You can create as many Price Plans as you want in the system. Price Plans will not take affect until you have assigned them to a User Group. Therefore, the Price Plans menu is really nothing more than a storage area for Price Plans. That is, until you begin creating User Groups that call out one or more of these Price Plans.

Give your Price Plan a name to help distinguish it as well as attach a description to keep better track of your intentions for that Price Plan. The Price Plan name and description are not displayed on the client side so in effect the user does not necessarily know that they have been assigned to a specific Price Plan.

Each time you set up a new Price Plan you must decide if it will be used for Classifieds or Auctions listings. It is necessary to distinguish between Classifieds or Auctions because each listing type offers different fees that you can assess. For example, Auctions listings allow you to assess a "final fee" based upon the final selling price (winning bid price) of the item. Final fees do not apply to Classified listings.

There are two Price Plan types that you have to choose from. The two types are:

Fee-Based Price Plans allow you to charge a listing fee on a "per listing" basis. You can then also charge for Listing Extras, such as Better Placement, Featured Listings, etc.

<tip c n> Category specific pricing is only available with Fee-Based Price Plans. Subscription-Based Price Plans do not offer the ability to edit pricing on a per category basis.</tip>

Subscription-Based Price Plans allow you to charge a flat fee for a certain period of time. During that subscription period, the user can have as many active listings (auctions, classifieds…etc all listing types are cumulatively added to meet the max listing count) as you allow them to. You can still also charge for Listing Extras, such as Better Placement, Featured Listings, etc. With Subscription-Based Price Plans, the subscription period does not begin until the client places their first listing purchasing the subscription in the placement process or the client goes through the subscription purchase/renewal process to purchase their subscription. If a client has a subscription currently in effect and go through the subscription extension process the extension time purchased is added onto the end of the current subscription. So, if they register into a User Group that is Subscription-Based, their subscription period does not actually begin until they have placed a listing (purchasing a subscription in the process) or purchased the subscription individually on your site. Remember the subscription purchased does not regulate access to view listing details unless you make the configuration to do so. It's first purpose is to control listing placement.

For example if you have a subscription period of 6 months for $x with a maximum listing count of 30….Your client can register and place their first listings. Within the listing placement process this new client would pay the $x for the 6 month subscription. Once the subscription is paid for that first listing would go live and their subscription is active. The client would not need to pay for listing placement as that is covered by their subscription. The client would not need to pay for another subscription until their current subscription expires. For the next 6 months of the subscription that client could have as many as 30 listings live (auctions, classified,…etc) at any one time on the site. If that client was at the their maximum listing count they would not be able to add another listing until they deleted a listing manually or any listing of theirs expired.

The subscription length has no effect on the duration of the listings purchased under that subscription. The listing duration is separate from the subscription expiration but you can set the software to expire all current listings for a client with a subscription to expire also when their subscription expires no matter if the listings duration is beyond the subscription expiration. This is a choice as you also have the option to NOT expire a clients currently live listings when their subscription expires. This is a choice within the price plan admin tool you use to configure the price plan. Setting the software to expire listings when the subscription expire could be as an incentive for a client to renew their subscription before it expires. If you do not automatically expire listings at subscription expiration your clients still have the ability to login and edit their currently live listings but do not have the ability to renew or place a new listing without paying for a new subscription.

The client would be notified of their subscription expiration if you have the admin tool setup to do so. To renew their subscription the client would need to return to your site and renew their subscription using the renew subscription feature that is linked within My Account pages. As long as they have a subscription they will not be asked to renew their subscription within the listing placement process.

Note that subscription renewals are not automatically/billed to the customer without the use of the recurring billing feature available through some payment gateways. Recurring biling is not available in all editions of the software so check the feature comparison chart. Without the recurring billing feature the client must return to the site to renew a subscription within the client side admin tool.

A subscription covers the cost of auciton or classified placement or auction or classified renewal. This does not cover the cost of listing extras that can be added to every listing…that is if you have setup listing extras for use within that clients price plan. If a current subscription is in effect for a specific client and they place/renew a listing they will not be charged for the placement/renewal of that listing but would be charged for any extra features they added to that listing.

Subscription-based price plans are not charged at registration. Their purpose is to charge for listing placement.

<tip c n>When adding a Subscription-Based Price Plan into the system, the name and description of the Price Plan on the Price Plans Home page will be displayed in bold and red. This is because you have not yet set up any subscription periods for the Price Plan. As soon as you do this, the Price Plan name and description will display normally.</tip>

Creating the Price Plan is only the first step. Once you have created your new Price Plan, you will then need to apply fees, expirations, and other details to it by clicking the "edit" button on the Price Plan Home page.

<tip c n>Choose carefully, as the Price Plan type cannot be edited at a later time. When a Price Plan is created as Fee-Based, it will always be Fee-Based. This same principle applies if you create your Price Plan as Subscription-Based.</tip>