What to Use in the Subscription Duration Field for a Recurring Payment Model

[admin]

If you are setting up a membership site where you will be accepting recurring/subscription payment for membership access then read this post.

When setting up a membership level that will be tied to a subscription/recurring payment, you can use the following 2 values for the “Subscription Duration” field of the membership level:

1) No Expiry or Until Cancelled

2) Expire After an Interval

1. No Expiry or Until Cancelled

This is the most commonly used option for a recurring payment membership level setup. It means the members who belong to this level will continue to have access to protected content as long as their subscription is active. The member’s account will be deactivated as soon as the member cancels the subscription payment.

Example:

i) You are charging $30 per month for a premium membership.

ii) A user signs up for this membership.

iii) As long as this member doesn’t cancel the subscription payment, the member will have access to the membership level content.

2. Expire After an Interval

This option is usually used for one time payment membership setup. However, you can still use this option with a subscription payment membership setup. This can help you give your members access to the time they already paid for even if they cancel the subscription payment. Set the interval value to what your subscription payment cycle is. If you are charging on a per month basis then use a value of 31 days in the “Subscription Duration” field (1 extra day to allow a little buffer for the payment to be processed).

Example:

i) You are charging $30 per month for a premium membership.

ii) You have set a value of 31 days in the “Subscription Duration” field (1 extra day to allow a little buffer)

iii) A user signs up for this membership.

iv) The user cancels the subscription payment on day 5.

v) The member will have access to the membership level content until the 31 days are over (the user paid for a full month already so he gets the full month access).

vi) On the other hand, if the user never cancels the subscription then as long as the subscription payment keeps coming every month, he will have access to the content as usual.

[Diana]

This was very helpful, thank you. There seem to be many other posts on this subject but it wasn’t until reading this one that it became clear to me how this works. When you suggest to add one extra day to allow a little buffer, is that included in the 31 days or should it be 32 so that even for months with 31 days you still have the 1 day buffer?

[wpCommerce]

Hi, Lets say you have created a subscription using the “day” parameter. For example:

Charge $47 Every 30 Days

When a member signs up for a 30 day recurring subscription the payment gateway will continue to charge them every 30 days (it doesn’t take into account whether the month ends with 30 days or 31 days). So if you use 31 days you are good in this case.

However, if you are creating a recurring payment using the “month” parameter like the following then you should use 32 days to factor in the 31 day months.

Charge $47 Every Month

[Author]

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