I'm really please with the progress and development of Drupal and I'm more than convinced of it's ability to support a large online community. I've set up a few personal sites and have installed and tested many of the modules for 4.5.2 and the CVS and release canidate. I was wondering if anyone has or is attempting to set up a Drupal site where authenticated users have to pay for access to the site?
My question is what is the best method of doing this, and would I have use a third party resource of some kind?
I'm not familar with this sort of thing and if someone could point me in the right direction or share their story with me that would be great. I've been approached to help a small community establish themselves online and membership will be on a subscription basis.
Thanks,
Will
Comments
I am going to have to wait
I am going to have to wait to see if someone gives you an answer you like (and works for you) first. I am not in the mood to recieve a bunch of lip from those that don't like my methods of accomplishing things.
If I do decide to help you out with this then it will probably have to be on my site where I can speak more freely. You'd have to register there then I'll give you a free short term subscription so that you can access the content.
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Hivemindz CMSopedia
__________________________
Carl McDade
Information Technology Consult
Team Macromedia
Drupal Web Developer - Stockholm Sweden
Drupal Sweden
two quotes
yes, it's typical to dislike somone, who generally gives "the best methods".
--
Drupal development: making the world better, one patch at a time. | A bedroom without a teddy is like a face without a smile.
hh-----------------------------------------------------------
Drupal Web Developer - Stockholm Sweden
Drupal Sweden
Drupal Ecommerce Does This
First: What was that last message?
Second: A subscription feature was recently added to the ecommerce package. It allows users to buy a subscription which in turn activates a role on their account - we can call it 'subscribed'. You could then use role-based access (like chx's nodeaccess.module which should be released soon) to show certain nodes or node-types only to users with the 'subscribed' role. Recurring payments are also supported as are reminder emails to subscribed users.
It's pretty cool stuff and I'll be using it on the site that I'm currently developing.
-Jeff Robbins
--= Jeff Robbins | Lullabot | Do It With Drupal =--
Hmmmm.... not again
Sorry to be downbeat about your idea, but then you weren't very specific about what the subscriptions would be for. I think about doing an editorial or creating some other product sometimes, but I honestly get lost when someone starts talking about charging for access without producing a unique and valuable product to justify it, like a weekly magazine or chapters of a popular e-book released once a week/month. Charging for access to open-source products that are to be given away to the community turns me off.
And, I'm a little sensitive right now to the winds of change for Drupal. I just committed to this cms, and it is becoming more and more popular, and I know the sharks will be gathering. Commercial enterprises will surely take an interest, and try to nibble away at the GPL any way they can. Even the little ones will get in the action and try to get a piece. This is normal.
But ... look at what happened to the PHPNuke and other Nuke cms offshoots over the last few years. Now you have to pay to download the cms from some guy who inherited it after everyone else got disgusted and went elsewhere (driven away?) ... at least that's how I saw it. Excuse me if I got it wrong, but I immediately dropped that cms from my list of probables as soon as I saw someone trying to claim ownership of something 1,000's of people had built up over time.
Something similar is happening to another cms (recent name change to runcms), and that started over a year ago with one guy charging access to download a bunch of themes he modified then claimed copyrights on. Soon I expect there will be limited access to the source code. Again, just my opinion.
Will Drupal be influenced in this fashion? I think not, but I am still wary when I see or hear of charging for things in the open source community. The commercial community is different altogether.
Good luck though, and I certainly don't think you should give up your ideas. I just wanted to express my thoughts.
LeBlank
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LeBlank
Uhh, are you talking to me
Uhh, are you talking to me or BKwill?
I think he is selling music.
People please don't hijack this thread to harp on me. Start a new one.
BKWill,
You will have to give some more info on the version, time schedule and type of content you are going to be making available. Jeffs advise is valid for v4.6 if you want to wait. if you are using 4.5.2 then you are going to have to make some slight changes in choices.
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Hivemindz CMSopedia
__________________________
Carl McDade
Information Technology Consult
Team Macromedia
Drupal Web Developer - Stockholm Sweden
Drupal Sweden
My name is not 'people' ... <smile>
I'm so sorry you think I hijacked your thread. However you might want to consider talking about your business propositions in private.
I will reply to any public post I please and, if you don't like it, go away.
LeBlanc
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LeBlank
I don't like it. But I am
I don't like it. But I am not going away. I am asking that you and CHX show some courtesy by letting BKwill get some information and decide for himself (herself?) My offer of help is based of the wether or not BK will is satisfied with other answers. As my implemetation of what BKWill wants to do is not something that is generic. Jeffs answer works and there are certainly other answers. i have tried them and found them lacking for my situation. So rather than just giving out what I have done I have choosen to wait and see.
As far as my business practices are concerned. I'll start a thread for you and you can blah blah blah there.
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Hivemindz CMSopedia
__________________________
Carl McDade
Information Technology Consult
Team Macromedia
Drupal Web Developer - Stockholm Sweden
Drupal Sweden
Read up on the GPL
Nothing in the GPL prevents someone from charging someone for a copy of GPLed software. Look at RedHat, Novell, etc. where they're charging for Linux. So I and anyone else could pick up Drupal, slap a $50 sticker onto it, and sell to whoever we wish.
The GPL does offer some protections though. Someone who just purchased the GPL software could turn right around and offer it for free. The seller is also obligated to make the source code of their changes available under the GPL.
Another quirk of the GPL is that I could create a site with a bunch of custom made Drupal modules, or even altered ones, and never be required to release those modules to the public so long as I don't ever distribute those modules outside of my organization. Think about that for a minute.
- nolan
Value
Open source is responsible for a considerable amount of the good being done in the world today, but sometimes it is necessary to charge a minimal amount in order to have a way to verify that a subscriber isn't someone who is on the sex offender list or a known pedophile. The web being what it is today, some sites need control to protect young and vulnerable users.
I hope this doesn't bother you.
Open source is responsible for a considerable amount of the good being done in the world today.
Implementing paying memberships
I don't undestand half the comments on this post. However, I am also interested in finding a way to restrict access to certain areas of the site for paying members. Specifically, I want to set up a site for a trade association where members can join the association online and get access to association resources.
I haven't been able to find the subscription module in the ecommerce product yet; even the cvs version. The best commercial solution I have seen looks to be amember pro, which has plenty of features for this sort of thing (including import/export of membership data to an offline CRM system or similar) but it ain't cheap and I haven't actually tried to use it. It is a standalone product with a bridge to Drupal.
If you find a solution please let me know
Jez
Now that you mention it ...
... i haven't seen any subscription set up in the ecommerce module either. Perhaps it is in the works, planned as a feature that has not been finished yet. Anyone know?
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LeBlank
It's in there
It's in there, but just not well documented. Go to
admin/settings/payment
and enable 'recurring payments'.
I know the documentation is lacking, and I've hired someone to help me write a manual.
Wow, a whole day away and look what happens!!!
Wow, thanks for the active talk on this thread. I had some reservations about asking this question in the first place, becasue I am very sensitive to the issues with money and Open Source. I AM NOT SELLING ANY OPEN SOURCE TECHNOLOGY of any kind or ACCESS to technology. I work in the music industry with a large majority of major and minor lables. I'm also a geek at heart, and have been able to establish a good foot hold in both worlds.
I want to help build an online community for a group of people that came together in support of a film called AfroPunk. They have a forum on the movie's website that gets thousands of unique visits a day, and the director of the film has gone as far as to organize events for people nationwide through the forum. They have developed loads of content and want to create a online community to solidfy the groups and create unified forum. There will be paid access to the community in order to cover the cost of developing and producing content and events.
I hope this helps everyone. I am using 4.5.2 currently.
you are not...
This led a few people to think that Mr. McDade has not-so-free subscriptions, too. And given the quality of said user's contribution some may be dubious what he'd sell when time comes to sell.
But enough of this, let's see your problem.
Google AdSense won't help you? It's a lot easier than to build a payment system. A Paypal tip jar is also easy to implement. The ecommerce system already has a paypal gateway, that may also help.
--
Drupal development: making the world better, one patch at a time. | A bedroom without a teddy is like a face without a smile.
hh------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Drupal Web Developer - Stockholm Sweden
Drupal Sweden
use e-commerce
Carl, I have tried to hint several times -in a nice way- that you should change your attitude. Please change it, or you will become the first banned user on drupal.org!
BKWill,
Do not pay too much attention to McDade AKA, soonNotanymore. You can do what you want perfectly useing e-commerce modules in Drupal. Matthias (asitis.org) developd this and used it in various sites. http://stuartdavis.com/ is a nice example with paid content (music) in Drupal.
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If this solved you problem, please report back. This will help others whom are looking for the same solution.
Next time, please consider to file a support request.
[Bèr Kessels | Drupal services www.webschuur.com]
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My Blog and Portfolio
You don't have to ban me. I
You don't have to ban me. I am asking that all my post and my user be deleted. Dries or anyone that has the power to do so can delete my user and empty any table fields connect to my user id.
You have got what you wanted. Now let there be silence.
Drupal Web Developer - Stockholm Sweden
Drupal Sweden
Will Do, Thanks!
Thanks so much for your reply (everyone), I wasn't trying to spark a dabte or anything. I have alot of faith in the Community and Drupal's ability to far surpass the other CMS solutions. The E-Commerce modules seem to offer everything that I will need. I will install that and report back on my progress.
Two Things: First how secure are these modules from would be hackers, would I need to or could I implement addition security? Second:
"Payment and shipping components are 'pluggable'. The system can use Paypal, authorize.net or you can roll your own."
The roll your own means that I could use another company to process the transactions, correct?
Thank you,
Will
ecommerce and taxonomy_access
The new (just went live yesterday) Council of Writing Program Administrators uses Drupal 4.5, taxonomy_acccess, and the ecommerce module to provide member only spaces. The subscription feature of the ecommerce module allows site members to be added and removed from a membership role automatically based upon their membership subscription. Taxonomy_access then allows a way to limit to the journal archives to paying members.
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Charlie Lowe | cyberdash
Tips for posting to the Drupal forums
I should also note
That the current journal archives are public; the site will be adding newer issue runs that are private within the next few weeks.
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Charlie Lowe | cyberdash
Tips for posting to the Drupal forums
ecommerce and taxonomy_access
Can you give a bit more information about how you did this? It sounds exactly what I am trying to achieve.
Had a quick look at your site. It looks most professional, congratulations.
Unfortunately the link in the first faq to http://wpacouncil.org/drupaltest/about is broken.
Jez
Looking for instructions for subscription product
I too am looking for more specific instructions on how to achieve this with the exact bundle of software you described (4.5 ...).
In particular, being totally new to ecommerce.module, I had expected that when I create a product one of the options would be "subscription". Since this isn't an option, and there isn't a subscription module in the contrib folder, I'm at a loss.
- Robert Douglass
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http://www.hornroller.com/French_Horn_News
www.robshouse.net
my Drupal book | Twitter | Senior Drupal Advisor, Acquia | Advisor ICanLocalize
Re: Subscription Product
You need to visit admin/settings/payment and then you'll have the option of recurring payments when you make a node into a product. There isn't a "subscription product" per se, but you can enable recurring payments for any product. To create a non-shippable, non-inventory product to sell as a subscription, use the generic product-type.
You can also enable recurring payments to trigger membership in a role. This would be a way to enable paid site memberships that would give users access to more information on the site.
The ecommerce package is certainly big and somewhat confusing at this point. Hopefully someone will sponsor some documentation sometime soon.
--= Jeff Robbins | www.jjeff.com =--
--= Jeff Robbins | Lullabot | Do It With Drupal =--
This is an interesting
This is an interesting discussion.... excluding the arguments of course :)
http://goingtochina.com - I love China - Chinese Tourism and Business
http://01Business.com - Business 2 Business Directory
just a thought...
I'm looking at something similar (managing subscribers) and am looking at tweaking the EXPIRED USER module to work in conjunction with the ecommerce.module.
I have the expired module working with drupal 4.5.x and plan to go the whole hog and update it to drupal 4.6.x but if there is another module in development that doesn't need me to do this..please let me know.
the functionality of the expired_user.module is simply to warn & disable or delete users who have been inactive for a certain period and looks at the DATE CHANGED field in the USERS table for that.
I was thinking of tweaking that to look at an EXPIRY DATE field in a new table that is updated by the ecommerce module in some way.
Am out of my depth slightly with how precisely to do that...am not expert in php so anyone who has any tips..please share.
Dub
Recurring payments
Recurring payments as they're currently implemented aren't flexible at all.
I'm trying to set up a paid-membership site, yet why are my only options for products "collection of products", "file download" & "shippable product"? Where's "site subscription" or "paid membership"?
Without this option it's pretty useless. It'd be a lot better if it had this option, then you could configure each subscription's role - instead of only being able to do it from one place.
Finally, the UI for purchasing a subscription is horrible! Sure you can write your own module and hook_user to add your subscription to the shopping cart and push them to checkout - but they're asked for all of their registration information again for shipping information! (and who wants to hack together a module anyhow???)
Anyone having to jump through those hoops would most certianly get pissed off and forget about paying for membership all together.
I'd be interested to hear everyone's thoughts on how to accomplish the steps I've outlined below:
1 - User comes to site, fills in new user form
2 - Site adds appropriate membership (or lets user pick which membership they'd like) to the shopping cart
3 - Site directs user to the payment page
4 - User is a member & role is assigned based on membership purchased.
Filling out duplicate information or having to wait around for an email, then login, THEN purchase is _not_ the right way to go. AT ALL.
- a usability guy...
http://www.subimage.com/
Documentation
Did you look at the documentation links posted elsewhere in this thread?
...of course I did
If I didn't and could have figured out how to accomplish what I wanted from the documentation available do you think I would have posted anything?
I've currently hacked together a module that hooks_user, auto-logs them in after signup, fills an addressbook entry, then pushes them to checkout.
The problems remaining are:
Ideas on how to handle any of this? Thanks for responding, but I've already RTFM. :) The FM is lacking...
I'd be willing to help with the usability of this module for free (because I'm using it for a client of mine, and it benefits me). I do UI for a living, so I'm not just pulling this stuff out of thin air. If you want to take me up on the offer let me know.
http://www.subimage.com/
great ideas..
hi Subimage..
Interesting post.
Not sure if this is of use, but, I was pulling together a members area for a pal recently and faced similar problems - i.e. how to link payments back to site access.
After numerous attempts (I'm not an expert in PHP) we ended up with a manual action after payment was processed.
The site itself only has a few hundred members and cheque/bank draft & credit card via worldpay were the payment options.
the volume isn't huge and is spread out over the year. i.e. some register per quarter and others renew membership at different times thoughout the year.
Not sure if this helps..but, automating the process of subscription/membership reminders proved difficult for us and I tweaked (I don't like the word hacked) the EXPIRED USER module by changing the reference to a USER PROFILE -->> EXPIRY DATE field instead of the DATE CHANGED field.
So, while I don't have a definitive answer to your question "Ideas on how to handle this?"..I just thought I'd mention it and I hope it makes sense...
Dub
Hi Dub,
Hi Dub,
Is the site public ? Well it can be added to list of ecommerce sites. Are you willing to contribute worldpay payment integration module ?
I would be interested in a
I would be interested in a clickbank module
Business Letters
Free Classifieds
http://goingtochina.com - I love China - Chinese Tourism and Business
http://01Business.com - Business 2 Business Directory
site is going through..
Am just finishing off some updates to that membership site...will post a link up when it's finished.
Have plopped the worldpay.module in my sandbox for others if they find it useful. It needs a little tweaking before it's unleashed or comitted to the ecommerce add-ons, but, it's working.make sure you follow the readme that comes with it.
http://cvs.drupal.org/viewcvs/drupal/contributions/sandbox/dublindrupall...
Dub
Documentation
Some documentation for the ecommerce package can be found here:
http://osddp.org/node/284
http://osddp.org/node/287
Payment is incomplete but user roles are changed
HI, this is my first time posting, please do give advices..
I'm trying to setup a paying membership. When user logs in, I'm waiting until his role is set to "subscribed" to offer the services of our webpage.
Right now, in administer->settings->payments, I made sure that "recurring payments".. set my user as "subscribed"
The problem is that if an user logs in, and enters all the information until he reaches the PayPal Payment and he doesnt complete it, the user roles are still changed.
Is there a way that the user roles change, only when transaction is complete?
I am using the following :
// $Id: payment.module,v 1.23.2.1 2005/06/22 19:25:28 mathias Exp $
same problem for me
i have a other question ,
is it a possible to make more than one roles subscription ??
anything new
any news on subscription based site
esommerce module ?
http://www.WOGOOH.com
http://www.i-bloggers.com
Wow, this topic ended a year
Wow, this topic ended a year and a half ago. I am also interested in having parts of my site visible to paid members, but I want it so that they can select their membership upon registration.
I made a module which offers
I made a module which offers a full Paid Membership Site feature set, called Paypal Subscriptions. I sell it on my site. It allows users to select their membership they want to purchase during registration, and the user accounts aren't created until AFTER confirmation of payment via Paypal. It has tons more features but I won't go into too much detail here. If anyone is interested still, you can see the screenshots and more info here: http://www.moneyscripts.net/drupal-paypal-subscriptions
Hope that helps someone
-Leighton
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Leighton Whiting - http://blog.leightonwhiting.com
WildKatana Design - http://www.wildkatana.com