Subscription Site Advice?

I will soon launch a subscription site. Is there anyone out there that can give me some advice on what has worked well and what hasn't? This will be a sports related and I will be charging a monthly fee to access premium content.

I'd love to hear from people on topics like:
Refunds
Payment Options
Tracking free and premium members

Any input is much appreciated.

 

Subscriptions can be a pain at times - but I would rely on the gateway to do your monthly billing, otherwise you will need to look into PCI compliancy. Depending on the level - you will start with Merchant Level 4 (Any merchant processing fewer than 20,000 Visa e-commerce transactions per year, and all other merchants-regardless of acceptance channel-processing up to 1,000,000 transactions per year) which basically you will need a Self-Assessment Questionnaire annually and a Network Scan quarterly.

This would be easier though for some in the long run if you have thousands of members and allowing them to update their information. But never store the CVV. Some gateways will provide an automated billing system and then the gateway will do everything. Usually this is free, but some companies do charge for it. And then Authorizenet.com actually will require you to sign into the virtual terminal to activate billing.

Some places I have seen that actually require to to re-authenticate yourself. This can help if you are using VBV / MSC since transactions are only covered with the consumer's participation.

You can also look into some type of a Fraud shield program as well - to protect yourself. I would consider asking for at least an email verification on these type of websites.

There are so many pros and cons to a subscription website, but it depends on how much you really want to put into it to get out of it

 

well if u want to use paypal and for sure dont want to lose your account, email them and have them review the site to see if you can use them.. might be the easiest way permitting your in the paypal locations / so are your primary users

 

Good info. Thanks guys. The real problem for me arises that the subscription would be for access to sports gambling related content. I really don't see PayPal use their services. Do you know of any payment processors that might work with me?

 

PayPal Acceptable Use Policy has a specific page re: gambling.

It depends on what your content is. For example, I know one merchant who sells who they think will win specifics in a sporting event. Cardservice has allowed them to operate for a number of years. Now it could be they are grandfathered in or flying under the radar.

It is very tricky when it comes to this, especially with this happening.

 

That's pretty close to what I'm looking at. I want to charge a subscription for access to certain areas of the site. While there will be no actual gambling going on; people would be paying for gambling related content.