How to set up Trial + 3 Months + Lifetime?

Hi. In my website I’m offering clients a three months course with two membership possibilities:

1) A low fee trial for two weeks, and then payment in three installments for three months access (course duration), and then (after the three months, if they pay all of them) lifetime access

or

2) A low fee trial for two weeks, and then one time payment for three months access (course duration), and then (after the three months, if they don’t ask for a refund) lifetime access

This is very similar to the case posted here: http://www.s2member.com/forums/topic/help-lifetime-membership-with-only-3-monthly/, but in my case I have the two weeks trial period.

I looked at the shortcodes, but it seems that the regular term shortcode cannot be set to lifetime (rt=”L”) if a trial period is requested. So, it seems that I cannot manage the wanted behavior in my PayPal button, am I right?

So at this moment my PayPal buttons are set for a three month subscription, not a lifetime one.

How to do then? I looked at the EOT configuration but I don’t quite understand if I can set it the right way for my offer. If I don’t let s2M manage the EOT behavior so my lifetime subscribers don’t get kicked out of my site, then I will have to deal with cancellations manually. If I enable the automatic EOT behavior, then my lifetime users won’t have access after the three month period and I will have to manually reinsert them as subscribers.

Currently, I’m putting the first case membership (3 installments) on Level #1 and the second case membership (one full payment) on Level #2. I’d like both of them to automatically upgrade to Level #3 after they’ve finished the course (after three months) and pass to lifetime access.

Am I missing somethings? Is there a way to automatically achieve what I want (2 week trial, then payment for three months, then lifetime access)?

im interested too…

Hi Mary.

Is there a way to automatically achieve what I want (2 week trial, then payment for three months, then lifetime access)?

You can do the 2 W trial, then have only 3 recurring payments using the [hilite mono]rrt[/hilite] shortcode attribute, and set EOT to not demote the user. [hilite path]Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Buttons -› Shortcode Attributes -> rrt[/hilite]

The problem would that would be that if someone cancellations/refunds, you’d have to demote him manually.

s2Member can’t do this exactly the way you want, all automated yet. We’re working to make it possible, pretty close, if not completely, the way you need. If you wanted to do it now, you’d have to create a hack to achieve it.

Hi Cristián, thanks for yoyur answer (actually I just realized I wasn’t subscribed to this posts so I was waiting for a notification that would never arrive! lol).

So for the moment I’ll deal with refunds/cancellations manually (I hope I wont get many of these!).

And how about the -automatic- transition from Level#1 or Level#2 to Level#3 after someone has finished the course (i.e. after x months after subscribing or at a given fixed date)? Is that possible or do I have to do it manually too?

Hi Mary,

List Transitions will work automatically if the user is being upgraded from one level to another (using a billing modification form Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Pro Forms -› Billing Modification Forms), or if the user’s account has expired from an EOT, or if their payment failed or subscription was canceled.

All of this also assumes you’ve configured automatic transitions in Dashboard -› s2Member® -› API / List Servers -› Automate Unsubscribes/Opt-Outs.

So, if a user at Level 2 signs up for 6 months of access, then after 6 months their account will automatically be handled as per your settings in Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Options -› Automatic EOT Behavior and they will automatically be transitioned according to your list transition settings in Dashboard -› s2Member® -› API / List Servers -› Automate Unsubscribes/Opt-Outs.

Thanks Raam, the problem I see is that I want to automatically upgrade a subscriber without changing their billing plan. They will be upgraded only because they’ve been active for X months.

As I’m gonna need to handle unsubscriptions/cancellations manually (as per my previous post), then the automatic EOT behavior is set to NO.

What I want is that when a subscriber has been active for a given period, he’ll be promoted to a superior level. I’m offering a course so this will be the level of “graduated students”, who will have different capacilities than other active students. There’s no billing because they will have lifetime access to the content.

Can I do this automatically or do I have to upgrade all students manually?

Mary,

When you say “when a subscriber has been active for a given period, he’ll be promoted to a superior level”, what does “promoted to a superior level” look like from s2Member’s side? Does their Membership Level change? If so, how does it change? If the membership level doesn’t change, then what indicates such a change?

If you’re changing their Membership Level manually to indicate they’ve been “promoted to a superior level”, then the list transition settings will work for this (manual role changes also trigger list transitions).

What I mean is transition from Level#1 or Level#2 to Level#3 after someone has finished the course (it’s on my post above).

I want to know if s2M can handle this automatically in some way, without the subscriber having to change his payment plan (because they’ll be promoted without having to pay anything).

Mary, a couple things come to mind for that:

– Use conditionals to drip the content for the users based on how long they’ve been a member, without changing the role. You can read more about content dripping here: [hilite path]Dashboard -› s2Member® -› API / Scripting -› Content Dripping[/hilite]

– Create a custom script that’ll change the user’s role after a certain time, using PHP and a cron job. This article may be helpful for the role/capability change part: Knowledge Base » Changing Roles/Capabilities via PHP

I hope taht helps. :)