Sell Media Subscription

The download cap is your real price list

A customer comes back every month and buys files from you one at a time. Each purchase goes through payment again, and next month's income depends on them remembering to return. Moving them to a fee looks simple: set a monthly amount and you are done.

The hard decision is somewhere else. What you sell in a file subscription is a number of downloads, and the fee is only what it costs. A low cap pushes people to move up a plan; a high one leaves them no reason to.

Sell Media Subscription brings that decision to your store. It is a Graph Paper Press extension for the Sell Media plugin: you create monthly and yearly plans, and your customers subscribe to access file downloads. It does not work by itself, because it runs alongside Sell Media, and it does not decide for you which cap suits each plan.

What you define in each plan

• Up to five monthly and five yearly plans, from one to five per billing cycle.
• Its own price in each plan.
• Its own download limit in each plan, so each tier offers a different amount.
• Mixed selling: you can keep selling single files alongside subscriptions, or sell plans only.

You get paid monthly or yearly until the customer cancels. Carrying unused downloads over to the next period is not among its features, so set each cap with a closed period in mind.

The buyer's path to payment

The Choose a plan button leads to your Plans and Pricing page. There the buyer toggles between the monthly and yearly options and picks one. They then move to the registration page, where they add their details and pay.

If you also keep selling single files, both ways of buying live side by side in the store.

Four emails for the moments that decide a renewal

A subscription keeps or loses customers at specific moments, and here each one has its own notice. They are set up in Sell Media > Subscription > Email Settings:

• Activation: goes out when the customer's account becomes active.
• Download limit reached: arrives when the monthly or yearly cap runs out. It is the natural place to propose a higher plan.
• Expiration: goes out when the subscription expires, and can offer a discount for rejoining.
• Cancellation: is sent when the customer cancels or when billing fails. It can also carry a discount to win them back.

The limit email closes the reasoning from the start: the cap on each plan sets the moment you offer the next one.

Which extensions it works with and how to set it up

It integrates with Discount Codes, Stripe, S3 and MailChimp. It should not be used with the Reprints and Commissions extensions, a point worth checking first if your store already has them. It works with any WordPress theme.

The order to get it ready is this:

1. Install Sell Media and activate the extension.
2. Create your monthly and yearly plans with their price and limit.
3. Connect payment. Stripe needs a Stripe account, four API keys and an SSL certificate to take live payments.
4. Write the four emails in Email Settings.
5. Make a purchase with the test keys and follow the path through to activation.

When your sales fit another piece better

Sell Media Stripe is the payment add-on in this same family: it lets you accept cards in Sell Media.

If your store runs on WooCommerce, WooCommerce Subscription Downloads links downloadable products to a subscription product, and subscribers see the links. It relies on WooCommerce Subscriptions.

If what you sell is access to content, Paid Member Subscriptions Pro charges a recurring fee and controls what each member sees according to what they pay.

Questions when building the plans

Do I need Sell Media?

Yes. The extension works alongside that plugin and sells nothing by itself.

How many plans can I offer?

From one to five per cycle: up to five monthly and five yearly.

Can I keep selling single files?

Yes. Subscriptions can sit alongside the sale of individual files.

What happens when someone uses up their downloads?

They get the download limit reached email, which you can use to propose a higher plan.

What if a renewal payment fails?

The cancellation email is sent, the same one that goes out when the customer cancels.

Can I use it with Reprints or Commissions?

It should not be used with either of those two extensions.