Free Trial Gets No Expiry Emails?

[jessesmithproductions]

Hi,

I have a Free Trial period of two weeks set up. I registered myself, and today when I tried to log in, I was told my trial had expired – and was invited to become a paid subscriber via PayPal.

All well and good, but I didn’t get a warning email 5 days before, as I set up, nor did I get an expiration email. I do have Auto Expiry Email activated.

Does this feature not work with free trials? If it does work with free trials, what might I be doing wrong? Naturally, I want Free Trial subscribers to have a warning so they can be ready to subscribe when their Free Trial expires.

[jessesmithproductions]

BTW, I did receive my registration and password emails – so that part of the email system is working.

[admin]

What value do you have in the “Membership Duration” field of the membership level in question?

[jessesmithproductions]

Free Trial is set for “2 Weeks” under Subscription Duration. Warning email is set to go out 5 days prior to expiration.

[jessesmithproductions]

[admin]

Okay… I am not sure why the account will expire just after the free trial. Usually a free trial will always be followed up automatically by a recurring payment. Are you not using something like the following?

2 week free trial then charged monthly

What value do you have in the “Recurring Period” field of this subscription?

[jessesmithproductions]

>Okay… I am not sure why the account will expire just after the free trial. Usually a free trial will always be followed up automatically by a recurring payment. Are you not using something like the following?

2 week free trial then charged monthly<

Yes, this is what I want to happen. Visitor registers for 2 week free trial. 5 days before 2 weeks expire, they’re supposed to get an expiration warning email. Then they can decide whether to become a paying monthly subscriber. But the expire warning email is not going out. The access just expires in 2 weeks with no warning.

>What value do you have in the “Recurring Period” field of this subscription?<

I can’t find “Recurring Period” under any setup menus. Where is it please?

[admin]

Okay I see where you are misunderstanding the process. When you make a subscription payment with trial amount you need to specify the recurring billing setup too. This will make it so after the trial time is over the recurring charge will start to kick in (the users membership won’t expire after the trial time unless they cancel it).

Please for the documentation on how to create a subscription product and it will be clear to you:

http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/ecommerce/how-to-add-a-subscription-button-for-recurring-payment-400

[jessesmithproductions]

[jessesmithproductions]

Sorry, but I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. Your documentation link involves eStore, which I am not using.

Again, here’s what I want to do with eMember:

1) Set up two membership levels: “Free Trial” – a 14-day subscription activated upon registration. “Month-to-Month” – A paying subscription, billed each month.

2) “Free Trial” member ship lasts 14 days. Five days before expiry (at day 9) Free Trial member gets a warning email that Free Trial membership is ending in 5 days.

3) If “Free Trial” member opts to become a paying member, upon PayPal payment, they are upgraded to “Month-to-Month” and are billed monthly.

Everything appears to be working properly – except – “Free Trial” members are not getting the expiry email which I have set up to go out 5 days before expiry of the 14-day “Free Trial” membership.

[jessesmithproductions]

Please go to:

[http://funnyphoners.com/wordpress/settings/]

and you will see:

image 1 – Membership Level – Free Two Week Trial – Subscription Duration: 14 Days

image 2 – Auto Expiry Email Notification set for 5 Days before account expiry

image 3 – Auto Expiry Email Notification enabled

So why is no Auto Expiry Email going out 5 days before Free Two Week Trial ends?

[admin]

You didn’t mention what you were using for the payment so I assumed you are using eStore. Even though your are using PayPal the same concept applies… when you create a subscription payment simply specify the recurring charge to start at the end of the 14 day. This means the user will automatically roll into a paid member at the end of the 14 days trial if he does not cancel. So you don’t even need to have two membership levels. Just hook up the subscription button with the trial amount to this one membership. You can create one subscription button that has a 14 day trial and then it starts to charge the month to month fee right after the trial (no need for the customer to do anything unless they want to cancel).

So to summarize it, you only need one membership level and one subscription button. You can create a subscription button that will charge something like the following:

14 day trial then charge $29.95 every month

You hook that subscription to that one membership level. Now, whenever a user is signing up they won’t get charged anything for the first 14 days and if they don’t cancel at the end of the 14 day period they will automatically start to get charged $29.95 per month (the month to month charge). If they cancel then their account will be inactive. See why there is no need to do it the hard way when you use a subscription button?

For the sake of keeping this very simple, I am going to suggest a slightly alternate method that will be easy for you to understand and will achieve the same result. Please do the following:

1. Create a membership level called “Trial Membership” (you already have this done)

2. Edit the “Trial Membership” level and set the “Subscription Valid for” field to 14 days.

3. Go to the eMember settings and check the “Allow Free Membership” field.

4. Specify the membership level ID of the “Trial Membership” in the “Free Membership Level ID” field of this settings menu.

5. Edit your “Join Us” page and remove the current trial button you have and just place a link to the “registration” page for people who want to take the 14 day free trial.

This way when someone goes to your “Join Us” page he can sign up for the “Trial Membership” for free which gives him 14 days access. 5 days before the expiry he will get the email and he can purchase the month to month membership and get upgraded to the full membership.

[jessesmithproductions]

Thanks for your help! I was hoping to avoid using a subscription button … As I understand it, unlike a Buy Now button, a subscription button requires customers to set up a PayPal account. I guess I’ll go ahead and use the arrangement you describe.

So – the way I have it set up, my 14 day Free Trial simply will not fire off an expiry email 5 days before expiry? It seems as though it should. Perhaps this is a feature you could add?

[admin]

Customers can pay via Credit card to signup for subscription too (Just like the normal PayPal purchase). PayPal added this option recently. So you won’t have any issue there.

If you just make a one time purchase membership level with a expiry of 14 days then yes the expiry email will get triggered. If its not happening then we can look into your site and see what is going on. In general when offering trial + recurring charge for membership people always use a subscription button as it is more automated (you don’t have to worry about contacting the customer after the trial).

Make sure you have the “Enable Auto Expiry Email Notification” checkbox checked in the eMember settings.

[jessesmithproductions]

I just finished retooling the site according to your previous direction, and happened to check my email – and I received a Free Trial expiry email two hours ago – so, it all seems to be working now. Thanks!

>Customers can pay via Credit card to signup for subscription too (Just like the normal PayPal purchase). PayPal added this option recently. So you won’t have any issue there.<

Wow – this is great. So now I have the option (some customers prefer an electronic “monthly invoice”). How would this work – If I use a Buy Now button and the paid membership expires in 1 month, the customer will receive an expiry email each month?

Thanks again for helping me through this.

[Author]

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