M doesn’t integrate with any!). A Zapier integration has been mentioned a lot in the past years, it could solve issues for all of this while proper integrations are built (if ever).
Is there a roadmap or can you share any plans about where this is going? Again, I had made my mind about moving to MemberPress but if things are going forward here I’ll definitely stay (and start paying)!
Cheers
I know @clavaque has lots of plans and he’ll respond soon, but Drip already integrates:
Personally I’m not too impressed with ThriveCart, but the FOMO make me want to buy.
I’d probably also stay on Drip because you can eventually use PlusThis if you want.
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Thanks @bopters!
Yes, this integration exists but it’s incomplete and doesn’t suit my current setup. Mainly because I have a multisite network and Drip only integrates with the general s2M data - meaning that I can’t access which particular child site or blog the person created their account in. Since Drip integrates with ThriveCart (also does ConvertKit) I have no problems there and the correct campaigns are sent to each client. The ThriveCart integration is very complete and lets me do anything I need depending on the client’s payment behavior.
My main issue (and this is big) is not being able to redirect clients to the WP registration page (handled by s2M) when they buy, so I’m currently forced to manually send each buyer the member registration link.
I’m aware an integration with ThriveCart is too much to ask for (I can’t imagine all Cristián has in his hadns right now!) but if at least there’s a Zapier integration or a promise that there will be a workaround or some other solution in the near future, then it’d be great
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Ah. I see.
What about sending a ThriveCart webhook to a modified version of the create_user example here.
The modification would be code to receive the data from ThriveCart and then translate it to the format that s2 is expecting.
A programmer should be able to do it pretty easily since most of the code is already written.
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A separate thread on the integration with thrive cart would probably yield more useful responses. I’m definitely going to follow and even look into the possibility of coding .
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This sound slike a very good choice for now! I’ll get my IT guy to check it out and see if we can make it work for us. Thanks a lot for the sugestion!
I totally agree with point#3 about changing the payment model. As a membership plugin s2member should be supported by memberships! It is the only way to guarantee continuing revenue for the plugins development.
The only scenario I can imagine where someone would complain about switching to an annual fee model would be if they weren’t making any money with the plugin anyway. The cost and effort to migrate a complex membership site to another plugin is mind-boggling and I for one would be more than happy to pay an annual fee for s2member. I think properly communicating why the supposed ‘lifetime access’ is unsustainable would go a long way to helping people get on board.
Thanks!
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I support the idea of an ongoing fee to support development but…
From a legal standpoint having offered s2member for sale for a onetime lifetime fee I don’t think you can then summarily change that without the permission of both parties. Companies which have tried changing pre-existing contracts/licences from lifetime to ongoing one have run afoul of legal challenges and soured relations with pre-existing users.
A better solution would be to simply no longer offer new lifetime licences and only offer annual licences to new new s2member-pro customers for a low-medium annual cost, such as £30-50. Then existing users wouldn’t simply be dumped and could always opt-in to the new licence to support development.
Maintaining the good will of your existing user-base is VERY important.
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Absolutely.
I have been considering changing to a subscription, as many have told me over the years. If I change to a subscription, I don’t intend to demand more payments for s2Member Pro add-on updates from anyone that got the license with lifetime access to updates.
If someone got the lifetime license, he will keep having access to any future s2Member Pro releases without paying again. Not because of a legal pressure, but because it’s the right thing, that’s what they were sold. Even if I wasn’t the one that got the payment because it was before I took over, I will honor it.
If someone then wants to voluntarily subscribe to help support the project, that’s up to that person, and of course will be very welcome.
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Important to add, in case people didn’t notice, you do have a link that we can use to donate you money to help.
Maybe you can add it to this topic as well @clavaque
Hi @clavaque! I’m so glad you’re considering a subscription model!
One pattern I see often is where the subscription fee basically gives access to a guaranteed level of support. For example, if you committed to responding to forum posts and bug reports within a reasonable window of time (such as a week) that would work for you, I can imagine many lifetime members gladly signing up for this extra service. I don’t mean a FIX within a week – just a response.
That’s just one idea, but you see what I mean: a plan like this would simply formalize the unstated expectation of lifetime access people, that they’ll get continued support. Except this way, it would be financially viable for you to spend that time.
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That’s an excellent idea! A subscription to have direct support. Otherwise, just the ability to read and, maybe, report bugs/issues without a guarantee of response.
Lots of good ideas above . If you introduce an annual subscription for new members but allow anyone with lifetime access to continue for free, then please give the latter the option to voluntarily pay the annual subscription. As mentioned above, the cost and time of migrating a website to a different plugin is HUGE (and a lot of other plugins just don’t seem to protect downloadable files as well as s2Member). I’d happily contribute $20-$50 per year just to get some peace of mind that s2Member isn’t going to stop working the next time Wordpress is updated.
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