The user can purchase a subscription for any of your active plans through the {exp:membrr:order_form} or
{exp:membrr:quick_order_form} template tags.
Subscriptions can also be created in the control panel by selecting “Create Subscription”. Here, you are not bound to the details of the subscription plans: you can customize the initial charge rate, the recurring charge rate, the subscription duration, or even give a free subscription to a member. This backend control panel is perfect for giving custom-priced subscriptions, free subscriptions, or taking subscription orders over the phone.
Upon the first order for a subscription in either the backend or frontend, the user must (if you have placed them in your order form) complete the Billing Address portion of the order form. In all future orders, this billing address will be pre-populated with the latest used address. It can be updated in subsequent orders and will always reflect the most recent order’s billing address. This saves the user and administrator time when creating subscriptions.
You can view all active subscriptions in the “Subscriptions” tab of the Membrr control panel in ExpressionEngine. The available data for each subscription is as follows:
- ID # - The subscription ID.
- Status - Either active, cancelled, or expired. A cancelled subscription was cancelled by the user. An expired subscription expired due to an expired credit card, meeting the end of the subscription’s duration, or other scenario.
- User - The screen name of the member who has this subscription.
- Plan Name - The subscription plan.
- Recurring Amount - This amount is charged every billing interval to the member.
- Total Amount - This amount is the total amount that has been charged to the member over the subscription’s lifetime.
- Start Date - The date that the subscription was purchased or was created by the administrator.
- Next Charge Date - If active, the date of the next charge will be shown.
- Expiry Date - If inactive, the expiry date of the subscription (either when it will end or when it ended) will be shown.
- Cancel Date - If the user actively cancelled the subscription, this date will be shown.
- Related Channel Entry - If the subscription was used in conjunction with channel protection, the related channel post will be linked here.
Sometimes, it is necessary to update the credit card associated with an active subscription (e.g., when a card expires, or when the user gets a new credit card).
With Membrr, you can update the credit card associated with a subscription in the Membrr control panel in ExpressionEngine or you can use the {exp:membrr:update_form} template tag to build an "Update Your Credit Card" form for users to complete and manage their own billing information with.
When a subscription's billing info is updated, a new subscription is automatically created with the new billing info. You won't notice anything in Membrr except for the subscription ID will change throughout the system to reflect the new subscription ID generated by your OpenGateway billing server.
Subscriptions can be cancelled in the control panel by select “Cancel” beside any subscription with an “Active” status.
Subscriptions can also be cancelled by the end user through a
{exp:membrr:cancel} template tag. Simply place this tag on a cancellation page and
pass the subscription ID as a tag parameter. The subscription will be cancelled from all future charges.
Cancelled subscriptions will remain on a user’s account for the duration they have pre-paid for. So,
while the subscription status will be “Cancelled” and not “active”, any
{exp:membrr:subscribed} tag calls will still
return positive until the subscription’s end date. Furthermore, any linked channel entries
via channel protection will only have their statuses updated at the
subscription’s expiration date. This feature allows members to get what they paid for and cancel anytime without losing subscription time.