Introducing Paid Access

[Dan Burke]

One of the most frequently requested features is the ability to charge your communities for site membership and access to premium groups. Many of you told us your passionate members are looking for more exclusivity – they seek deeper content and private interactions within your community. Today, we are happy to announce that we’ve heard your requests. Paid Access is here!

In a matter of clicks, you can transform your community into a social business. Our latest feature simplifies the massive infrastructure and implementation burden typically associated with running a subscription business into one simple, flexible and easy-to-use product. Because Paid Access is a fully-integrated payment system, you can create a seamless charging experience and collect payments in real-time.

You have complete control over how and where you use Paid Access; the power to customize how your members will get charged is in your hands. There are a variety of ways to set up Paid Access. Use it for any combination of the following:

• Paid Membership: Collect membership fees from your community.
• Paid Groups: Create spaces for members to network, collaborate and access special content.  
• Paid Content: Provide a destination “Page” for members to access premium content such as reports, tutorials, embedded webinars, videos and more.
• Donations: Ask for member donations to keep your community going or to benefit your (or any) cause.

With Paid Access, you can easily run VIP fan clubs, publish exclusive reports, create classrooms or professional networking groups, organize special web chats and more. There are many ways to take advantage of this powerful feature, and we look forward to seeing how you will use it! 

Sneak Peek: See Paid Access in Action

Let’s use a group for this preview. In this example I’ll be setting up Paid Access on a group that I’ll call the “Direct Marketing Group” on a site named “AAF – Silicon Valley.”

I want to point out a specific feature in this example, and that’s the ability to charge a fixed price or ask for a donation on this paywall (a paywall is an area that requires payment to access such as a Group, Page or Site membership).

Setting a Fixed Price: The first screen I encounter when I set up any paywall is the Membership Length and Cost screen. Once there, I get two options: to set a fixed price for the group or ask for a donation. Here is what the fixed price screen looks like:

When setting a fixed price, I can choose more than one rate plan in case I want to offer an incentive to sign up for longer terms by discounting the price (an industry standard).

And here is what this page looks like when I want to ask my members for a donation to join this group:

Note the options to set a suggested price, as well as establishing a minimum and maximum amount to show my members (the entire list may be a bit overwhelming).

Here’s what my members will see if I charged a fixed-price for this group.And here is what they would see if I asked for a donation:

Notice how I set the suggested amount to $79.95, and the minimum and maximum values at $0 and $99.95 respectively. I suppose it would be wise of me to point out that there is the potential to charge $0. This means donation is optional, and that anyone can join without paying. We think this will be a valuable feature for many, but again, the option is yours, and by simply setting the minimum to a higher value, payment will be required.

Thanks for following along! I hope this post has sparked your creative juices and piqued your excitement. Now it’s time for the details…

How much does Paid Access cost?

Paid Access is our first add-on feature, giving customers on any Ning plan (Mini, Plus or Pro) the option to activate it for $19.95 per month. We are leveraging PayPal to process payments, so PayPal’s standard 2.9% + $0.3 service fee per transaction will also apply. These fees are all-inclusive, as we will be paying the PayPal service fee on your behalf (note: pricing for non-US customers differ slightly).

When can I start using Paid Access?

Starting on June 30, we will be rolling out Paid Access to a limited number of folks to gather feedback before making it available to all Creators in mid July. Sign up now if you want to be among the first to use this powerful feature. The first 20 Creators selected will get Paid Access free for their first month, as well as dedicated support from the Ning Team to get up and running.

Interested in learning more about Paid Access? Check out our FAQ page.

 

 

[Mark Avey]

Another question - I couldn't see an answer in the FAQ.

If I set it so the whole site required a payment (I'm actually thinking donations, with zero as an option), would the site still be completely visible by search engines and visitors? In other words, I assume the site will still be publicly visible, but visitors would then go through the donation/payment section to actually join. Is that correct?

[Eric Suesz]

Hey, Mark! Your current privacy settings will still apply. The only way that will be different will be with Pages. If you set up a Page for paid-access only, that page will need to be private. But, Groups and your network will continue to respect your privacy settings. That is, if your network is paid-only and public, people could view but not participate. Hope this helps.

[Jordon McGee (Jords)]

Ehhh that's all good, but the fee is rather steep.

[edit]
Well in comparison to competitors the fee is right.

[Ryan the CEO of CEO's]

Wait a minute... all of this sounds good until you mentioned there was a 19.99/mo fee for this... seriously!!! That is $240/yr and we still don't have recurring events- come one guys- how hard is that to do? I guess you guys will charge us for recurring events as well!

What paypal service fee will you be paying our our behalf?

[Jordon McGee (Jords)]

"What paypal service fee will you be paying our our behalf?"

"PayPal’s standard 2.9% + $0.3 service fee per transaction will also apply"

[Ryan the CEO of CEO's]

They are not paying that... you might want to read it again buddy- thanks!

 

We are leveraging PayPal to process payments, so PayPal’s standard 2.9% + $0.3 service fee per transaction will also apply.

The BFHS Network

[Eric Suesz]

Hey, Ryan. This feature won't be for everyone. You may not be aware, but as a business PayPal does not process credit cards for free. There is a fee associated with every transaction. You're welcome to coordinate this type of arrangement directly with PayPal if you want, and you've always been able to charge your members yourself. This feature is designed for those people who don't have an interest in working out the details of accounting. It's been a long-requested feature, but as I say, it won't be for everyone.

[Ryan the CEO of CEO's]

I know what I am welcome to do, I have been using paypal since the late 90's/early 2000's -thanks for letting me know that.

You still didn't address my concern about recurring events(which has probably been asked for well become membership fee, but I'm sure that is because you guys haven't figured out a way to monetize that simple something)- do I think the membership situation is great absolutely, but not for $240/hr - you guys offered the first 20 people 30 days free, why not all the current NC's - so that we can all test it out and see if it works for our business and or networks- you guys can give me a call to discuss 219-512-9910!

 

I'm interested in staying with ning... and I considered moving my network when you Pro memberships came about- I still would like to keep my network free and offer my network member the option of donating when they join, but if they don't then cool and if you guys figured out a way to get rid of the $19.99 and take a cut- to me that would sound more reasonable as I would still have to pay paypal's transaction fees!

4.99 sounds a lot better- you can catch more bees with honey, than you can with vinegar!

The BFHS Network

[Anthony]

Couldn't agree more...over price. Payment structure for this feature is no good. I will continue using PayPal button.

[Isis Wisdom]

Agreed I had no idea we had to pay for this feature I'm starting to have second and third thoughts on this now. But we always have free will and ning is not making this script mandatory for us to use. I send my members paypal invoices and paypal keeps track of every transaction coming through isiswisdom.com and not have to worry about paying that 19.95 a month that makes no sense to me.

[Chris Richards]

ouch. not what i was expecting....

[Joe]

on groups - will it be possible to let paid members open topics and reply and free members to reply only?

this would be ideal to transform a group into a shop - with sellers (paid members) able to open topics eg selling posts and reply

and buyers (free members) reply only