Cancellation Of Ongoing Subscription
DAP employs a very unique “Pay As You Go” model.
It’s very similar to the “Pay As You Go” model used by cell phone companies.
You pay first, then new content (or “cell phone minutes” in the mobile world) gets released to you. You stop paying, you don’t get new content (minutes).
So let’s say a member (Joe Customer) joined your membership site this month, and this is January. So he’s on Month #1 in January.
When he first signs up (free or paid trial, or actual 1st month’s subscription), then his start and end dates in DAP on your site look like this:
Start date: Jan 1, 2009
End date: Jan 31, 2009
(Of course, DAP uses actual dates like “01/01/2009″, but “Jan 1, 2009″ is easier to read for most people, especially an international audience – so using the above date format just for the purposes of this post).
Then, let’s say, his February subscription payment comes in. Now DAP “extends” his access to your content by a month. So now the dates look like this:
Start date: Jan 1, 2009
End date: Feb 28, 2009
Now your member Joe has access to all content from Jan 1 to Feb 28 (meaning, about 60 days worth of “dripped content”).
Then end of February, he decides to cancel his membership for whatever reason (or his credit card gets declined or rejected while processing payment for Feb). So no payment comes in for March.
Now because no payment came in, DAP doesn’t really do anything about his access dates. So they continue to stay at:
Start date: Jan 1, 2009
End date: Feb 28, 2009
So any content that you have configured to be dripped on, say, Day #61 (which is Month #3), won’t be available to Joe, even though he continues to remain an “Active” member within DAP, and continues to get your autoresponder and br0adcast emails, and even continues to have access to your affiliate program and continues to earn commissions.
Actually, it gets even better – just because Joe’s end date expired, he basically now has NO access to ANY content on your web site (even Month #1′s content).
[Note: Just so you know, DAP does have a feature to enable "Access to Previously Paid-for Content". Keep reading for details.]
Now all Joe has lost is just the “access to the content”.
So let’s say you exchange emails with him, ask him why he wanted to cancel, and try to convince him to come back (or get him to use a new, valid credit card).
Now remember that Joe is still at the end of February’s content (Month #2). So whenever the next payment comes in (be it in March, April, or 1 year later), Joe now gets access only to the 3rd month’s content, and not, say, the 10th month content.
So even though it is now say, May, because Joe’s next payment came in just now, his access dates now look like this:
Start date: Jan 1, 2009
End date: March 31, 2009
So that’s how DAP takes care of your content and makes sure that when members cancel or their payment doesn’t come in for whatever reason, your content cannot be accessed by unauthorized users.
But let’s say you want to be really fair and look like a “generous, honest” guy to your members. In that case, you want to make sure that if someone cancels their subscription 6 months after being with you, you don’t want to ‘screw’ them just because they stopped paying you. Who knows, they’ll probably come back if you keep showing to them what kind of content you’re building. Or they may buy your other products.
So now you want to make sure that they get access to the last 6 months worth of content, for which they have actually paid for.
There is a Configuration element in DAP where you can just turn this feature on, and members can instantly start access all “Previously Paid-for Content”.
So that’s how DAP puts a unique twist on cancellations.
Cancellation Of Trial
There is a small twist to the cancellation of a free or paid “Trial”. Consider the following example:
- User made the purchase on 2011-09-16.
- Because you have set it up as a 14-day trial, User gets 14 days of access.
So at this time the user’s access start date = 2011-09-16 and user’s access end date = 2011-09-29 (14 days access). - He then asks you to cancel his trial. So you go into your payment processor back-office, and cancel his future payments.
- In this case, because it’s a “trial”, if he ever decides to come back down the road and sign up for a trial again, you need him to start all the way AT THE BEGINNING.
- Which means, you must completely remove this person’s access to the product in DAP.
- If you don’t do it, then if he does come back later, then DAP will think he’s an existing user who wants to RESUME his subscription, and will move him past the trial into the next payment period meant only for people who actually stayed past the trial.
Refunds
“Refunds” are a slightly different animal than “Cancellations”. While a subscription “Cancellation” means you only have to stop access going forward, a “Refund” means you have to actually roll-back existing access.
So, doing a refund takes a few steps.
- Go into your payment processor (like Paypal.com, Authorize.net, etc) and refund the actual payment
- Now log into the DAP Dashboard on your site
- Go to the “Orders” page, search for all of the user’s transactions by her email id
- Click on the “Id” link for the transaction that you wish to refund
- On the transaction details page, you will see a “Refund” button. Click on that.
- That will mark that transaction as a refund, and also create a new transaction with a negative value (same as value of original transaction, except negative in value)
- DAP then rolls-back access for that user by one payment period (or “Recurring Cycle #3″ from the Product page). So if member is still in month 1, then user will lose complete access to the product. But if member is on month 3, then since only one payment is being refunded, only the last month’s access (month #3′s access) will be rolled back – so now they only have access till month 2.
- Go back to “Manage > Users” screen, search for user by email, and make sure access is either rolled back, or access has been completely removed for that member.
- All Affiliate commissions credited to affiliates for this particular purchase will be automatically and completely rolled back. So the affiliate who referred this purchase, will see a negative commission credited to their account, that cancels out the positive commission credited earlier. So that in effect zeroes out their commissions.
41 comments ↓
It sounds like a cool idea, however if it was known that you offered such a deal, what’s to say that a crafty customer won’t cancel and come back in 5 months and save $27 * 5 = $135.
I feel that this would pi** of my regular customers. You might say that they wouldn’t know, but I would, and I would rather lose that customer then shaft honest members.
Nigel,
I think you totally misunderstood what I wrote.
What you said above, is exactly what DAP helps you avoid.
If someone leaves after Month #2, and comes back in 5 months, they don’t join back at Month #7 – they join back at Month #3. So there’s no question of them saving anything. It’s as good as they never left. They get back in line where they left off.
This was the very foundation on which DAP was built – to make sure the site owner never gets taken advantage of.
And at the same time, you can configure it such that even after someone leaves (after Month #2), they will always have access to content from Month #1 and #2, even after they’re no longer a paying member.
Make sense?
- Ravi Jayagopal
oops! That will teach me not to make comments after 2 hrs sleep. I missed the “previously paid for” comment.
I would have edited the comment but there is no option to do so.
I may have boobed but at least it shows I put members before profit!
Yes – this is a great additionional selling point to an already supurb product.
Ravi,
I think it’s a good model. It seems you are SaaS model.
Good thinking and affordable for SMEs.
Ajish
Hey Ravi -
How does a customer ask for refunds? Simply thru Paypal? Does DAP offer an actual cancellation feature? Thanks.
Jerry
Thanks for the explanation. I’ve had customers whose card didn’t go thru the first time then three days later when charged, it does.
When I look at the access end date, it is three days behind the current date so I thought they were being cheated three days so I have manually been moving the end date forward to one month after the payment was recieved.
Only one I was cheating was myself. Thanks again Ravi for that explanation.
Jerry,
>>How does a customer ask for refunds?
Either by emailing you, or by directly canceling their subscription at your payment / credit card processor (yes, that happens too).
>>Does DAP offer an actual cancellation feature?
No, DAP doesn’t do direct “cancellations”. We firmly believe that purchases should be automated, not cancellations or refunds. As a site owner, you should have a chance to talk to the member and see if you can somehow get him to change his mind. That’s why we DO NOT do stuff like automatic deletion of those who cancel.
But that doesn’t mean someone who stops paying will continue to get access to your content. That’s where DAP’s “Pay As You Go” model comes in to the picture. The whole process is explained above in this very post.
Hope this helps.
- Ravi
Will,
Thanks for the feedback.
With DAP, we’ve gone to great lengths to see that:
3) Members never get screwed
2) Affiliates never get screwed.
1) And most importantly, the Site owner never gets screwed.
It’s a “No-No-No Screw” situation
- Ravi
I’ve set up a product consisting of a subscription to my forum, which is payable monthly. I’ve entered ’30 days’ for each of the boxes in the billing cycle section. But I’m not sure what to put in the ‘End Day’ box for Resource Tracking Type. Do I leave 9999 days, assuming that DAP will remove access if the monthly payments are cancelled, or do I put 30 days there too?
Linda
“If someone leaves after Month #2, and comes back in 5 months, they dont join back at Month #7 “ they join back at Month #3. So theres no question of them saving anything. Its as good as they never left. They get back in line where they left off.”
That does not work for me. I sell a magazine. If the person rejoins in month #7, I want them to have access to #1 and #2 (previously paid for), and #7 – which is the current, timely issue.
Can I do that?
If I remove a customer manually, does that automatically stop their subscription so they won’t be charged anymore?
Jared,
Simply removing a member in DAP will not stop their subscriptions. In fact, you should do the opposite.
Cancel their subscription at your payment processor (Paypal, Authorize.net, etc) and that will automatically stop future access for the user who just canceled.
- Ravi Jayagopal
Hi Ravi,
Could you please explain how i can ‘Cancel their subscription at your payment processor (Paypal, Authorize.net, etc)’ when I use Paypal?
Thanks
Judith,
1) Log in to Paypal
2) Go to “History”
3) Below the yellow “Show” button , there’s a “Subscriptions” link.
Clicking on that will bring up a list of all your existing subscriptions from members.
You can cancel subscriptions there.
- Ravi Jayagopal
Thanks for your help Ravi,
I found it in the end under:
- History
- Reports
- Recurring payments – user profiles.
Not really sure why it was i a different place.
How does one cancel a subscription? I don’t see any info on that.
My membership site isn’t open-ended. It’s a micro-membership site that last for 3 months. How can I handle so that payment is no longer collected at the end of month #3? I’m using ClickBank as the payment processor.
Thanks,
Alan
Alan,
You just set up your ClickBank buy button such that payments stop after 3 months.
- Ravi Jayagopal
[...] If user cancels before the trial is over (or their subscription payment fails for some reason), then their “Access End Date” stays the same, which means it automatically expires. [...]
In terms of single product sales, Clickbank has a mandatory 8 week money-back guarantee. How would you handle a request for a refund? Would the customer respond to Clickbank and they would automatically take it from cash reserves in the account?
I hope my question is easy to understand.
I love this feature for cancellations but for refunds I don’t want them to have access to any of the content since I’ve returned their money. Do I just “inactivate” them? Is this done manually?
Hi Ravi,
The members section to our website is the only section that is actually using wordpress and we have two levels of clients, one level can see “public” posts and pages and the second can see”private” posts and pages, what we are looking for is that when the expiry date occurs they can’t login to see anything at all.
Can DAP do this? I just need clarification before purchasing.
[...] Also see: Cancellations & Refunds [...]
Lets say I have customers that have already paided me for three months worth of content in a system other than DAP. I now istall DAP and want to migrate these customers over …. can I back date their start date so they get all three months of content they already have paid for right away ?
Tim,
When the membership expires, they can login but will see nothing because there membership has expired.
Stephen,
You can find what we can do with bulk imports in the ‘comments’ section of this post – http://www.digitalaccesspass.com/doc/importing-users-in-bulk-into-dap/
Right now the start date cannot be backdated, but we will try to incorporate it in dap 4.0.
I’m using CB as main payment processor, if someone decided to cancel and get a refund before the warranty expires, does DAP cancel the member’s subscription and block them from viewing the content?
Like, DAP check the email for new subscribers and send them an email with a user name and password, does it do the same on the reverse aspect? Would DAP find emails of granted refunds and cancel the subscriber’s account or do I do this by hand?
Hi Ravi/Veena!
I can understand that you would not want to do “direct cancellations/refunds but would rather do them personally. But I’d like to be able to have the cancellations done automatically. Refunds thru paypal have to be done in person but cancellations can be done automatically.
Surely an option to allow/disallow cancellation automatically can be coded in DAP to allow DAP customers to make the choice themselves.
It’s just a suggestion …
Thanks!
Rick Wilson
Ravi/Veena,
I’m not sure if my previous post above made sense or not. Sometimes I’m not good at writing things clearly. Feel free to delete it.
As I understand it, PayPal needs the customer to cancel from their end – correct? So that then automatically cancels their account?
I guess I’m a bit confoozed about what happens with the payment processors other than PayPal.
Thanks again!
Rick Wilson
what is the difference in user status and product access status. I understand that making a product access inactive would prevent the user from accessing that product – but then what is the user status used for? Where would I use one over the other?
[...] remember that when you do the actual refund within DAP, DAP will roll-back any commissions credited towards this purchase. If you have not yet paid your [...]
Hi There,
Regarding the following extract from the above page
–>Which means, you must completely remove this person’s access to the product in DAP. If you don’t do it, then if he does come back later, then DAP will think he’s an existing user who wants to RESUME his subscription, and will move him past the trial into the next payment period meant only for people who actually stayed past the trial. <—-
We sometimes have people who try us out – cancel and come back a month later when they are ready to commit to our service. If I did not remove them from DAP exactly what effects would it have on their membership?
Does this mean that when using clickbank for a 7 day trial every time someone cancels I have to manually remove them from DAP?
Also how does DAP identify the user as a previous customer? From the email they use upon payment?
Many thanks and sorry for so many questions, just need to get this stright in my head before purchasing your software.
>>what is the difference in user status and product access status. < <
Pls see:
http://www.digitalaccesspass.com/doc/user-product-statuses/
Hi Dean,
>Does this mean that when using clickbank for a 7 day trial every time someone cancels I have to manually remove them from DAP? < <
Yes, only for now.
In the upcoming release of dap (in 6-8 weeks), we will allow admin to configure whether they want the user's access to product automatically removed upon CB / Paypal cancellation and if yes, we will remove the access automatically.
>>Also how does DAP identify the user as a previous customer? From the email they use upon payment? <<
Yes, the user’s email used during payment is used to automatically create user’s account in dap.
–>Yes, only for now.
In the upcoming release of dap (in 6-8 weeks), we will allow admin to configure whether they want the user’s access to product automatically removed upon CB / Paypal cancellation and if yes, we will remove the access automatically.<–
Can you please explain exactly what happens if a customer signs up for the 7 day trial, then cancels and signs up again at the later date? Exactly what will this mess up in the membership system?
Thanks
Dean
>>Can you please explain exactly what happens if a customer signs up for the 7 day trial, then cancels and signs up again at the later date? Exactly what will this mess up in the membership system? <<
Say you have a DAP product with 7-day trial (recurring cycle 1 = 7 days) and after the trial, it’s monthly recurring (subsequent_recurring_cycle set to 30 days). User is charged the recurring amount once every 30 days.
Say customer purchases product on 5/1.
Their access start date will be 5/1 and access end date will be 5/8 (as it’s a 7 day trial).
Say the user is charged the first recurring amount on 5/8. Now user’s access end date will be extended by 30 days. So the users access start will be 5/1 and new access end date will be 6/7 (30 days extension).
Say the user cancels on 5/25.
In dap, their access end date will still be 6/7 as they have already paid for this recurring period.
So the user can continue to access content until 6/7.
On 6/7, dap will be expecting a new recurring payment for this user, but nothing comes in as the user has cancelled payment. So the user’s access end date stay at 6/7. And come 6/8, the user will automatically lose access to content as their access has expired.
Now, the same user decides to re-join on 7/1.
The user uses the same subscription button to make the purchase again.
Now the user will be setup in the payment processor for a 7 day trial followed by every 30-day recurring payment.
But the problem is.. as soon as the user make the trial payment, dap will receive a payment notification from paypal and dap will consider this as a ‘recurring payment’ (because the user account already exists and user already has expired access to product) instead of a new payment. Because dap considers this as a recurring payment, user’s access will get extended by 30 days (recurring cycle) instead of 7 days.
The user’s access start will still be 5/1 but new access end date will be 30 days + 6/8 (old access end date). So the new end date will be 7/7.
To prevent this:
When a user cancels, you can remove user’s access to product from dap manage users page manually.
So when the same user signs up again, they again start with the free trial.
If you want to prevent free trial for a user that had previously cancelled, and force them to pay the recurring amount when they sign up again, then it’s something we will try to support in a future version. Not supported currently.
And “ability to automatically remove user’s access to product’ as soon as they cancel subscription” is also something that we will likely support in the upcoming dap release – dap 4.4. An admin can configure whether they want access fully removed or whether they want user to have access until the current recurring cycle and then lose access.
Hope this helps.
Hi Veena,
Thank you for such a detailed response.
Just to confirm your explanation – If a user did sign up for a 7 day trial, then cancel and sign up for the same trial again at a later date. Basically DAC would be out of sync by 7 days and the user would simply get an extra 7 days access? Worst case scenario, if the user cancelled during the second 7 day trial period he would get an extra 3 weeks access?
Or am i mistaken and DAC will remove access to the user 7 days early because it didn’t get notification of payment from Clickbank?
Surely DAC will wait for the actual cancellation notification from Clickbank before ever terminating access to a user?
Kind regards
Dean
Dean,
Best way to find out what exactly dap does currently is to do this:
1) Add a NEW user to that product in dap via DAP admin -> add users page. The user will get 7 days access to product.
2) Go to DAP users -> manage page and now just manipulate the access dates so it looks like the user has been in the system for a while.
Set the access start to say 7/1 and and access end date to 7/8 (you can click on Modify under ‘Product Access’ in Users => Manage page to update the access dates).
3) Note down the user’s access start and end dates.
4) Say that the user had cancelled on 7/6 (before 7 day trial ended). So the user’s access end date would stay on 7/8.
5) Today is 7/21. Say the user decided to re-new their access to the same product today.
To test what happens upon a renewal of a cancelled subscription, just go back to dap users -> add page and add the same user to the same product again.
6) Now go back to dap admin -> users -> manage page and check the user’s access start and end dates.
The access start will still be 7/1 but access end date will be OLD ACCESS END DATE + 30 days (subsequent recurring_cycle setting).
So the new access end date will be 8/7. The user will still be paying the trial amount (as they resigned using the same button) but they end up getting full access as their access is extended by 30 days instead of 7 days.
DAP won’t remove access upon cancellation but user will lose access because their access expires on 7/8 until they renew n 7/21.
Veena,
I am still struggling to understand how your system handles this.
–>Today is 7/21. Say the user decided to re-new their access to the same product today.
The access start will still be 7/1 but access end date will be OLD ACCESS END DATE + 30 days (subsequent recurring_cycle setting).
So the new access end date will be 8/7. <–
This seems wrong to me. If a user has decided to join our service again on the 7/21 (as your above example) and paid for a months access surely the access end date would be 7/21 + 30 days – which would be 8/20?
Yes, my mistake.
If the user’s old access end date was 7/21, then if a user purchases the same product again, their new access end date will be 8/20.
Thank you Veena.
If you could just clarify one last thing.
Using your above example.
After the user paid again for the same 7 day trial. DAP will be expecting a payment notification in 30 days but because the user is actually on a 7 day trial payments will be out of sync by 7 days (monthly payments would be 7 days late).
Will this interrupt the user’s access to the members area?
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