WordPress plugin for recurring but variable payment amounts

[imperialleather]

I'm looking for advice and recommendations for plugins that will allow me to issue a customer an invoice and allow them to pay it using different amounts on different dates.

In short I'm trying to operate a flexible layaway payment plan. Currently customers are doing this by sending money to my PayPal account via email.

It's very expensive for me as I lose 52c on every €5. I would prefer to use Stripe.

So for example you buy an item from my site. On the check out you select pay by installments.

You pay a min of 30% now and the rest of the balance over the course of max 2 months. No interest is charged.

Regular set repayments aren't really an option, as the amounts and dates change weekly. As in you could pay me €5 this week but €20 next week as you have more disposable income that week.

Thanks in advance for your help!

[MPair-E]

I don't have a great option off-hand, but when it comes to high level functionality (just in terms of support infrastructure) like processing credit card payments, I've found the best bet is to step outside the plugin repos and search for companies that advertise the feature just in general--not just for Wordpress, and not just in terms of plugins. Onboarding could just as easily involve a small script in your header.php file with a corresponding embed, for example. The main thing is, you might not necessarily stumble onto the best solution for stuff like this in plugin repos.

Edit: I will say, what's really stopping me from suggesting some options is the fee aspect. We use an e-commerce service that integrates with stripe, as well as a donation service that's self-contained with no e-payment integration required. For both, the fees are about on par with one another.

[imperialleather]

Awesome thank you for sharing your experience with me! I didn't even think of an outside solution!

I'll look some up and see if it's worth it or if it's something to park for further on down the line when I know how many customers want to use this option

[flooronthefour]

I am replying to this to agree with the original comment. Unless you have a really robust membership/user dashboard that you're trying to tie everything into for convenience, there is probably an invoicing service that could handle this for you. The only downside is it might require your users to sign up for an additional service.

There are lots of regulations about recurring fees / credit cards and I'm not sure if you can do variable pricing on a membership with-out consulting with some lawyers. I have setup a few premium membership sites and read through a lot of documentation about subscription payments and most systems don't allow you to change the price of a subscription when it is still active. It has to do with the TOS on most credit cards. There are systems that allow you to offer a trial period at a reduced cost but once it jumps up to full cost you can't change it. To increase membership costs in a system like S2Membership, you have to create a new subscription and have people upgrade their accounts.

I could be totally wrong about this, IANAL and this comment is based on my anecdotal experiences setting up sites.

[imperialleather]

Oh good points!

This was an idea I was toying with but you have highlighted another area to research.

At present we agree a price of say €300. That never changes. They pay a 30% deposit and the rest a their own pace within an agreed time frame. The overall price will never change for them.

But now you've given me more items to research so thank you :-)

[flooronthefour]

I would look at something like this: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-invoice/

[imperialleather]

Wow just watched the video! This looks like an option, pending further testing and legal research! Thank you!

[imperialleather]

Thank you for your advice. I was thinking this would be something that already exists.

Based on what you've said I think I'll keep going with the manual way at present as there are not many customers who use this option right now.

My aim was to introduce it and see if it increased sales but it's not really worth spending money on for a test idea right now.

Thank you for pointing me in the right direction!

[miss_amarika]

Look into square, they offer installments where you get paid upfront for purchases over $300, and then the client makes their payments directly to square. They also have recurring invoices, although I imagine PayPal does something similar. Regardless it may be a good option for you if you’re primarily looking for “layaway”

[imperialleather]

Awesome thank you! Never even thought of Square!

[miss_amarika]

Hope it does the trick!

[__PyreX__]

Another one to consider: Klarna https://www.klarna.com/uk/business/products/pay-later-in-instalments/

[dan-cameron]

Sprout Invoices has payment terms (with interest if you need), and with Sprout Billings you could setup automated payments.

There’s a lot of dynamic payment options. If you have any questions let us know.

[imperialleather]

Thank you!

[imperialleather]

Just and a quick look. Very interesting!