Web Site Subscriptions

besides paypal

[jo1ene]

None of the open source cms solutions seem to have a paid subscription "thing" built in. A lot of folks are using paypal. Is anyone aware of a more "professional" option before I go ahead and hire a php guy to program a custom subscription module? What else to y'all use?

Briefly, I am building a community site (not a forum) that would have different permissions/tools/features by subscription. I would like to use Xaraya, although I'm not married to that particular cms.

[jo1ene]

So, y'all use paypal when applicable?

[txbakers]

what's unprofessional about PayPal? Over 60 million people use it. I think it's great.

[superbird]

I'm gonna use it, people are more used to using PayPal for eBay and classifieds now so they don't see it as a grubby little scheme any more (can't think of a better way to say that)

[jo1ene]

Not to be argumentative, but as an illustration: If it's so professional, then why doesn't amazon use it. Am I going to be as big as amazon? Maybe... ::wink::

I'm talking about *monthly* subscriptions. I'm going to be serving companies (only) many of which are quite large. Am I supposed to send these big companies to paypal? Does this site? I'm not sure.

Think slashdot and ars technica... Again, I'm not doing forums but they have a subscription feature *built in* to the site to access certain forums.

I need a seemless and *automated* solution. I need to accept busineess credit cards and set permissions accordingly. I've seen many requests for such a feature in oscms forums and heard rumors of these modules existing. Is anyone here aware of any?

I'm guessing I'll have to get this thing cutom developed, but I was just seeing if anything was already out there and is working for any of y'all.

[txbakers]

You can contact a bank and get a credit card merchant account, pay their monthly minimums, contract with a credit card gateway, jimmy the code to make it work with your site, and you're set.

It's a far more costly solution than paypal, but it "looks" more professional.

[jo1ene]

I already have merchant account, etc. arrangments in place. What I was inquiring about is a *subscription module* for any CMS.

[treeline]

Look at what the ISP's do. You sign up online for either internet access or for web hosting, and they bill you monthly and send along a nice little email.

Or reconfigure your own shopping cart.

[jo1ene]

You sign up online for either internet access or for web hosting, and they bill you monthly and send along a nice little email.

I could do this. I just hope I don't end up wasting my life handling it all manually. I'll look into billing systems that I can use on my end, separate from the CMS. Thanks for your help.