This KB article will cover creating your new subscriber area on your DPD account.
There are a number of additional topics available in our Knowledgebase for managing your subscriber area and customers.
Subscriber Areas: Selling Access to Paid Subscription Content with DPD
Creating Your Subscriber Area
1. Log in to DPD
2. Go to Change Stores in the top menu, then select the Create New Store button near the top right
3. On the store type selection page, choose Subscriptions after checking the box confirming you understand subscriber billing.
For more information on subscriber billing please see the following KB article:
How DPD Calculates Subscription Fees to the Vendor
4. Once you have confirmed and selected a subscription store the New Subscriber Area wizard will start. Here you will enter information about your store, subscription program, payment terms, and payment processor info where we'll send the subscription payments to.
Subscriber Site Setup
Site Name
This is the name of the subscriber site shown at the top of all subscriber site pages if you have not uploaded a logo.
Site URL
This will be the subdomain of your subscriber site on DPD's SSL enabled, PCI Compliant cart domain. This is where your customers will log in to view content and manage their account.
Contact Name and Email
Used in various places in the subscriber site and emails to subscribers. This should be a real name and email address where your subscribers can contact you.
Subscription Plan Information
This information will be used on the signup page and in the checkout of your subscriber site for new subscribers.
Program Name
The name of the program they are signing up for. This can be the same as the Site Name above, or different. For example, if your site name is Bob's Healthy Recipes the program they're signing up for might be Daily Healthy Recipes from Bob or similar.
Short and Long Description
Shown on the signup page (long description) and in the cart (short description). You should keep the short description short so it does not make your cart / checkout for the program too long.
Logo / Image
Like a product image, is shown on the signup page and in the cart during checkout.
Payment Term
The payment term defines how much and how often subscribers will pay you. There are also a couple of optional settings for a trial period and billing cycle limit. While you must create at least one payment term now to complete setup, you can add additional term options later.
Enable for Signup
Checking this box means it is available for signup to anyone who has the signup URL for this plan. If you want to later disable this term you can do so by editing the term and unchecking this option. You must have at least one plan enabled for signup if you want people to be able to subscribe to your program.
Show on Homepage
Checking this box will make the plan public on the subscription site signup page. If you are offering a special deal to customers or a mailing list and want this term to be hidden from the signup page you would uncheck this option.
Generally its a good idea to have at least one plan shown on the home page.
Term Name
The name of this term. By default it uses the program name, but you can enter in anything you'd like here such as "Monthly Subscription" or "Annual Subscription".
Price
The amount you want to charge per cycle. For example, 9.99 or 34.99. The amount charged will be in the store's currency.
Recurring Period
How often you want the above price to be charged. Examples might be every 1 Month (monthly), every 3 months (quarterly), every 1 year (yearly), every 14 days (biweekly), etc.
In this example, subscribers will be charged $9.99/month, and the term is active for signups and shown on the subscriber site publicly:
Optional: Trial Period
You can specify an optional trial price and period that will take place before the regular price and recurring period above will start. This could be used for a free trial, setup or establishment fee, or similar.
For a free 2 week trial you may enter 0 as the price and 14 days as the period.
For a setup or establishment fee, you may put a higher rate for the trial period, after which the regular monthly fee will be charged. In this example a $149.99 setup fee is charged the first month, then $9.99 each additional month.
Optional: Limit Billing Cycles
By default all subscriptions are open-ended and will continue to bill in perpetuity until they are canceled. You can optionally limit the number of billing cycles and automatically terminate the subscription after the limit is reached.
For example, if you are creating a drip feed series of posts that only lasts 12 months, you can limit the billing cycles to 12 months. At the end of the 12th month the subscription will be terminated automatically.
Add Payment Processor
On the final page of the wizard you will add the payment processors you want to use for subscription payments. You must add at least one payment processor for your subscription area to be active, otherwise we won't be able to bill your subscribers.
Post Signup Buttons and Add Content
Once you have created your site, program, term, and added a payment processor your subscriber area is ready to accept signups.
A large message will show on the subscription overview telling you that your subscriber area is complete and give you the buttons to perform these two tasks.
Post a signup button somewhere on your website to begin accepting signups.
Then its time to start adding content. We have a knowledgebase section on adding content, including Drip Feed content that is released over specified intervals after subscribers have signed up.