Recurring Payments has been a staple in our extensions catalogue since it was released almost exactly three years ago. When first released, it provided some of the basic and necessary functions for processing recurring subscriptions through Easy Digital Downloads. It was not, however, without its limitations and shortcomings. Today, I would like to show you a preview of the next version of the Recurring Payments extension that is the result of reevaluating the platform from the ground up and building the plugin how we wished it had been built from the beginning.
With this next version of Recurring Payments, we took a good, hard look at what the existing plugin offered and what we wished it offered. The end result is, to put it mildly, enormously improved.
Multiple Subscriptions
As one of the single most commonly requested features, we are thrilled to announce that Recurring Payments 2.4 introduces support for multiple subscriptions on a single account. This means customers can have 1, 2, 3, or any other number of separate subscriptions on their account.
Improved Payment Gateways
Being one of the most widely used extensions by people from all parts of the world, we receive a lot of requests for support of particular payment gateways in Recurring Payments. With the version 2.4 update, we are adding support for 4 additional payment gateways:
Authorize.net
2Checkout
PayPal Express
PayPal Website Payments Pro
These new gateways are being added on top of the ones we already supported:
Stripe
PayPal Standard
Note: the Paymill payment gateway is no longer going to be supported with Recurring Payments 2.4. If you use Paymill, we highly recommend that you migrate to Stripe.
We have also completely rebuilt the way that payment gateways interface with Recurring Payments, making it dramatically easier for us to add support for even more payment gateways in the future. After 2.4, we plan to add support for Braintree, Amazon Payments, and possibly more in version 2.5 or soon after. A complete developer guide to building new payment gateways for Recurring Payments is also going to be available soon.
Complete Subscription Management Interface
One of the largest limitations of Recurring Payments since its introduction was the lack of an interface to view the subscriptions on a site. With 2.4, we have built a complete interface that allows you to view and modify subscriptions.
Better Integration Between Extensions
Here at Easy Digital Downloads, we constantly strive to make all of our products work seamlessly together. Some extensions work better together than others but it is our goal to make all of them behave as a single, cohesive system. Recurring Payments 2.4 is a great example of that. It is integrated perfectly with some of the other most widely used extensions, including Software Licensing, Auto Register, Content Restriction, and others. Note: integration with Frontend Submissions is not yet supported but is on our todo list for 2.5 or soon after.
We are most excited about the improved integration with Software Licensing, which lets you easily set it up so that license keys can be tied to a subscription and automatically renew when renewal payments are processed. The Software Licensing integration also allows customers to upgrade from one subscription level to the next.
Customer Dashboard
Another element of Recurring Payments that has always been lacking is the customer dashboard. In 2.4, we have completely revamped the customer views and controls, allowing site admins to give customers full access to view their subscriptions, update payment methods, and even cancel subscriptions if they wish.
Subscription Emails
Configurable emails for various subscription events has been another of the most commonly requested features for Recurring Payments. With the upcoming 2.4, we are happy to say advanced email control is now included.
There are configurable emails for:
Renewal payment received
Subscription expirations (expiring soon, expired recently, etc)
Upcoming subscription renewal
Subscription cancellations
Collaborative Development
To say that this update is anything but small would be an understatement. Version 2.4 is the result of over 6 months of active development and it was largely made possible through collaborative development.
GiveWP is a wonderful plugin from the folks at WordImpress that was partially based on a fork of Easy Digital Downloads. They approached us about working together to build EDD Recurring Payments 2.4 and Recurring Donations for GiveWP. Since our two platforms shared so much in common, it was a perfect match.
The development cycle of Recurring Payments 2.4 was also assisted by Bruce Lance, a developer for the WP Ninjas. James and Kevin of WP Ninjas were incredibly gracious and donated numerous hours of Bruce’s development time to help make Recurring Payments 2.4 a reality.
This 3-way development collaboration allowed us to make huge strides in improving Recurring Payments for Easy Digital Downloads and we are incredibly excited to release the update in a few weeks.
Release Timeframe
Version 2.4 is very, very close, but not quite ready. We have a few more items to shore up before we release it. At this time, we hope to have a final release ready within a few weeks. Before the final release, we will release a private beta to a few select customers in order to get their feedback and ensure everything runs smoothly on their systems.
We have been beta testing the 2.4 update on our own sites for several weeks already and are very happy with where it is.
Questions? Comments? Let us know below!