If you recently renewed an rtMedia Product license, you will have noticed that the checkout process is more streamlined. You might also have noticed a new “Subscription” tab your account page:
This change has been something that we have been deliberating over for a while now. A recent major change in our store finally pushed us over the edge- the Stripe payment gateway. We’ll get into why we moved to Stripe in a bit.
Paying for a Product vs a Subscription
Most softwares come with a subscription of some sort. This is different from the “product” model of old days, where a customer would pay for a product up front. The price of the product would be determined by the demand, time spend developing the product & its utility, among other things.
The cost might also take into account maintenance and support; if not, those costs would be transferred to the customer if/when the need for support arises.
rtMedia is an ever evolving product, in an ecosystem with other ever-evolving products. The platform that it is built for, WordPress, is also changing. There is always going to be friction somewhere in some customer’s set up.
When a customer purchases a product from us, they are not only paying for a product, but the time that goes into developing and supporting that product. In this scenario, a subscription model makes the most sense.
Subscriptions are easier
We had initially set up our store with the EDD Licensing addon that generates unique license keys and charges you to renew the license key. We now use a subscription addon that makes it much easier to track and manage subscriptions.
Similarly, on the payment gateway side, we moved to Stripe.
Stripe takes away a lot of hassle by automatically handling license renewals them without requiring you to log in (one less password to remember ?). It also makes it easier for us to manage subscriptions, including processing upgrades, refunds & cancellations.
Basically, managing subscriptions with is much easier for both us and our customers.
Will anything change?
You will have to re-enter your card details when next renewing your license because we have no way of “migrating” you from the old PayPal gateway to the new Stripe one ?
The pricing structure for all current rtMedia customers will remain the same, including those on grandfathered pricing. And just like before, you can choose to end your subscription at any time without fearing about any loss of data, code or functionality.
Links: rtMedia Store | rtMedia Live Demo | rtMedia Account
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