Upgrade/Downgrade membership pricing

[gwatts]

I have a question regarding how upgrading/downgrading works for my membership business model. I don’t have monthly subscriptions. I only have One Year subscriptions for my members.

How will payments work when a member upgrades or downgrades during their One Year membership? Is the “upgrade/downgrade”possible on our One Year membership business model? Or is it only possible on if I have a monthly subscription model?

Ideally, if a member downgrades or upgrades, the payment changes at the end of their One Year membership. If the member downgrades on Day 300, does the WP eMember system automatically downgrade them to that membership level (e.g. Bronze)? So, if the member was on a £79 per year membership, and downgraded to a £49 per year membership, the £49 payment should be taken at the end of their original year. I think the problem is that the “downgrade” in membership is essentially a brand new membership, but the member has already paid £79 (for one year of membership). So, for example, if the member downgraded on day 300 of 365, what happens to the payment (see scenarios below)?

Scenario 1: The member starts a new payment of £47 on day 366 of the membership.

Scenario 2: The member is started on a new Paypal payment of £47 on day 300. But that would mean they paid for 365 days on day 1 when they signed up for the One Year Membership, but only got 300 days of membership.

Scenario 3: Can you give the correct scenario

Any help will be gratefully received.

Warm regards,

George

[gwatts]

FOLLOW UP: We just did a Silver to Gold upgrade test, but when upgrading to Gold, the Silver subscription on Paypal wasn’t deleted or deactivated. That means if a member upgrades, they would have two active subscriptions on their Paypal account.

I set up all my subscription buttons directly from Paypal (and add the appropriate “notify_url=” to the “Add advanced variables” section).

To prevent this double subscription from happening, do I need to use the Payment Buttons section within “WP eMember > Payments > Payment Buttons” (and not set the payment buttons directly from Paypal)?

Below is a screencast I recorded to give more clarity on the upgrade/downgrade set up I’m after:

[loom.com/share/e8272b3e34fa4c429507c54f0eb8df08]

[wzp]

For the sake of the conversation; let’s assume that you are NOT using recurring subscriptions; in other words, the member pays for their membership, 1 year at a time (the membership period).

When PayPal (or any other payment gateway) processes the membership purchase; it does so as a ONE TIME, NON RECURRING, purchase. PayPal has no knowledge of how long a membership period lasts.

On “day 1,” they pay for their membership period; whose length is 1 year, from the payment date. At the end of the period, depending upon how you configured eMember; the membership can either go “inactive” or be automagically downgraded to a lower tier level.

https://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/wordpress-membership/auto-downgrade-membership-account-addon-941

If a membership is renewed at the same level, BEFORE it expires; the existing membership period is EXTENDED by the additional renewal period; and everybody is happy.

If a membership is “upgraded” to a different level, BEFORE the current membership expires; the new membership level period begins on the day of payment. Because the membership periods are “1 time purchases,” pro-rating is not possible; because neither you or eMember, have any knowledge of the “payment method” they used, at PayPal. If a member “complains,” you have the ability to compensate them, by manually extending their membership period (preferred), or issuing a refund.

Here is a list of discussions, related to this subject:

https://support.tipsandtricks-hq.com/forums/topic/membership-upgrade-renewal-and-cancellation

[gwatts]

Is it possible to get paid help from a WP eMember developer? I’d like the developer to work directly with my developer via Skype.

[wzp]

Complete the form here:

https://support.tipsandtricks-hq.com/need-custom-work-done

And you will be contacted.

[gwatts]

Many thanks. I’ve just completed the form.

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