Hi,
I am using s2member Pro.
I offer a monthly subscription for $20/month, but now I want to offer a special deal to new customers where they get 40% off my regular price for the first 12 months.
Therefore I want to charge new customers $12/month for the first 12 months but then I want the price to go back to $20/month.
Have can I accomplish this? Can I give them a special coupon code?
thanks,
Kanwal
Can not change the subscription sum in the middle of the subscription, there is no a payment processor that would allow this… Possible, if you charge the full sum of 12*$12/month = $144 as “trial for 1 year” and then $20/month.
Thank you for the clarification, I appreciate it.
I’m mystified by this. I’m not aware of any law prohibiting anyone from charging however they want to charge, provided they tell the customer up front. It’s freedom of contract. When you say “no payment processor would allow this,” I suppose if you tell a payment processor up front that it’s a recurring payment and the payment processor refuses to process anything but fixed payments, that would do it. But then, why not just submit a separate charge each month? Why should anyone care what a payment processor wants? Who are the payment processors to tell us what contracts we can enter into? How does any payment processor know whether I’ve agreed to charge some amount each month or I’m receiving a separate order each month? I have subscriptions with Amazon.com. The prices for the items change month to month. If Amazon.com can do it, why can’t anyone else?
I think you didn’t understand how “membership sites” works (which Amazon is not). They charge “fixed sum” for certain period. And that are the terms, agreed with payment processor AND customers. There is very rare case like @ksarai needs, so software don’t supports it (and lot of other exceptions too). He can ask his customers to agree, but can’t ask software at the site and in the payment processor’s site to agree…
Still it is possible to achieve, but of course, needs custom code, and not too easy.
You are correct. I don’t understand how “membership sites” work. Or, perhaps better stated, I’m not aware of any legal definition of the term “membership site”. In the U.S., there are very, very few federal laws regarding contracts, and membership would be a contract, in large part because the U.S Constitution prohibits the federal government from interfering with the freedom to contract. Almost all contract laws are state laws. And there is very great diversity between state laws. I don’t know for a fact, but the idea that “membership site” might have a legal definition in all, most, or even many states is, I believe, highly unlikely.
I’m not aware of anyone who joins a membership site having any idea about the involvement of payment processors. When I get my bank or credit card statement, it indicates a charge from the site I joined. It says nothing, as far as I’m aware, about who the payment processor was. I had, and I’m sure most people have, no idea that the site had arranged for regular payments with the payment processor. I, and I’m sure most people, would have assumed that the site submitted a separate charge to its payment processor each month. I would have assumed that the site could change it’s payment processor at any time. Hence, it would make no sense, and indeed makes no sense, for me, as a site owner, to lock myself in to a single payment processor for a year every time I sign up a customer. Although, as I write this, it occurs to me that my customers aren’t providing me with their payment information. So, I can’t process charges on a monthly basis.
This makes me wonder how I change processors. Must I retain the processor for each customer who signed up? If I change processors, does that only affect customers who sign up with the new processor? Or can I have my customers’ payment information transferred from the original processor to the new processor? A quick Internet search indicates it is possible to change processors. I found information on WooCommerce, Authnet, and Stripe sites about migrating subscriptions. While I was there, I also saw a lot of information about altering subscriptions. Different providers appear to have different rules. The rules I saw seem to make sense. For example, you can reduce a 14 month, of which 6 months have been used, to 10 months, but not to 6 or fewer months. 6, obviously I think, because you’re already into the 7th month. You can’t cancel once a period has begun. Probably not illegal. You can change to 7 month subscription and manually refund a month or a prorated amount. But the processor won’t do it because it’s complicated and they have no reason to get involved in how you and your customer resolve this.
If you can change processors, reduce a subscription period, extend a subscription period, renew, and add, then by those combinations you can achieve anything. To the extent you want your customer to be able to do this, it requires only the capability on the front end. The processors themselves provide some functionality and some advice on how to customize other functionality yourself.
I see nothing to prevent, as far the processors are concerned, from doing what almost anything I wanted to do. At least, in the United States. I have no idea what laws are anywhere else or what processors do anywhere else. But given that this is a .com site in English, I would imagine that many if not most of the customers are at least operating in the U.S.
Regarding your “not too easy” comment, I disagree. Based on what I’ve seen of your software and on payment providers sites, I’d say it’s very easy to do. What’s difficult isn’t getting the software to configure the payments in any way possible, but getting the software to display the correct messages to the customer. That’s something I’m struggling with.
Well… If you can throw an apple up so often, so most of the time it stay in the air, this will mean (at least, in the United States) that it floats, right? And no reason it can not float away from you, as long as you can throw different apple and stop throw this one, no federal law against, right?
Did you ever build a membership site? If you did, you will know what is it, not by “laws”, but by “understanding”.
Are you a programmer? If so, you must be better than me (which I would admire), so you know how difficult is to do “two membership sums” subscription.
If you didn’t do a site, but want, and if you need such payments in your site, but can’t build, ask me, I will create that for you, for a fee.