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Handling subscription models

 
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Dom



Joined: 19 May 2013
Posts: 34

PostPosted: Mon Jul 01, 2013 9:45 am    Post subject: Handling subscription models Reply with quote

Hi

In the help for ipn under subscriptions you state:

Quote:
If the product uses Authenticated Licenses with an Expiry Date (set in the Key Generation tab) then IPN.NET will generate a license key for the initial subscription purchase but for subsequent payments it will reuse the same license key and update the expiry date. The license key is always associated with the most recent subcription payment sale. You should ensure that the expiry date Days after key generated setting you specify for your product is greater than the subscription period set for the subscription button. For instance for a 1 month subscription you might set the Expiry Date to 32 Days after key generated. This ensures that the customers license key won't expire before the next payment is made.


This makes sense, but how would one handle the following type of scenario?

The subscription for you product is essentially there to guarantee faster response to support enquiries and the continued right to receive updates. If you upgrade your support prior to the expiry date you typically get a reduced price to one of renewing after the expiry date (a very common scenario with component manufacturers for example). Prior to being able to purchase an upgrade at the cheapest price you have to first verify that your existing licence entitles you to upgrade at that price.

As I see it at present if you have an 'upgrade' product in your store and set up as such on the ipn server its going to extend the licence irrespective of whether it has expired or not. Is this correct?

Dom
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Infralution



Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Posts: 5027

PostPosted: Mon Jul 01, 2013 12:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm not sure I fully understand your question.

PayPal subscriptions are automated debits (weekly, yearly etc) of a customers account (typically credit card). The customer signs up to the subscription and it continues until they stop it. The are usually used where you a selling access to your product on a monthly or yearly basis. In this case you wouldn't normally charge the customer for upgrades and the subscription would give them the ability to run the latest version of your software.
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Dom



Joined: 19 May 2013
Posts: 34

PostPosted: Mon Jul 01, 2013 6:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The best example of what I have in mind is the model used by the folks who make advanced installer.

In essence you purchase a licence for the product and as you pay so you get the licence via email (that's all straightforward with ils and ipn working together). Your licence comes with six months worth of enhanced support and any upgrades to the product released prior to its expiry.

Before it expires you can chose to extend your subscription if you so wish (that is really the only bit that the expiry date refers to) at $x.00. If you're perfectly happy with things as they are you just carry on without renewing as your licence is perpetual for product versions up to the end of your subscription period (again ils and ipn can do that).

However when I chose to renew I submit my licence to the web form (which obviously checks it's embedded support expiry date, and if the date is still current it prompts for a payment of $x.00 or if not it prompts for a renewal payment of &x.00 + y%. Importantly however the licence seril number does not change as far as I the end am concerned, it just reports a new expiry date.

Now as far as I can see ipn can do most of that, but not quite all, or at least to be fair as I may have misread the help, I can't figure out how one might set that sort of scenario up.

Dom
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Infralution



Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Posts: 5027

PostPosted: Mon Jul 01, 2013 10:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

IPN.NET is able to extend the expiry dates of licenses purchased with a PayPal subscription because each subscription payment uses the same ID which allows IPN.NET to identify the sale/license key that the subscription is associated with. In your case you would not actually be using a subscription but one off payments. For IPN.NET to be able to identify the license key to extend the customer would need to supply the original license key. It would be possible to implement this sort of scheme but you would need to purchase and modify the IPN.NET source code to do so.
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Dom



Joined: 19 May 2013
Posts: 34

PostPosted: Tue Jul 02, 2013 6:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you for the clarification. Although it would be very tempting to introduce a rolling subscription model its not something that I would want to do for the type of products that I design and build as people may well find that a given level of functionality suits them just fine. There are others though who like the idea of being able to stay up to date and benefit from new features as they are released.

Perhaps it's a model you'd consider adding to a future update of IPN.

Dom
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