Installment Type Subscription Plan

[Mike]

Installment type subscription plans would be paid subscription plans that have an installment period, based on projects paid for through the marketplace.

Example: I may have a subscription plan for $100, however if a provider choose this plan he or she will be able to bid on projects and when awarded a project a portion of the provider's commission will be substracted to cover the subscription cost. Regular marketplace commission would still apply.

This plan would be great for startup marketplace that does not necessarily want to run a free marketplace, but give the provider the option to operate freely on the marketplace while the subscription cost would be substracted from any commission earned.

[delta]

Hmmm Mike, I don't know if we share the same thought here but I have been wondering about somthing similar.

At present, I noticed that if you plan to charge based on different fees for the same subscription plan you may have to create separate plans with similar names. What do I mean?


EXAMPLE
------------
I have a Plan called GOLD. For this plan I decided to charge $10 monthly (10 x 12 =120 yearly) but if you pay quarterly you pay $25 ($100 yearly) and $90 if you choose to pay Annually. I would aso include Free one month test (you will be automatically billed monthly upon the expiration of this test date unless you cancell your subscription before it expires). See my Plan example below:

GOLD MEMBER PLAN

TRIAL : FREE 3odays (Mark to select)
(you will be automatically billed monthly upon the expiration of this test date unless you cancell your subscription before it expires). *this is where the new migration function sets in again.

MONTHLY = $10 ($10 x 12 months =120) (Mark to select)

QUARTERLLY = $25 (One year = $100 ) (Mark to select)

ANNUALLY = $90 ($30 discount) (Mark to select)

I could have prefered to be able to set these options within the same plan so that a subscriber can choose which payment plan he would like to adopt within the same plan. The ability to collect payment upfront even with serious discount is very good for a companies capital flow.

Mike, maybe your payment plan can be smartly put in also as an option so the subscriber chooses.

Right now to be able to execute the above plan I suggested above, you will have to create about 4 separate GOLD plans with separate payment plans. That will look messy.

I would like us to look into this and see if it can be executed. Any idea is welcome to this discussion.

[Mike]

Bert we are on the same page regarding subscription. You just bring up another important feature I should be look into by the development team. Both ideas, I think, are exceptional ideas and would thus make the subscription feature more robust and flexible.

[Peter]

And I thought the subscription matrix couldn't get any better. Excellent thoughts guys. Really. I can see these options being implemented. Anything is possible, but not only does it need to be developed, but it must also be field tested (crons, actions, events) and so on.

The subscription.php (user cp) area would need to be revamped and the same with the registration system to reflect new changes above. Anyways, yes, anything to make the system more flexible and easy for the customer -- I'm game. But there are other things on the list at the moment, and this will make it's way there. I suggest posting as a feature request pointing to this thread, and we can sit back and hear what others think as well.

As for the way it would work, would be to basically present the "admin" with all options and control specific to each subscription plan from the current subscription plan manager area (of course with new and improved options) to reflect the logic and options that the customer can opt in for.

On a more simple note, I think giving the customer the choice to opt in to a set-duration within any subscription plan would also be a good idea and would tidy up the existing subscription matrixes in terms of the admin having to create 1 plan based on 1 billing duration. That I can agree with.

With that said above, give us some thoughts on how we can present these new options above in the existing subscription plan editor. List what would be shown on the subscription plan page, what options could be available giving us a better overview of what steps would be involved. If we can get a good discussion going based on everyones thoughts, we can easily refine this request and make it as flexible as possible for everyone. :)

Regards,
Peter

[Mike]

Peter, it's nice to read your positive comments above. Two thumbs up for Delta and my suggestion - two uniquely ideas making the subscription plan more robust and flexible ;)

I will post in the Bug Tracker as a future request.