Been reading the forum boards and did not realize that I had to use the AIM version of authorizenet to do recurring billing through aMember... So, I'm going to buy an SSL certificate because I want to do recurring billing. I guess I have 3 questions regarding this whole SSL/recurring billing situation. 1. What steps do I take after I buy the certificate and want to implement AIM? Do I just deactivate SIM then activate aim in the plugins area? Do I need to replublish my entire site to https://www.mysite.com or is that not necessary? 2. I see these SSL certificates on the web from $14.95 to $99.95 to $795. I've done a little research and of course the company's selling the cheaper ones say they're fine for sites not doing more than 50 transactions a week or a month, which I don't see happening at first. Do you think a $20 SSL cert form godadddy will do the trick? 3. Lastly, regarding recurring billing... I was looking in the aMember control panel. I see the ability to turn on recurring billing under the subscription terms for each product, but I don't get how it works. I don't see a place to tell it how much to charge for the recurring bill. Will it just do exactly what they did originally? If they signed up for 1 month at 10 bucks, it will charge /$10 a month every month until they cancel? What if they sign up for 3 months at $24, can you tell it to charge them monthly at $8 a month or does it automatically charge them $24 for 3 months again? Can this all be customized? Sorry, I just don't see it there. Thanks a lot!!!
Hi guys, not sure if I asked too many questions or something... It's been a day or 2 now. Should I make a ticket instead? Or just wait a little longer? Thanks!
1. After you buy certificate, you have to ask your webhosting to install it. 2. Once https://www.mysite.com/amember/ is working (exactly as existing http://www.mysite.com/amember/) you can configure "Secure Root URL" at aMember CP -> Setup. 3. You go to aMember CP -> Setup -> Plugins, disable "authorize_sim" and enable "authorize_aim". 4. You go to aMember CP -> Setup -> Authorize AIM and configure it. 5. You run a test signup to ensure everything is working correctly. It is all. Actually, for small website, it does not matter which certificate you will use. It only makes sense that credit card information is not transmitted via networks as plain text - any certificate will do that. Yes, it will bill customer the same amount each time. When you enable Authorize_AIM you will be also able to setup Trial 1 Price, Trial 1 Period - it will allow you to setup another terms for first payment.
I went through this same process about two months ago and it was pretty straight forward. I turned off SIM and turned on AIM. It was at that point I realized that I needed an SSL Certificate too! I told my ISP and he knew exactly what to do, knew exactly who to order it from, installed it for me... pretty painless and not expensive... about $70.00. AMember has not missed a beat and is working beautifully. Remember that the credit card information will be stored (encrypted) in your SQL database. This can be a security risk and is not recommended... but, I have discussed this with the owner of my ISP and they were quite comfortable with their security for this because they allow no outside access to those portions of the servers which are not necessary for Web or SQL access. I have tested the recurring billing for about three months now and it works great. You do not need the extra "recurring billing" feature of Authorize.Net for this to work. I had signed up for it and canceled it after a month. Good luck! Dana Haynes Accularian http://www.accularian.com
Thank you Alex and Accularian... I've been working at this for a few days now. Had some issues getting the certificate (Had to buy a dedicated IP and some other things.) Anyway, I believe I successfully installed my SSL certificate. Actually, I should not say successfully yet. I am having a problem. I went to "Secure Root URL" at aMember CP -> Setup and changed it to https://www.mysite.com/amember Now, when I go to my website, I click join and it takes me to http://www.mysite.com/amember/signup.php and the sign up screen comes up fine. When I fill out the customer info and check off credit card I get this error after I hit continue at the bottom Cannot open /var/www/vhosts/mysite.com/httpdocs/amember/data/.htpasswd for write. Make directory /var/www/vhosts/mysite.com/httpdocs/amember/data and this file writeable for PHP scripts. I noticed it still says "http://www.mysite.com/amember/signup.php" in the address bar at the top... not https... If i change it to Https, it takes me back to the signup screen and when I enter customer info, I still get the same error when I hit continue at the bottom. I also just noticed that since I've created all these fake customers, I went to my Amember CP and searched members so i could delete these fake ones. when I hit delete next to a member name it confirms that I really want to delete it and then I get this error... Cannot open /var/www/vhosts/mysite.com/httpdocs/amember/data/.htpasswd for write. Make directory /var/www/vhosts/mysite.com/httpdocs/amember/data and this file writeable for PHP scripts. I'm sure it's all the same problem, but I don't know how to fix it. Please help... Thank you very much...
By the way, after reading that error message again, I kind of assume that I need to CHMOD that folder to 777, but part of me figured that would have been in the instructions when I set it up initially, so I still want to make sure before I do it. So hopefully the question isn't too obvious. Thanks....
Cost for Authorize.net AIM I'm looking at buying amember pro and it looks as though Authorize.net AIM will be what I need to do recurring billing. I am wondering what the cost is to sign up with Authorize.net AIM, how they will pay me, do I have to have an actual company set up or can I just have payments sent to my personal bank account, etc. If anyone has dealt with them, can you please post you experiences and the costs you have experienced. thanks
Have a look to this one: http://www.charge.com/banners/click.php?alexc641 It is not Auth.Net, but it offers not less reputable LinkPoint.