For-profit forum question: recurring billing?

[Muzzleflash]

I am starting a forum where there are two usergroups- one joins free after a verification with me, and the other pays a subscription fee.

I know vBulletin has a built in subscription system (paypal is out of the question as the forum is of an adult nature).

My question is, what would be the best setup for involving recurring monthly billing to someone's credit card? Would I need a merchant account with someone else setup with my own custom shopping cart created? I can see that the built in subscription method works only for people that have signed up.

If there's a way for people to pay first, it saves having people sign up on the forum first in order to subscribe, but it means that my forum would have to generate the account for them after the payment is processed.

Here are two quotes from cozycampus.com's adult webmaster forum that stuck in my head:

your own recurring billing system (do not depend on the payment solution's recurring billing system or you will be locked in with them)

Billing Processors - You can go with an independentant merchant account and do all your own processing, and scrubbing, but if you're new to the game I would suggest you NOT go this route. Get your feet wet with a 3rd party biller or two or three. And setting this up will require more than merely a desire. Either you will need the expertise to plug it all in or you'll need to hire someone to do it for you - and a designer can't do this.

Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated.. I might be the very first vBulletin adult website with a tour page and everything

Oh, and here's a VERY nice looking system: Ikobo

http://www.cozycampus.com/theforum/s...ighlight=ikobo

Apparently it's all the benefits of a merchant system with none of the bad things.. all it lacks is a rebilling feature. (and that's coming soon).

Maybe when they offer recurring billing, I can get an integration with them going like paypal already has..

[richieg]

I have the same question. If anyone knows, please fill us in.

[Stachel]

I would be interested in hearing about this too.

[Titania]

This is exactly what I need.
Paypal just pulled a nasty trick on me closing my account after two years with them!! Apparently I breached their AUP. I actually didn't but they will not budge. It has become apparent that Paypal are a very dodgy company and should not be trusted!! Just look at www.paypalsucks.com

Anyway, now that this has happened to me, I need a Paypal replacement and am considering a business merchant account with my bank. I have been considering Worldpay but they have really taken their time getting back to me.
Considering my website is my main source of income, I really need a solution quite urgently which works with vBulletin (I'm using 3.5.3) AND supports recurringf payments and instant access.
I also need it to change the usergroup upon payment just as Paypal did.

[paypal]

You Can Get A Merchant Account Through Most Local Banks And Simply Request A Coder To Incorporate With Vbulletin.

E-Gold Is Becoming Popular.

Originally Posted by Titania

This is exactly what I need.
Paypal just pulled a nasty trick on me closing my account after two years with them!! Apparently I breached their AUP. I actually didn't but they will not budge. It has become apparent that Paypal are a very dodgy company and should not be trusted!! Just look at www.paypalsucks.com

Anyway, now that this has happened to me, I need a Paypal replacement and am considering a business merchant account with my bank. I have been considering Worldpay but they have really taken their time getting back to me.
Considering my website is my main source of income, I really need a solution quite urgently which works with vBulletin (I'm using 3.5.3) AND supports recurringf payments and instant access.
I also need it to change the usergroup upon payment just as Paypal did.

[Ntfu2]

Check out Amember.com subscription software, integrates nicely into vBulletin and many many payment processors added into that.

I have my adult forum setup with this, they go thru the Amember sign up first where there is the free option, then the paid option at registration. When registration/payment is complete it'll automatically update them to the usergroup of your choice.

Really awesome and useful peice of software, since vBulletin is forum software, and shouldnt really be used for subscriptions, payment handling on a large scale