New! Discount & Subscription Improvements for Recurring Payments

Do you want a tool that helps you generate recurring income and automate your billing? For many, that solution is the Easy Digital Downloads Recurring Payments extension.

And we have some exciting news about it…

 🎉 Today, we‘re happy to announce Recurring Payments version 2.11.8!

This release makes creating and managing discount codes and selling subscriptions easier than ever. We’re super pleased about this update because it includes awesome new features, some of which you (or other EDD users) may have specifically requested!

Let’s take a look at some of the most significant improvements:

Offer One-Time Discounts Codes on Individual Basis

In the past, discount codes in Easy Digital Downloads were essentially all or nothing. You had two main options. You could make it so that all discounts apply to:

1. Only the initial (first) payments of subscriptions
2. All payments (every renewal)

This is still an option. If you go to Downloads » Settings » Payments » Recurring Payments, you’ll find the One Time Discounts option:

If you select this box, by default, all your discount codes will apply only to a subscriber’s first (initial) payment. The discount(s) won’t be applied to subsequent subscription payments, such as monthly renewals.

But with the new Recurring Payments update, you’ll now also have the option to configure this setting on an individual discount basis.

You can create/edit a discount (Downloads » Discounts). Then, under the new Discount Renewal Orders setting, decide whether to make it for the first subscription payment or the lifetime of the subscription:

You can leave it set to the Store Default (currently is First Order and Renewals). This means the discount will be applied to all subscription payments.

The First Order Only option will apply the discount to the initial payment but not the following renewal orders. This can be useful for promotional offers. For instance, you could offer a 50% discount to new or first-time subscribers.

You can use the First Order and Renewals option for lifetime subscription discounts. Perhaps you have a partnership program and want to give those members a discounted rate for both the initial and renewal payments. This setting lets you do that.

Building this capability into the Recurring Payments extension means more flexibility with using discounts on your website. You can strategically offer them to customers to help boost sales and conversions.

Export Subscriptions for Detailed Reporting 📈

Another exciting new feature is the ability to export subscriptions to a CSV file, which can help with reporting. Exporting this information can help you analyze and visualize your data in a spreadsheet. You can use CSV files to create custom reports and combine the data with other analytics.

CSV files also make it easy to share the data with others. Users can open the file in their preferred spreadsheet program (Excel, Spreadsheets, etc.) to view the data.

EDD lets you export reports for earnings, customers, products, etc under Downloads » Reports » Exports.

With the latest version of Recurring Payments installed, you’ll find a new Export Subscriptions section:

You can select a product/download to gather subscription information about. It also lets you filter the reports by subscription start/end date.

Access Customer Subscription Data Easily ⚙

Speaking of subscriptions, we’ve also updated the subscription management interface (Downloads » Subscriptions). In previous versions, the screen to add and manage subscriptions looked like this:

We rewrote the admin subscription forms to be more user-friendly, responsive, and accessible. With the new interface, the sections are arranged in a more organized and intuitive manner:

The new interface is more consistent with both WordPress and Easy Digital Downloads and makes it easier to add manual subscriptions.

Unlike with previous versions, it’s possible to add a subscription with a $0 initial amount. It also defaults the billing cycles for you so you don’t have to manually enter them.

The filter bar lets you sort subscriptions by payment gateway and subscription status. Subscriptions also now have their own tab when you’re viewing customer details:

Overall Performance Improvements and Fixes ✅

We’re always working to ensure Easy Digital Downloads and its add-ons perform as optimally as possible. With this Recurring Payments update, we’ve made a handful of fixes to help boost its performance.

This includes resolving issues such as the Stripe express checkout causing PHP notices or the gateway causing a fatal error with one-time trials.

Now it’s also possible to:

• Purchase a product free trial with PayPal Commerce
• Automatically cancel active subscriptions when erasing a customer’s data
• Use the subscription_details email tag for purchase receipt emails
• Use the subscription_details, subscription_period, and subscription_term email tags for renewal and expiration emails

For more information and details about the Recurring Payments release, check out the extension’s change log.

Download Recurring Payments Latest Version

The newest version of Recurring Payments is available for update to all customers. If you already have a Professional Pass, log in to your account now and get started. If you don’t yet have a license key, you can purchase one today!

Any questions, concerns, or comments? Don’t hesitate to leave a comment below or get in touch with our support team directly through our support page.

Thanks for using and supporting EDD. As always, we’re working daily (and as quickly as possible) to improve EDD! 😊

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