Managing Plan registration/Upgrade Access

I have a set of plans that will be phased out at different times. what I need to occur is the following:

OLD Plan 1 - Allow new subscriptions (No) - But still allows existing subscribers to renew and also prorate any upgrade to new plan

New Plan 2 - Allow new subscriptions (Yes)

So based on the above only Plan 2 is visible for new registrations.
At a particular date I need to cut off upgrades to Plan 1 by existing members to force them to upgrade to Plan 2.

My question is this:

1) Do I do this by simply disabling Plan 1 altogether?
2) Does disabling a plan adversely affect any existing users currently registered with that plan? apart from not giving the option to upgrade except via plan 2?
3) If Plan 2 is cheaper than Plan 1, and the Pr-rata amount still available on Plan1 is still higher than the full price of Plan 2, does the user simply not get charged for the initial upgrade, and they lose the excess? e.g. If prorata amount that can be applied is €45 and the new plan is for €30, do they get charged €0 and lose the €15 difference? How does this work in practice?

4) If disabling Plan 1 DOES affect users adversely (e.g. expires them??)what is the best approach to get them migrated to the new plan?


CBSubs 3.0GPL, CB 1.9, J2.5

1) Do I do this by simply disabling Plan 1 altogether?

No, don't unpublish it until everyone is expired. What you'd need to do is disable renewals for it so any renewal attempts would fail. If this plan is auto recurring then you need to go into your Gateway account (e.g. PayPal) and cancel all the recurring profiles for that plan so PayPal for example won't auto-bill them anymore.

2) Does disabling a plan adversely affect any existing users currently registered with that plan? apart from not giving the option to upgrade except via plan 2?

Yes, unpublishing a plan shuts it off completely as if it doesn't exist anymore. It's best to shut off renewals, new subscriptions, and upgrades to it so it can't progress anymore. Then they can safely upgrade to your new plan.

3) If Plan 2 is cheaper than Plan 1, and the Pr-rata amount still available on Plan1 is still higher than the full price of Plan 2, does the user simply not get charged for the initial upgrade, and they lose the excess? e.g. If prorata amount that can be applied is €45 and the new plan is for €30, do they get charged €0 and lose the €15 difference? How does this work in practice?

I have not tested this scenario, but I believe if the prorate value is higher than the price then the plan becomes free. It won't give them money back or extra time so there's nothing to worry about there.

4) If disabling Plan 1 DOES affect users adversely (e.g. expires them??)what is the best approach to get them migrated to the new plan?

Please see my replies to #1 and #2 for best approach.

thanks for reply Kyle. OK! that poses a problem.

We have several thousand members whose membership expires over the next 12 months. As we wanted to phase the migration by activating the new plan NOW for new members to register at the new fees, and older users to have a lead-time of 3-months before transferring to new fees from their own plan on renewal. That option will not work based on your reply.

I've not used coupons but am thinking that maybe if we create a discount coupon for existing members on an existing plan to be closed, we can get them to upgrade to a new (more expensive) plan sooner without imposing the full price change on them at near zero notice. I assume the coupon provides a discount for them when they first join the plan, thereafter it reverts to the full plan price? How does this work with PayPal for recurring payments? Does it handle this?

Your best option is to disable renewals, new subscriptions, and upgrades for your existing plan. Once done login to your PayPal account and cancel all the recurring profiles for that plan. This should stop them from auto-renewing. Now they'd just expire at the end of their plan duration and need to upgrade to your new plan as renewals won't be allowed.

I've not used coupons but am thinking that maybe if we create a discount coupon for existing members on an existing plan to be closed, we can get them to upgrade to a new (more expensive) plan sooner without imposing the full price change on them at near zero notice.

Yup, you could create a coupon based off having your old plan either active or expired this way it only applies them. You can have it an auto apply coupon as well so they don't need to do anything except select the new plan.

I assume the coupon provides a discount for them when they first join the plan, thereafter it reverts to the full plan price?

Yes.

How does this work with PayPal for recurring payments? Does it handle this?

PayPal supports initial payments. So it should create a recurring profile to start at the first renewal date with the normal price. Initial price will be 0 so they won't be charged anything upfront.