Coupon valid one(recurring payments)

Hello guys,

I’ve been running s2member since recently and I have set up some coupons but I am wondering if somebody signs up with a coupon and let’s say gets 50% discount will he get 50% discount for the second, third and so forth payments given that the payments are recurring? Or he’s going to be charged the full amount? If the former is the case is there an easy way to circumvent that?

Thanks

Hi William,

That will depend on how you configured your Pro-Coupon. By default, coupons are applied to All Amounts, however you can specify that a coupon should only apply to an Initial/Trial amount. See Dashboard -› s2Member® -› Pro Coupon Codes -› Coupon Code Configuration File:

By default, s2Member will apply the discount to ALL amounts, including any Regular/Recurring fees.
* However, you may configure Coupon Codes that will ONLY apply to (ta) Trial Amounts, or (ra) Regular Amounts.
SAVE-10|10%||ta-only ( 10% off an Initial/Trial Amount; the ta=”” attribute in your Shortcode )
SAVE-15|15%||ra-only ( 15% off the Regular Amount(s); the ra=”” attribute in your Shortcode )
XMAS|5.00|12/31/2021|ra-only ( $5 off Regular Amount(s); the ra=”” attribute in your Shortcode )
5PER|5%|12/31/2021|all ( 5% off All Amounts; this is the default behavior “all” )

If you want to offer a discount on only the first payment, then you’ll simply generate your Pro-Form with an Initial/Trial amount that matches duration and amount of the regular amount (note that PayPal doesn’t allow this to be exactly the same, so you’ll need to change the Initial/Trial amount by $0.01), and then use a coupon configured to apply the discount only to the Initial/Trial amount. When the coupon is used, the discount will be applied to the first payment, then all future recurring payments will go through at the regular amount.

Thanks William, it works like a charm!

Glad to help! :)

Hi Raam,

I have a similar requirement to William. I am setting up a subscription-based video training site and shall have a regular monthly recurring membership subscription charge of $29.95 (or an annual option of $199 per year). I wish to offer, through third party vendors, one free month of membership using unique, one-time-use only coupon codes which I shall supply the vendor. I shall be supplying the vendor with about 1,000 codes to begin with. My question is how to best handle this coupon code situation? It seems from reading your answer to William and the “s2Member Pro Form (Coupon Codes)” section in the Word Press s2Member dashboard that I need to configure a Pro-Coupon as follows:
SAVE-100|100%||ta-only
How do I then program in hundreds or thousands of unique, one-time-use only coupon codes that will be recognizable and give one month free, after which regular monthly or annual recurring payments resume?
What happens if a coupon code holder already has an ongoing membership – will the trial amount discount add a month onto their Automatic EOT time?
How would I offer the free month with the option of no recurring billing after the month is over?

I look forward to reading your response and suggested solution.

Cheers,

Jeremy

Hi Jeremy,

How do I then program in hundreds or thousands of unique, one-time-use only coupon codes that will be recognizable and give one month free, after which regular monthly or annual recurring payments resume?

The s2Member Pro-Coupon codes are not designed to be programmatically added, so you would need to create a set of unique codes and then copy/paste them into the Pro-Coupons box. If you have hundreds or thousands of these to create, it may be worthwhile to create your own coupon system that allows you to dynamically generate coupon codes and then dynamically configure the Pro-Form based on your own coupon code.

What happens if a coupon code holder already has an ongoing membership – will the trial amount discount add a month onto their Automatic EOT time?

The s2Member Pro-Coupons apply initial/trial amounts to the beginning of a subscription. So, if you have a recurring subscription of $10/month and a new member signs up with a coupon that offers the first month at $1 and then recurring months at $10/month, they will pay $1 for the first month, and then be charged $10/month thereafter.

If that same member uses a billing modification form (Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Pro Forms -› Billing Modification Forms) to upgrade their account, and they use another coupon, the same thing happens: the discount is applied to the immediate checkout.

How would I offer the free month with the option of no recurring billing after the month is over?

The Pro-Coupons cannot be used to offer free accounts due to limitations enforced by PayPal. If you want to offer free accounts, you’ll need to use the Free Registration form (Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Pro Forms -› Free Registration Forms). If you want to set up a voucher-code type access to the Free Registration form, please see Offering a Free Coupon Code (100% Discount), or you can do a Free Registration w/ Trial Offer.

Thank you, Raam, for taking the time to answer my questions. One of the possibilities you suggest is: use a voucher/coupon code in the URL and check to see if the code is present and valid before displaying the Free Registration Form. Could that voucher/coupon code in the URL be a portion of any coupon code given to customers, e.g. if the code in the url was, say, “cR8u”, then would coupon codes such as wrL6cR8u, vO0tcR8u, KL9bcR8u, 5lAfcR8u and 0iAscR8u all work (they all contain “cR8u”)? Such a system would be able to preserve security, since any one customer would not be able to guess that only a portion of their code was actually significant, and also still allow them to apply a coupon code to get their free month without having to provide credit card info etc.

I assume that the code you show in your example (http://example.com/purchase/?voucher=free ) is where you use the word “free” and that in example I would substitute “cR8u” for “free”. Is that correct?

Best regards,

Jeremy

Jeremy,

Yes, that’s definitely possible, but all of that would be handled by the custom PHP code that you create for this system. The voucher code example that we provide simply illustrates how the system would work with s2Member. If you want to get complex with checking multiple codes, etc., you’ll need to add that functionality.

Raam,

Thanks for reply. Using custom PHP code can the coupon codes be made to be one-time-use only? Do you have any advice/links for my developer on how to do that?

Cheers

Jeremy

You’d need your script to keep a log of the coupons and their uses, and would need to check that log after each coupon submitted to see if it’s still valid.