The Simple Membership plugin allows you to create PayPal Subscription/Recurring payment buttons for your paid memberships. This will allow you to charge recurring payments when creating a site using the Simple Membership plugin.
The Subscription payment buttons can be created from the payments menu of the plugin. Once you configure and create the recurring payment button in the plugin, you can add a shortcode to place the button on your membership Join Us or Pricing page. Your users can then pay for your paid memberships using this payment button easily.
Table of Contents
- Configure Your PayPal API Credentials
- Creating a New PayPal Subscription Button
- Your Customers Point of View
- What Happens After the Payment?
- Configuring a Thank You Page
- Auto Redirect to the Paid Registration Page After Payment
- How Can I Test My PayPal Subscription Button?
- PayPal Business Account
- Center Align the PayPal Subscription Button
- How to Cancel a PayPal Subscription
- What Happens When a Subscription is Cancelled?
- Membership Level Configuration for Subscription/Recurring Payments
- Downgrade Deactivated Member Accounts to a Free Tier
- Displaying a Message to Members with an Active Subscription
Configure Your PayPal API Credentials
To get started you will need to get your PayPal API Credentials from your PayPal Developer Account. The following documentation explains how to get your PayPal API Credentials.
Getting PayPal API Credentials – Live and Sandbox Client IDs and Secret Keys
Once you have copied your PayPal API credentials into the plugin’s settings, you are ready to make your PayPal payment buttons.
Creating a New PayPal Subscription Button
The following steps will show you how to create a PayPal Subscription button to charge recurring fees for your paid memberships.
Step 1) Navigate to the Payments Menu
Log into your WordPress admin dashboard and go to the WP Membership -> Payments menu.
Step 2) Click on the Create New Button Tab
Click on the Create New Button tab from the payments menu of the Simple Membership plugin.
Step 3) Select the PayPal Subscription Button Type
Once you are on the Create New Button tab, you can select which type of button you would like to create.
Select the PayPal Subscription (New API) option and then click next.
Step 4) Configure the Recurring Payment and Other Button Details
Once you have clicked the “next” button on the previous step, a screen will appear allowing you to define the parameters of the button you wish to create. See the screenshot below for reference.
On this screen, you can specify various options for your subscription button settings. It is important to note that not all of these settings are mandatory, and some are optional. The following fields are required.
- Button Title (Required)
- Membership Level (Required)
- Payment Currency (Required)
- Recurring Billing Amount (Required)
- Recurring Billing Cycle (Required)
Fill out the necessary information then save the button.
The trial billing, button style and additional settings are optional fields. You can leave them to the default values.
You can use the trial billing option to offer free trial membership that automatically starts to charge the recurring payments after the trial period is over.
Initially, I suggest creating a standard subscription or recurring charge button to become acquainted with the process. Afterward, you can explore more advanced options.
Step 5) Copy the Subscription Payment Button’s Shortcode and Use it
Once you have saved the subscription payment button, you can find it under the Manage Payment Buttons tab.
You can now copy the button’s shortcode from the Manage Payment Buttons tab, which can be inserted in the desired location on your website. Typically, the button is placed on your membership join us page.
The button’s shortcode can be placed anywhere that supports WordPress shortcode.
Your Customers Point of View
In this section I will show you how the checkout process works with this type of payment buttons.
How the Payment Button Looks Like
I have placed the subscription button on our “Join Us” page so a user can buy the membership. The following screenshot shows an example of how it looks like.
How Your Customers Make Payments
By default, the payment buttons will show the option to pay via PayPal, Debit or Credit Card. PayPal will show the most relevant payment options to your customers based on the country/region.
Your customers will be able to use these buttons to pay for your membership payments.
What Happens After the Payment?
Payment by New Member
If this is a payment made by a NEW member then the user will receive an email that contains a “special” link to complete the registration. Read the Registration Process Overview documentation to learn more.
If you are using the Thank You page shortcode, the user can access the special paid membership registration link directly from the Thank You page and complete the registration there.
Payment by Existing Member
If the payment is made by an EXISTING member then the membership level (associated with this payment button) is applied to the existing member’s profile. No need to register for an account again.
Note: The member must be logged into their account when making the payment for the plugin to recognize them and treat them as an existing member.
Configuring a Thank You Page
This step is optional but I recommend that you configure a Thank You page as explained in this documentation. You can then use this page in the button’s configuration.
If you specify a Return URL (Thank You Page) in the button, when your customers complete the transaction, they will be redirected to that thank you page. The Thank You page will have a link for them to register for the membership they just purchased.
Auto Redirect to the Paid Registration Page After Payment
If you want to simplify the registration process even further, you can now automatically redirect users to the unique paid registration page immediately after payment.
To learn more about this feature and how to enable it, see this documentation.
How Can I Test My PayPal Subscription Button?
Prior to testing a transaction, it is recommended that you go through this payment testing checklist.
The easiest way to test the functionality of your PayPal subscription button is to edit the recurring payment amount of the button and make it $1.00 (or less) temporarily. This allows you to do a live transaction and test out the membership payment as if you were a customer. You can cancel the subscription and issue a refund on that transaction after your testing is complete (so the payment gets reversed).
Enabling the debug logging option at this stage is a good idea in case something does not go as planned after the transaction.
Open the page or post that contains your subscription button in a browser other than the one you’re currently logged in as an admin. To test the functionality, you’ll need to use a card or a PayPal account that is different from the one you’ve configured in the settings of Simple Membership.
Once you have tested the functionality, you can go back and edit the recurring payment amount/price of the payment button.
Note: When testing the new registration scenario, use a unique email address that is not already in your WP users system. If you use a previously used email address, the member account profile associated with that email will be upgraded instead of being treated as a new member.
PayPal Business Account
PayPal does not offer the subscription option to merchants using the personal accounts. So you need to upgrade your merchant account to the business account to use this feature.
Center Align the PayPal Subscription Button
To center align the PayPal button on your page, you can use an HTML block to insert the payment button shortcode with custom alignment. Below is an example of the HTML code you can use to achieve this:
<div style="max-width: 300px; margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto;">
[swpm_payment_button id="4851"]
</div>
You can experiment with different width values in place of ‘300px’ to achieve your desired result.
How to Cancel a PayPal Subscription
Read the PayPal subscription cancellation documentation.
What Happens When a Subscription is Cancelled?
Read the what happens when a subscription is cancelled documentation.
Membership Level Configuration for Subscription/Recurring Payments
Read the membership level configuration for subscription/recurring payments page.
Downgrade Deactivated Member Accounts to a Free Tier
Optionally, you can add this option to your site so the users whose accounts are expired or inactive are downgraded to a “Free” membership level tier.
Displaying a Message to Members with an Active Subscription
To help prevent members from accidentally purchasing duplicate subscriptions, you can enable the “Show Warning for Existing Subscription” option when editing a subscription button.
When this option is enabled, logged-in members with an active subscription will see a warning message. You can customize this message to inform them that they already have a subscription and may wish to cancel it before purchasing a new one.