[TigerLily]

Originally posted by grb123
Premium members pay an annual fee via Worldpay and a receipt is sent to them automatically. We then add them to a separate groups which gives them access to more forums and and also marks them as a premium member (plus a range of other benefits).

Yes, that sounds a lot like what I'm doing here. I'm basically using a custom Members group that has to pay to do everything. I'll be emptying the registered group into an "inactive" group with no permissions after a certain date. I gave them 6 weeks to use the boards fully before going to paid memberships, and another 6 weeks to view the boards until their privileges are turned off. New members can register and will be able to view the boards for a month, then they are invited to stay or sent to the inactive group.

For me, that was the simplest way to do it, and most of the people paying didn't want the non-payers to be able to see the boards forever. That may sound a bit uncharitable, but the same people also bought gift memberships for quite a few of our members who couldn't afford to stay. So as far as I know, we helped all the ones who needed it- which was a lot of work, but really enhanced the spirit of our community!

we added a field to their profile (only viewable by admins) with the month/year their membership is due to expire. Then every month all we have to do is search for all members with that month in their profile and send a renewal notice. At the end of the month we search again and anyone who still has that date is made a normal member again. So there's still a bit of admin involved but I'll see how it goes before I change it.

Yes, I found that to be the easiest way too! I like using vbulletin and Excel to keep all of the information correct. From there I can update other things, like MS Money. I also have to check my PMs and emails to keep the gift memberships straight, members problems, etc. I found that centering everything around vbulletin and coordinating the info through Excel was the best way to handle it for now.

I'd love to make everything automated, because this way of doing it is very labor intensive. I know over time I'll find a better way, and now that we're almost through the changeover, I've learned a lot about what I need and don't need! Short of cloning myself, I'm definitely going to have to automate more!

Here's what I'd like to do:

-Activation upon online payment- get the online payments to go directly to the database and then the system can activate the user's account. I know PayPal can send payment info to your server, but I haven't found a good way of getting that info in the database. One of the problems is the subscription pages don't have a username field, so unless a user has a paypal account and sends money directly from it, there is no way to match up the names. You could match by email address, but some members use different ones for PayPal and for their vbulletin account.

-Automatic, emailed receipts- with variables that pull the info from the custom fields. I'm working on this, cant' get them to show up right.

-Automated renewal reminders sent- or perhaps a function that could search the renewal dates, find the people who need to renew, and email them with a reminder- all with a click of a button/link in the admin panel.

You're very lucky not to have had any backlash. We haven't because it's voluntary, but I think we would if we made it compulsory.[/B]

I agree- I've been amazed at how everyone responded to my announcement! I really thought they would be screaming "off with her head!" Almost all of the members have been really great.

One of the things I really tried hard to do over the past several weeks is to be very open with the members, give them updates on how signups were going, and answer all of their questions. That went a long way in helping reduce problems.

I had a few members get uppity, but I took the time to explain publicly why we were doing things this way or that way, and that seemed to be all they really needed. They were just a bit confused. Many of them had no clue how expensive running a website can be, others wanted to make sure that we weren't going to take their money and shut down. I think you have to lead your members by the hand through the changeover to reassure them- even if they are tech-savvy. They need to know that things are going to be fine after the changed, if not better!

The only flack I've received was from inactive users who registered a while abck and never posted. I sent out an email to all registered members about the change in policy, with a link the announcement and the mention of paid memberships. The inactive users freaked out a bit. I got about 200 "delete me now" requests, and about 10 nastygrams. But that's out of 8,000 registered members, so that's really not bad.

How much are you charging?

Here is what I came up with for my community, which is geared towards saving money and is made up mainly of women:
(See notes below it too)

-$25 for a yearly membership
-$15 for a 6 month membership
-$10 for a quarterly membership
-group discount for those who sign up together- 2 yearly memberships/$40

I would have loved to have charged double that, but my members would never pay that. Some balked at the idea of paying $25 a year- but that's only $2/month. That really is cheap! I broke down the costs per day too- it's about 7 cents a day. I used any illustration I could to put the cost into the perspective of other things they pay for and to demonstrate how cheap it was: the cost of two delivery pizzas, or taking your family to one movie at the theater, the code of 2 CDs, etc. That helped put the membership fees into perspective for many of my members.

How I came up with the prices:

I researched the rates before I made the announcement because I felt that I really needed to get the dollar amount just right. It couldn't be too high or too low, or the members wouldn't pay and the community would fall apart without their support.

I needed to figure out how many people I thought were going to sign up. I purposely figured it very low, since memberships are still not all that common, and some people wouldn't want to pay.

I also needed to figure out what I had to charge in order to cover operating costs. I figured that I needed about $10,000 for basic operating costs- server, any extra bandwidth, my internet connection. If I could get more than that amount, I could make improvements and pay myself for my work (what a concept!)

So I needed a price that was reasonable to the members and was something I could operate the site on. $25 seemed to be the magic number. The overwhelming majority of the members have signed up for the yearly membership and have been very supportive.

And this week, only 5 weeks after announcing changes, I hit my goal of $10,000! So I've got the operating expenses for the entire year, and we're not out of January! Anything else I make can go to making improvements or paying myself.

Hope this answers some questions- this is a BIG learning experience, but I'm so glad I did it. It's a more practical business model, and a much better fit for my site than ad revenue ever was, and the focus is so much simpler: the members. No advertisers to please, no networks telling you what to do, just deal with the members. Keep them happy, have fun with them, and keep the site going. I like that much better!
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