iSubscribe – Wordpress Adaptable Paypal Membership Script

UPDATE: VERSION 2.05 RELEASED HERE

iSubscribe 1.0 is a simple, easily adaptable, light weight open source php script set to restrict website content to paying members. It is created by iDevSpot which offers several other focused scripts such as for shopping carts.

A recent project led me to investigate a few membership protected scripts, and iSubscribe was affordable, easy to integrate, offers multiple membership levels, or to purchase an individual item located on a page. This was refreshing to begin working with as many other scripts seemed more complicated than they needed to be, or the display pages had to be created and managed from the administrative side.

For a simple and affordable solution to start getting paid through paypal for your content this script is great. iSubscribe Membership Website Script >

Installation

Installing the script was quite simple. I used shell commands and unzipped the file per the instructions that were provided and followed a simple initial setup page. I enjoy the fact of being able to setup the admin panel in a sub-domain to limit script clutter, and still be able to effectively protect directories in another sub-domain, or my www.

The important thing once you are first logged in is to ensure the “Paths” (link on left side of admin panel) are set correctly to your hosting root. Then ensure your paypal account info is entered.

That just leaves you with defining subscriptions.

Subscriptions & Integration

As you can see from the image to the right, this is a very light weight script. It provides the ability to set the name of subscription, trial period, billing cycle, recurring, reply address, email subject, email message. Once you accept the setup, it will store it at the bottom of the page and provide a box with the form script to display a subscribe button.

You can clean the provided form up for display in your website, and even find a paypal button graphic and turn the submit button into a paypal subscribe graphic. Each subscription will have its own unique form to place into your pages.

Securing Pages

In order to secure a page, on the left side in the admin is a section called “Authorization”, you then want to click “Page Securer” which will provide you with code to embed into your website template, or page templates of the pages you want to secure. Anytime you want to secure a section of your site with a different subscription, it is just a matter of changing the variable at the top of the code provided to the name of the subscription.

For a wordpress blog, you can install Exec_PHP Plugin to enable pasting php code into the “HTML” view. Now when you view the page without having paid for the content, it will display a form to login or retrieve your password.

Payments & Transactions

Anytime a user makes a payment, it is a simple form submit of data to PayPal with the provided API. Once the user makes a purchase they will be directed back to your website. This is where the “Email” fields in the subscription setup become inportant. The best practice is to include a message in the email field thanking them, then provide a link directly to the page of content they purchased, or the main subscription content page. If the subscription was setup for recurring payments, then paypal will charge their paypal account or card provided with the “Recurring” information that you entered. Otherwise if their subscription runs out they will need to purchase the subscription again when they visit.

Wordpress Specifics

There are a few mentions of wordpress specifics that I will consolidate for those looking for a membership payment solution for their site or blog. The items in bold represent important wordpress steps.

Closing & Suggestions of Improvement

Content removed due to update

iSubscribe was updated to version 2 on 1/24/08 with a large amount of updates.

Since version 2, unless you know PHP well to customize I do not recommend using iSubscribe as a reliable solution at this time. I found an issue with the changes made relying on javascript redirects that would still show the content regardless of being signed up if javascript was disabled.

Visit & Download

iDevSpot iSubscribe v2.o

- Demo areas are available on page to see the admin and front end.