What is the best setup for User Paid Upgrades

[ibaker]

I have moved from Xenforo to IPS and which I have the full IPS suite including commerce etc. In XF I had donations and User Upgrades. A user could donate to the site costs and if their donation was $50 or more they would automatically be moved into a secondary usergroup called "First Class" with extra permissions for a 1 year duration. I have had donations from $10 to $1,000.

In migrating the users, those users that were still current in their 1 year period of being in the First Class usergroup were migrated into the primary member usergroup with First Class usergroup as their secondary group...as they are in XF...interesting note though, in XF you can give a usergroup username display a higher display order so any user that has a secondary usergroup of First Class can have their username displayed in the colour gold, but in IPS it seems the username can only be displayed from what is set in the user's primary usergroup.

So now I need to firstly set up in IPS some kind of user donation system like I had in XF and for donations of $50 or greater a usergroup change for 1 year, that can be renewed OR if not renewed moves the user back into a normal member. Then after this I have to try and move the existing First Class members (i.e. those that donated >= $50 within the last year) into that subscription/donation system for the time they have left.

Any thoughts on the best way to achieve all this...it looks like I may have to generate an invoice to the user for the time they have left as First Class members even though they have paid for a full year back when etc etc etc.

[opentype]

There is a donation widget, but I don’t like it because there are no settings (like minimum amount) and you can’t do anything after a donation (like member group upgrades). 

So I just added donation products and subscription products with fixed prices to my Commerce store(s). 

[ibaker]

It seems that I have to:

1. Create separate donation amounts in the subscription plans up to and less than $50
2. Create separate subscription plans at different amounts equal to and greater than $50 for a First Class Member that puts them into the First Class usergroup as their primary group
3. Create an invoice for each current First Class member and mark it as paid (users are not going to like the stuff around)
4. Then go into each user's record -> Customer View and edit their purchase expiry date to the amount of time they have left

What a pain in the **** all around...:

1. The amount of work needed to be done for every user manually
2. The users get stuffed around with suddenly receiving an invoice
3. Many different donation amounts i.e. $10, $20, $30, $40
4. The many different donation amounts to become First Class members i.e. $50, $60, $70, $80, $90, $100, $125, $150..........$1,000
5. The Subscription page will be a nighmare
6. I may not be able to capture all the amount intervals that a user wishes to donate like what happens if a user wishes to donate $65, they would have to use the $60 donation and I lose $5 etc etc etc

There has to be a much better way to allow donations/subscriptions where, and most importantly, a user is reminded each year to renew their donation/subscription...in Xenforo the user puts their donation amount into a box and if it is $50 or greater they get moved into the First Class usergroup and a year later they get a reminder, and if not renewed, they go back to being a standard member

PLEASE, any ideas, suggestions etc on how to do this better...thanks in advance!

[opentype]

51 minutes ago, ibaker said:

most importantly, a user is reminded each year to renew their donation/subscription...

That’s what subscriptions and regular Commerce products set as subscriptions do. An invoice is created after the subscription period has ended and user may or may not renew, just as with your IPS subscription here.