Subscription Product Management Tool

[David Linke]

Hi All,

2009 will see my business move to selling subscription based software, instead of the one time purchase products we have been doing for many years. As the launch date gets closer and closer my mind keeps ticking over with the subscription management problems.

Does anyone currently use a Subscription Management tool that they would recommend?

The idea of trying to manage thousands, hopefully , in Excel does not sound that appealing to me at the moment.

Thanks in advance

David Linke

EdAlliance - Creating Educational Alliance - Home

[2way Technology]

Hi David,

I'm not aware of anything specifically for management of Subscriptions.

Maybe if you could give us some more detail about what you'd like it to do and what sort of information you need it to record and how you want it to alert you when a subscription is coming up for renewal.

Do you want it to be web based?

Do you want it to integrate as a billing system?

Do you want it to provide reports, issue customers with renewal reminders, take payments and cancel membership for those who haven't renewed?

The more you 'customise' the requirements, then you increase your chances of having to custom build something.

Maybe until your membership gets to the point where you need such an application, setting Outlook Calendar Appointments with suitably timed reminders could help you get started until you have something permanent in place.

If you wan to discuss the option of having something custom built, we can provide you with a costing. We have a team of Australian-based as well as a team of Offshore application developers with a wide range of skills.

Obviously the Offshore developers turn over projects a lot cheaper than the Australian based developers and in many cases the jobs are completed a lot quicker than our Australian developers.

Contact me if you would like to discuss this further, there is no fee or obligation to discuss what you're after and we'll provide you with a project costing.

[David Linke]

2Way,

Thanks for your time to reply.

I do not want to go down the purpose-built software route, just too hard to develop, maintain and then add to in the future.

I am pretty sure that what I want to do exists. I will keep searching. I think that the online CRM world might be the way to go. A CRM system will allow me to develop a task that can be reported against at various dates pre and post renewal dates.

Cheers

David

[The Internet Bloke]

Hi David,
I think that DLGuard would meet your needs. It provides protection and security for files, memberships, blog access, etc.

Integration with many payment processing systems means that access to a membership resource is automatically prevented if a payment is not made.

No excell spreadsheets, monitoring, etc needed. It also has a built in shopping cart for sales of digital and physical goods.

I use this myself, and the programmer is Sam Stephens, a fellow Aussie who is fanatical about customer support.

www.Download-guard.com

Regards,
Eric G.

[Devan]

David,

We use eWay (eWAY - eCommerce Payment Gateway Accepting Online Credit Card Payments) to manage our monthly billing for our software. They have an excellent web portal for managing 'rebills' and one off billing. They even helped us to set up Amex merchant facilities etc.

You don't need to set up separate bank accounts - they will process all payments into your existing account etc.

Very friendly, good service. They even have a developer API so you can automate payment processing in your own web site or other application software. They even have a smartphone client for one site billing etc.

We've been a very happy client of theirs for over a year and a half now.

Cheers,
Devan

[David Linke]

Devan and Eric,

Thank you greatly for the pointers. I will now do my research on these suggestions.

Cheers

David