g. Membership Plans and Packages

Membership plan gives an opportunity to the administrator to coordinate a user and a site interaction. Membership plans are created by the administrator. To place listings on a site, a user must be subscribed to one of membership plans assigned to a group which the user belongs to. 

Each membership plan can be assigned to one or more user groups. A user group can include several membership plans at the same time.     

There are two types of membership plans: Fee Based and Subscription. A type of a membership plan can't be changed after the plan has been created.

If a user is subscribed to the 'Fee Based' membership plan and the administrator changes the settings of this membership plan, these settings become operative immediately for the user. E.g., a user is subscribed to the 'For Sale by Owner' membership plan ('Fee Based' type). Let's suppose that at first this membership plan has the following setting: 'Listing Amount' = 10. Then the administrator reduces the listing amount: 'Listing Amount' = 7. Even though at the beginning the user was subscribed to the membership plan where 'Listing Amount' = 10, after changing the settings his/her listing amount will be reduced.

The membership plan of Subscription type provides services and features for a particular period of time. So, if a user is subscribed to the 'Subscription' membership plan and the administrator changes settings of this membership plan, these settings will not be changed for the user till this membership plan will expire for this user. Returning the above mentioned example, let's suppose that at first the user has the membership plan ('Subscription' type) with the following setting 'Listing Amount' = 10. Then the administrator reduces the listing amount: 'Listing Amount' = 7. After changing the setting the 'Listing Amount' will not be reduced for this user till the membership plan expiration date.

There are several examples how the subscription to membership plan(s) works:

If the administrator assigns more than one membership plans to a user group, the system will require a user to choose a membership plan during the subscription.

If the administrator assigns the only membership plan where the 'Price' is not free to a user group, the system will not require a user to choose a membership plan during the subscription.

If the administrator assigns the only membership plan where 'Price' = 0 to a user group, the system will subscribe users to this membership plan automatically during the first signing in the system.

When the subscription process has finished, a user starts to interact with the system according to the membership plan conditions which he/she has subscribed before.

Package is a set of listing features, options and limitations which will be applied to a particular listing. A membership plan can include as many packages as the administrator wants.

There are several examples how packages work:

If the administrator assigns a list of packages to a membership plan, the user who is subscribed to this membership plan should choose a package, fill in listing details and then pay for this package.

If the administrator assigns the only package where the 'Price' is not free to a membership plan, the system will redirect the user, who is subscribed to this membership plan, to the payment page automatically and the system will not require the user to choose a package.

If the administrator assigns the only package where the 'Price' = 0 to a membership plan, the system will allow users to add listings without choosing a package and paying for listings and the listings will be active automatically.

You may read more information about Membership Plans and Packages in the section 'Membership Plans'.