How can I offer a fixed-term Free Registration?

A fixed-term free registration allows you to offer a free registration that will expire after a certain amount of time. However, since there is no payment associated with a free registration, you must use the Trial Period functionality to create a fixed-term free registration.

Creating a Fixed-Term Free Registration

Note: In the examples below, we're using a Stripe Pro-Form. If you're using PayPal instead of Stripe as a payment gateway, please replace any references to Stripe with PayPal.

Generating the Free Registration Pro-Form

To generate the Free Registration Pro-Form, visit WordPress Dashboard → s2Member → Stripe Pro-Forms → Stripe / Free Registration Forms. Here's an example of what the shortcode will look like (note that your custom="" attribute should contain your domain):

[s2Member-Pro-Stripe-Form register="1" level="0" ccaps="" desc="Signup now, it's Free!" custom="example.com" tp="0" tt="D" captcha="clean" /]

Setting a Trial Period (i.e. Fixed-Term)

Now if we want to turn this into a Fixed-Term Free Registration Pro-Form, we simply need to set a Trial Period. We do this by modifying the tp="" and tt="" shortcode attributes.

• tp="0" Trial Period. Only valid w/ Membership Level Access.
• tt="D" Trial Term. Only valid w/ Membership Level Access. Possible values: D = Days, W = Weeks, M = Months, Y = Years.

For more details about Shortcode Attributes, please see WordPress Dashboard → s2Member → Stripe Pro-Forms → Stripe Shortcode Attributes (Explained).

If we want to provide a Free Registration that expires after 3 Days, we would set tp="3" tt="D".

If we want to provide a Free Registration that expires after 2 Weeks, we would set tp="2" tt="W".

If we want to provide a Free Registration that expires after 1 Year, we would set tp="1" tt="Y".

Should you use Level 0 or Level 1?

Now that you've configured the Pro-Form, the last and perhaps most important step is to decide what Level you will use for your free registration.

While it might make sense to use the default of Level 0 / Subscriber, we recommend that you try to avoid doing so when creating a subscription that should expire. The reason for this is that if you start at Level 0 / Subscriber, there is no lower level to which expired accounts can be demoted.

If you plan to use an Automatic EOT Behavior configuration that says to Delete the account when it expires (see WordPress Dashboard → s2Member → Stripe Options → Automatic EOT Behavior), then you can leave the default and have new subscribers use Level 0 / Subscriber.

However, if you want expired Free Registration accounts to simply be demoted to a lower level that prevents them from having access to content that you've restricted to Level 1 (more common), then you'll need to make sure that Free Registrations start at Level 1, so that when the free account expires they can be demoted by the Automatic EOT System to Level 0 / Subscriber.

To have Free Registrations start at Level 1, simply modify the level="" shortcode attribute to read level="1".

What happens when the Trial Period is over?

What happens when the Trial Period for a Free Registration ends all depends on how you have things set up (see the section above, Should you use Level 0 or Level 1?).

When someone signs up using a Free Registration form that includes a Trial Period, an EOT date/time will be set immediately on the users account (see WordPress Dashboard → Users → Edit User → Automatic EOT Time).

Once that date/time as passed, s2Member will demote or delete that account according to your Automatic EOT Behavior configuration (WordPress Dashboard → s2Member → Stripe Options → Automatic EOT Behavior).