This plugin allows you to take one-time or recurring payments in exchange for access to a group. Effectively, that allows you to put categories behind a paywall and opens up a lot of possibilities that allow the monetization of your forum.
If you want to get a feel for how this works, you can see a demo setup here. Use these credit card numbers on checkout:
#: 4111 1111 1111 1111
CCV: 123
Date: Anything in the future
Zip: 55555
Hi, can you describe the pros and cons of using this plugin compared to using a service like Patreon (with an official Discourse plugin). Particularly:
Anything else we should consider choosing between these two options?
Here are a few differences I see
Discourse league is GPL https://github.com/discourse-league/discourse-league/blob/master/LICENSE.txt this means you have access to source code.
Patreon is proprietary.
Transaction fees:
Patreon: fees are set by patreon
Discourseleague: Premium features fees https://discourseleague.com/page/league/2/ plus payment gateway fees
I’ve been using this plugin for the last 3-4 months on https://productivityguild.com. Currently the only gateway supported is Braintree. Their fees are here but the gist of it is the typical $0.30 transaction fee and 2.9%.
So if you go with the Bronze level, that would mean $97/year for the license and then the Braintree fees on top of that.
It’s been a while since I’ve looked at Patreon’s fees but I vaguely remember them being 5%. So your volume and pricing would dictate which is cheaper.
Amazing Plugin, just a simple question…can this plugin be used to restrict people from posting to a certain category but enable everyone else to see the contents inside. I want to have a restricted category where my users can advertise their projects but i want the ability to advertise in the category to be limited to the PRO members.
Sure. All you would do is set up the category security settings to allow the PRO group to create new topics and set up everyone else to view and reply or just to view.
Will purchase this for sure, as it’s just what I need. I do have a question though, does the plugin allow me to restrict access (to the gateway) to people with trust level lower than what I specify? The reason I ask is I don’t want newcomers to be able to pay and unlock everything on my website, as some of the information within it is sensitive. I would love that (for example) only people with trust level 2 are able to purchase premium memberships.
Currently, there’s not. But what you could do is set up your category permissions such that they have to be a part of a group AND have a trust level of 2 or higher in order to access the topics.
That way they can pay you ahead of time but would still need to acquire status in order to participate.
But I will log this as a potential feature for sure.
Will pay to have this feature done. If anyone is willing to implement an extra option that restricts the memberships to a user with a trust level lower than X, I will pay for it.
I would also love this feature, I wouldn’t want level 0 users being able to purchase premium options on my site…
Good points for sure. Let me see if I can get this in place in the next few days. I’ll post an update here when it’s live.
Chaching! Thank you! I’ve bought your plugin and finally got my BrainTree payments activated, but couldn’t go live because of this 
Hi Joe,
This is an exciting plugin! I’ve tried to find screenshots of how this looks in action. Can you point me to a place where we can see what the user experience looks like at each point in the process, from reading about the opportunity to deciding to purchase to completing the purchase to having access to the group/category they’ve paid for?
Sure thing.
There’s a link in the menu for Pro that’ll show the subscription process.
Something to note here, I’m planning to rebrand this plugin and remove the license key requirement on this such that it’ll be completely open. It’s quite a bit of work but that’s the plan. 
Thanks! That’s helpful.
Can you show us what it looks like after the Billing & Payment screen?
Also, I noticed that if I’m signing up during the registration, I also get the notification “here’s your first notification!”. Is there a plan to eliminate that community-level distraction from a registration process for a higher tier of access? I can see many people coming to our site for the first time to register for something.
Once the payment piece is completed, it simply sends a Welcome PM to the user. You can fill out those details to be whatever you like. So there’s not much to see there.
At the moment, no. The assumption currently is that the user is signed up separately. It requires the user to have an account before completing the subscription/payment process.
Any word on the permission (trust level) update? 
Two things here. First:
This means there is no longer a need for a license key on this and it is formally open to the public. 
That said, would someone on the team be willing to move this to plugin?
Second, I did get the trust level setting added:
I’m currently working on a rebrand of this and the addition of tests. The plan is to get this into a state such that it would be accessible to hosted instances on the Enterprise level. At least, that’s the hope. 
EDIT: I also just deployed a test instance that uses a sandbox gateway. So no money actually passes hands. You can get details in the OP here.
Whoa! So awesome. Will test is shortly. Thank you so much 