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Hey boys and girls,
Please help me think this through:
I am offering ready made websites for users using the "New Blog Template" plugin.
Users get fully set-up sites and the only area they need to manage is their personal blog and profile.
I take care of the rest like updates and new pages.
Each site will cost x$ per month and I'd like to take monthly or annual subscriptions using papal.
My current sign-up methodology is a bit crude and follows:
1) User completes a Gravity Form with his / her contact details
2) When user submits, the form redirects them to a paypal payment page.
3) After payment, paypal takes the user to ../wp-signup.php, where the user choses their subdomain, language, accepts TOS etc.
4) WP then creates the website and sends email to me, the superuser, and the new user.
4a) Currently the blog is not displayed immediately, pending me allowing it to be shown via the "Moderation" plugin.
What do you think?
It's a bit crude as it's possible for users to navigate to the WP signup form (../wp-signup.php) bypassing my Form and PayPal process.
I'm not going to link to wp-signup.php, yet if you know WPMU you can get a website without paying and I'll need to notice it and delete these manually.
Also leaves and open door for abuse.
How else could I go about this?
Any ideas?
The other thing I'd like is for the front-end of the website to be taken off line when the subscription expires.
The user should still be able to log into their dashboard and pay or re-subscribe, but until s/he does so, no website.
For now I need some ideas on how most simply and elegantly to implement the above.
James, Aaron, Andy and Co. Could you develop a plug-in that does this?
I think you have all the basic bits and bobbs already?
Can you string this together form "Pay to Blog", "Moderation" "Supporter" and 'Membership"?
I think you'd have another winning plug-in to offer. You could call it "Pay to Blog +Plus" or "Pay to View" :-)
Many thanks is advance for any suggestions form anyone, be it the most awesomenestest WPMUDEV team or my fellow subscribers.
1002 pointsCommunity rank #58Supreme DeityWPMU DEV StaffLifetime member
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Hey, if it works it works :) Edublogs Campus, for example, is a manual regular old sales process.... yours seems flash besides it!
One thing I have noticed though is that despite my best efforts at getting people to use Supporter - Pay to Blog has been very popular and I don't see why we couldn't try to upgrade that somehow.
So, put simply, users have to pay to get a site, and then lose the site if they stop paying... and that's about it... that'd do it, right?
I came up with a solution to hide the whole site until they pay. Working on adding the payment within the signup process now. It is tough since there are only so many hooks during that wp-signup process.
Isn't the entire signup process pluggable though? May need to go there. :(
278 pointsCommunity rank #170ExpertJust Getting Started
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Marty, your hack is very awesome so far and having the payment in the sign-up process itself would solve other issues such a communicating to the user that they won't see their website until they pay and how.
I like using the auto-email to communicate the process. Great idea.
The auto-email plugin might be a good place to add an action hook or filter, if possible. That way we could tie into it to communicate messages from other plugins. That would be perfect for this situation.
8421 pointsCommunity rank #4Supreme DeityWPMU DEV StaffLifetime member
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The reason we havn't incorporated the payment before signup in any of our plugins is technical. The way subscriptions work in payment gateways (paypal), the user creates it one time on paypals site and it is not changed. This means you need some way to tie the blog/user to a specific subscription, so when paypal sends you notice that it was created, each time a payment was made, canceled, etc, we have to know what blog it is referring to. The way this is done is by setting a "custom" variable at the time the subscription is created, which contains the id that we need returned every time a payment is made. But to know the id, you need the user/blog already created, so it's a bit of a catch 22.
You have to know the id for them to pay, but you can't know the id until the blog/user is created. And the part that really makes it tough is that the blog is not really created until they confirm their email, so there is no way to include payment process in the normal signup flow. This is why we either show it first login, or shut down the site until they pay.
278 pointsCommunity rank #170ExpertJust Getting Started
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Hi Aaron, thanks for that and I'm perfectly happy with communicating to users upfront that they will not see their blog on-line until they've subscribed.
I think the main challenge of taking the blog off-line when not paid up is the key item of this inquiry and Marty's mod seems to be working so far.
Responses (13)
Founder & CEO (joined May 2007) Likes (0)
Hey, if it works it works :) Edublogs Campus, for example, is a manual regular old sales process.... yours seems flash besides it!
One thing I have noticed though is that despite my best efforts at getting people to use Supporter - Pay to Blog has been very popular and I don't see why we couldn't try to upgrade that somehow.
So, put simply, users have to pay to get a site, and then lose the site if they stop paying... and that's about it... that'd do it, right?
Member (joined October 2009) Likes (0)
Hi James
Thanks for getting back to me.
The Pay To Blog plugin IS great! Yet it keeps the site on-line when the user has not paid up.
Yes in a nutshell that's it. It would be fantastic if you would create that.
HUGE BIG HUGS IN ADVANCE!
Ralf
Founder & CEO (joined May 2007) Likes (0)
Heh, they might be a while in advance... I'll see what we can do though.
Member (joined October 2009) Likes (0)
Ok, Thank you so much for considering this.
Ralf
Keeper of the Dark Chocolate (joined July 2007) Likes (0)
Wouldn't Pay to Blog work in this case?
http://premium.wpmudev.org/project/pay-to-blog
Member (joined October 2009) Likes (0)
No not really as pay to blog permits sign-ups and prevents users from adding more content.
However the sites stays on-online.
I need to collect payment when the user signs up.
Cheers
Ralf
Member (joined July 2010) Likes (0)
Would you be able to use the membership plugin for this?
Not sure how exactly, but maybe linked in with one of the other plugins.
Member (joined February 2010) Likes (0)
Raif and I have been discussing one of the issues here:
http://premium.wpmudev.org/forums/topic/suggestion-for-pay-to-blog
I came up with a solution to hide the whole site until they pay. Working on adding the payment within the signup process now. It is tough since there are only so many hooks during that wp-signup process.
Isn't the entire signup process pluggable though? May need to go there. :(
Member (joined October 2009) Likes (0)
Marty, your hack is very awesome so far and having the payment in the sign-up process itself would solve other issues such a communicating to the user that they won't see their website until they pay and how.
Possible method to support we could use is the auto welcome email plug-in.
http://premium.wpmudev.org/project/automatic-follow-up-emails-for-new-users
There is also the Terms Of Service plug in that could be used to communicate the sign-up process.
http://premium.wpmudev.org/project/terms-of-service
I'll check that out. For now I'm off to bed as it's well past 1AM here.
Best and many thanks Marty,
Ralf
Member (joined February 2010) Likes (0)
I like using the auto-email to communicate the process. Great idea.
The auto-email plugin might be a good place to add an action hook or filter, if possible. That way we could tie into it to communicate messages from other plugins. That would be perfect for this situation.
Member (joined October 2009) Likes (0)
If you are following this thread, this may also be of interest to you:
http://premium.wpmudev.org/forums/topic/need-ability-to-capture-user-defined-alpha-numeric-input-at-sign-up-1
Regards,
Ralf
Lead Developer (joined May 2009) Likes (0)
The reason we havn't incorporated the payment before signup in any of our plugins is technical. The way subscriptions work in payment gateways (paypal), the user creates it one time on paypals site and it is not changed. This means you need some way to tie the blog/user to a specific subscription, so when paypal sends you notice that it was created, each time a payment was made, canceled, etc, we have to know what blog it is referring to. The way this is done is by setting a "custom" variable at the time the subscription is created, which contains the id that we need returned every time a payment is made. But to know the id, you need the user/blog already created, so it's a bit of a catch 22.
You have to know the id for them to pay, but you can't know the id until the blog/user is created. And the part that really makes it tough is that the blog is not really created until they confirm their email, so there is no way to include payment process in the normal signup flow. This is why we either show it first login, or shut down the site until they pay.
Member (joined October 2009) Likes (0)
Hi Aaron, thanks for that and I'm perfectly happy with communicating to users upfront that they will not see their blog on-line until they've subscribed.
I think the main challenge of taking the blog off-line when not paid up is the key item of this inquiry and Marty's mod seems to be working so far.
Best,
Ralf
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