Hi Folks,
I’ve read a ton of threads on here, some of them dating back quite some time. Let me give you an idea of what I want and need, and I hope some of you can give me an idea of what would work out best for me.
I have a product. Lets call it Widget Software. I want to sell this software on my website. Now, the software is available for a fixed price, but I also have a maintenance agreement for it. When you purchase the software, the first 30 days of maintenance is included. This means any new releases in the next 30 days, if any, are yours free of charge. Or, you can purchase maintenance releases in 1 year increments. So, you might buy my package plus a 1 year maintenance plan.
Now, when someone purchases my software, I need for there to be a members area that they now have access to. I will be writing a custom product activation piece that needs to check if they own a product, and lets them generate a new activation code for it. And going forward, if they have an active maintenance agreement, they can re-generate new activation codes for new versions (upgrade to new versions).
I can’t rely just on “subscriptions”, because people may not feel good signing up for a maintenance subscription right from the start. But, I do want to make it so when they are coming to the end of their maintenance agreement, that an automated email goes out warning them about the impending expiration of the maintenance agreement and how it will cost extra to start a new agreement instead of the low renewal price.
So aMember gets me part way there. I think I would need to modify it so it would handle the subscriptions differently. I was also looking into SPBAS. SPBAS looks like it will do exactly what i need, but its a bit expensive compared to other options.
I’m a software developer (obviously) and have in depth experience with PHP/MySQL as well. This is my preferred platform.
I’ve read MANY posts on similar topics, but not only were none fitting my exact requirements, but they were also mostly 3+ years old.
So how about it? Any thoughts? Can anyone suggest something that gets me where I want to be without spending a fortune to get there? My product is brand new, and has a pretty low price-point as-is. this means a) no current income, and b) its not going to be raking in TONS of money to cover something high priced.
Thanks in advance!