if you were going to charge for access to your site's forum, how would you do it?

mkorczow · February 2011

whether it were a one-time fee for lifetime access, or a recurring (monthly or yearly or whatever) billing, how would you set this up so that

- users can pay and gain access ASAP, or stop payments and lose access ASAP
- the work required of forum admin(s) is kept to a minimum
- uses something like Google Checkout or Amazon Payments or (preferably not) PayPal to reduce likelihood that users need to manually enter card info

mkorczow · February 2011

no replies? I thought this would be a common question and haven't seen it addressed anywhere.

Linc · February 2011

I'd write a subscription plugin that moved users in and out of a special role based on their payment status. There's no existing plugin to do this that I'm aware of.

Neo_086 · September 2011

i am looking for the same plugin/solution too. What is our current status on that?

loriG · July 2013

I have the same question. I would like to charge a fee for membership to the forum. Any progress on a plugin? thank you!

vrijvlinder · July 2013

Well there is a forum donate plugin where you can add a paypal button , then you could make the forum private except for users who have donated to paypal.

vrijvlinder · July 2013

You can create a role called paid members and unpaid members, those who have paid get to participate ad those who have not don't.

This way you can switch the roles of members as it happens.

It is may be possible to make a validate rule on the paypal button if it were to become part of the registration process. However I don't think that there is a way to verify payment automatically and grant access immediately after paying.

If you want a plugin to be able to charge for membership to grant access after verification etc, it will cost you to have someone make it for you, since they would be giving you the tools to be able to monetize your forum.

businessdad · July 2013

@vrijvlinder said:
If you want a plugin to be able to charge for membership to grant access after verification etc, it will cost you to have someone make it for you, since they would be giving you the tools to be able to monetize your forum.

Or you can use aMember, which seems to support Vanilla (and it's quite cheap, too).

vrijvlinder · July 2013

https://www.amember.com/p/

Interesting, I could not find anything that pointed to vanilla integration, but it has a WP plugin

businessdad · July 2013

@vrijvlinder said:
https://www.amember.com/p/

Interesting, I could not find anything that pointed to vanilla integration, but it has a WP plugin

Here it is: http://www.amember.com/p/main/integrations/

Note: I'm not affiliated with aMember, just suggesting a possible cost effective a solution.

vrijvlinder · July 2013

nice ! and ($179.95) is not bad for pro version, is that a one time ? or is it a yearly cost can't find it. Their website is a bit confusing with all the popups...

If it is a one time fee, then it is worth it for sure. If it is a yearly or monthly fee to continue the service, one must already be making money to be able to afford it no?

businessdad · July 2013

@vrijvlinder said:
nice ! and ($179.95) is not bad for pro version, is that a one time ? or is it a yearly cost can't find it.

The website is not the best, that's true. From what I've seen, it would be $180 + $40 for the Vanilla plugin, once off.

vrijvlinder · July 2013

Then it sounds fair and even inexpensive (I hate the word cheap=scadente)

good find !

Adrian · July 2013

technically you can also use @x00 add-on marketplace and let people buy access to a board or membership levels with premium roles... simply an amazing addition to the community. Check it out here: http://vanillaforums.org/addon/purchasepremiumroles-plugin

vrijvlinder · July 2013

Yea that sounds like a great idea too and it involves roles. Very clever !

if you were going to charge for access to your site's forum, how would you do it?

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