One time membership fee and then monthly fee

Hello, I have been trying to find an answer in the forums but have not found the exact answer yet… just parts…

Our company is a membership organization that requires a joining fee (lifetime, one time, non-recurring) and then the monthly dues… there is only one level of membership and dues.

I want to know if I can have one button that does both, charge them for the one time signup fee and then does the monthly recurring billing to make it a simple one click process for the user?

I saw this in the forums but could not find specifics on how to do it…

“The one-time setup fee and the recurring one can be in a single button, with the setup fee as the initial amount.

The one-time payment product could be added to the above with a checkbox and some JavaScript to update the order’s total.”

I am fairly new to merchant and code aspects of things.

We are using the latest version of WP, s2member Pro, BuddyPress and the Authorize.net integration with Pro forms.

Thank for any assistance.

Hi Jeff, you could just use the PayPal Pro forms to make your 1st payment = 1 time fee + first month, then all further reoccurring monthly payments = the monthly fee.

Then simply outline the breakdown of that 1st payment at the top of your registration form page and in your user confirmation email…

It does mean the first payment will go off to paypal as one lump sum but it makes the process nice and simple to set up.

Hope that helps!

Thanks for the response… We have to use Authorize.net…

I have Authorize.net Pro forms setup but do not see a way in the membership level to do this… it apears to only let you do one or the other, not both – I can do the monthly or one time but not both – unless I am just missing something.

I am not sure how to get around it without some sort of custom capabilitiy or shortcode which I am not familar enough to know how to do yet…

Looking at it… I guess I could use the “I’ll offer the first” option and make that the one time membership fee and just set it to the $29.99 and tell it “I’ll offer the first 20 years @ $29.99” then use the “then I want to charge” function for the recurring monthly fee of $19.99…

Would that work or is there a better way?

Well, that does not work as it says the trial period which I guess that “offer first” is setup for will only allow you to do 1 year…

Hi Jeff.

Right, the initial term of the subscription is what you’d need to use. In your case the initial term would be 1 month and the amount to pay would be $49.98 ($29.99 for membership + $19.99 for first month). Then the regular payments would be $19.99 every month.

I hope that helps. :)

Thanks Cristian,

My brain finally started to work right and I understand now… just had a dumb mental block on it for some reason.

One other question please…

Does the description have to be this exactly or can I make it anything?
ccaps=”” desc=”1st Month @ $49.98 / then $19.99 USD / Monthly ( recurring charge, for ongoing access )”

I want to change it to something just like “Join today”

I was not sure how these code commands are used by Authorize.net. The description field is too limited for our needs so I have detailed the pricing and membership info in the membership option page and did not want this redundancy in the page.

Thanks again.

You can change the description to what you like, just try not to use fancy characters to avoid potential problems. :)