Paid Subscriptions

luceos

stx I think I could create such an extension, could you specify the flow a user goes through from your point of view?

0E800

stx @luceos
Might be simple to incorporate Patreon https://www.patreon.com/
Might even be possible just using the Custom Header area.

I will give it a shot and update post.

Update:

You can create a Patreon Account which kind of resembles a Go-FundMe type page. Then you add a link to your Patreon Site.

It didnt look pretty but adding below code to Custom Headers does work:

<a href="https://www.patreon.com/yoursite" target="_blank"> <img src="patreonsmallbanner.png" alt="Support me on Patreon!"> </a>

Patreon also has a API
https://github.com/Patreon/patreon-php
https://github.com/Patreon/patreon-java

luceos

0E800 what op meant I think is to close the forum's down based on a paid subscription plan. Not being sure either I am hoping to get some clarification.

0E800

luceos
That makes sense. My bad. HTH ?

antoinel12

I was about to try to learn how to do extensions for Flarum before reading this post to create a plugin for paid subscription for Flarum. I was still asking myself if I would have the time to complete the project has I really don't have much time. I was estimating that it would require me a couple of months to learn and program it.

luceos If you would like to create an extension, that would be very great. I don't want to hijack stx post but I think our requirements could be similar.

Here are my thoughts of what I wanted to develop:
-Restrict posts via the tag and the roles of Flarum (already working). It would give the possibility to have public tags (for everyone) and some restricted tags that only subscribed user could see and would use the built in Flarum features instead of duplicating it by implementing some parallel security.
-Subscription page with custom text to give explanation, instructions, benefit of membership, etc. Payment would be done with PayPal, ideally using the basic PayPal checkout (the button with the hidden form), so no complicated business account would be needed.
-Once the payment is received (confirmation via PayPal IPN), the user is automatically assigned to the "Membership" so he can now access restricted tags.
-A preference page in the admin to set the following elements:
-Paypal email address for the payment, other PayPal customizations
-Expiration date and subscription length : Fixed expiration date (the most important for the project i'm working on) for seasonal subscription (summer subscription) whatever the date you subscribe or subscription length (yearly subscription) adjusting to the date the user subscribed
-Grace period and email notifications
-Automatic removal of role after expiration and grace period
-Specify which Flarum's roles the subscribed user would benefit
-Define success and error messages displayed after the payment
-Have a list of current subscription and payments
-A label on user's profile and card saying that the user is having a subscription

Here would be some nice to have but not required at start for my project:
-Multiple subscriptions that would give specific roles
-Price automatic adjustment determined by the date (seasonal price)
-Other payment processor like Stripe
-Show subscription details, expiration and past payment on user page (only visible by this user)
-Require additional subscribers infos : address, etc. Maybe we could use PayPal delivery address feature and retrieve the information.

I have great interests about this plugin and it is a must have for my forum that we currently have in our wordpress/bbpress forum. This is a project I would really like to work on but I'm afraid I cannot have enough time to make it come to life. So if luceos you are willing to do it that would be very great and maybe I can contribute ;-)

luceos

From my point of view for an initial release:

Use stripe, it recently added paypal, ideal and other payment providers next to their original credit cards. It offers recurring payments natively and plans.
Allow configuration of subscriptions (payment plans) in an extension tab.
Append to the permission page a row that allows selecting a (previously configured) subscription to gain access to a tag/global automatically.
Possibly append another permission that allows configuring groups that have access to a tag independent of their subscription. Eg for mods or admin groups.

As you've already mentioned, there are plenty of other features that should be integrated, but I strongly believe in small incremental development cycles based on one feature at a time. That allows frequent releases and a stable extension.

luceos

luceos or connect a plan to a user group..

luceos

I'm looking into this. Can't be too sure about a release date or something though.

0E800

Couldn't you use the landing page as your pay wall? No content is accessible.
Restrict forum to members only.
Make the landing page your PayPal or whatever, easily done by inserting the html code. Once payment has been received the notification from PayPal shows the email address to send the registration code.

Extensions used:
Landing Page
Registration

Seems legit to me.

luceos

0E800 that would remove any flexibility from the extension. It's something we could implement eventually, but not initially. From my perspective the best use case is to define which subscriptions give access to which permission groups and then give the webmaster full freedom what to block/allow with those groups. If he wants he can block access to all tags for instance.

antoinel12

In the case of my league, we would need PayPal as Payment Gateway as we pay our server with PayPal funds (our hoster accept PayPal) so we don't need to transfer to a bank account. Less intermediate mean less transaction fees. If you implement Stripe as first, could it be done in a way that it would be easy to add another payment gateway ?

luceos

antoinel12 that would most likely be a requirement yes. It's a lot of work to do, but for a later release it makes sense to set it up the same way as with the upload extension which allows any adapter (aws, local, imgur etc). I'm not too sure about the feasibility of it, but we'll see.

Ralkage

I worked on integrating Braintree (Paypal owned) with my Laravel project out of the box and it worked beautifully.

But if you're looking for a straight Paypal gateway, it might be a little more manual work if anything.

With Braintree, you can use their API and set up a Sandbox account to test all the cool features you can incorporate in your community for free. Say if you have a Tier 1 subscription group, once they make a payment they will be automatically transferred to the Tier 1 group you created. In addition, you have more flexibility of plan lengths, payment types, expiration dates, etc.

stx

My apologies for the late reply, I was sidetracked on another major project and had to put this on the backburner. I will be starting up the new forum shortly and do plan on using Flarum. There's been some awesome ideas posted here. Antoinel12, you have some great ideas for a full fledged subscription module, that's exactly what I'd be looking for. I do agree with luceos, bring in the functionality on an initial release and expand from there. luceos, if you are still interested in moving forward with this, I would be willing to do testing on the new forum, we'll be doing a soft start, so will have a good test environment while ramping up.

justshipit

+1 for this.

How I see it:

Simple Stripe checkout.js pop-up asking either for a one-time fee or subscription (something user could be able to configure from the backend). We don't even need to cover all payment errors as this is something you can still be able to see in Stripe's dashboard (to follow up with user manually). Enough for neat MVP.

collins

Paid subscription will be a cool feature. Hoping it would be made available soon ?
Also I think it needs to work with private discussion somehow. @luceos

JRay

Any updated plans for a payment extension that works with Stripe? @luceos @clarkwinkelmann

luceos

I still want to pursue this extension. But polls and bazaar/flagrow.io currently require my full attention. Once I get open features done I'll most likely go after this.

clarkwinkelmann

Hello everybody, I'm picking up on this extension, this will probably be one of the first released by Flagrow on our upcoming premium extensions platform.

As stated before, the easiest starting point is to include:

Group-based permissions
One time or recurring payment
Stripe / Paypal provider

I've seen a lot of requirements and suggestions on this forum, however I've not seen much from a user experience point of view. I'd also be interested to hear specific use-cases (other than completely blocking the forum or a tag)

Could anybody interested in such an extension share the path they expect users to take ?

For example have a kind of "plans" page where users can list/compare what you get access to, or ask to pay in-context when trying to do a specific thing ?

Do you expect to offer multiple "plans"

Also are there things that can't be managed via Flarum permissions but that you would like to integrate with the paywall ?

MajoMaslo

clarkwinkelmann Hello, nice to see someone who will make extension like this. I will buy it on flagrow, because this is one of the first extension what i want.

Yep, it's ok for group based permissions.
Maybe "freebies" can see on premium tags something like this:

This content is for premium members only.
Please, support our community and buy a premium package.

JRay

clarkwinkelmann Awesome Clark. This is my #1 need right now.

Here's my wish list:

Multiple membership levels similar to Patreon (including a free tier)
Integration with Stripe
Page that details different member levels and what you get for each. I was going to do this outside of Flarum but if it's integrated even better.
When you signup for a level, it maps to a user group which can set permissions for various Flarum things
Admin can add/remove members from groups manually if needed
Membership level can be listed on profile or next to screen name
Certain tags/topics only viewable by certain member levels (groups)
Ads extension integrates with user groups so ads can be disabled for certain member levels

clarkwinkelmann

MajoMaslo JRay thanks for the feedback guys !

JRay including a free tier

Would the free tier be different from a "no subscription" state ? Or is it just about listing what you can do without a paid tier on a pricing page ?

JRay Admin can add/remove members from groups manually if needed

How would you expect that to work ? You mean kicking user from a paid plan ? What if they subscribe again ? Maybe you can just use the "suspend user" feature for that ?