First of all the idea is taken from Linus Tech Tips forum. They offer three paid subscription badges bronze, silver and gold. All of these subscriptions also offer certain privileges but in Discourse we earn privileges rather than buying which is perfect.
Now, what I am saying is that I liked the idea of buying badges rather than privileges. Can we have a way for members to buy certain badges which they can show with their user avatars (like flair) for a certain period? Like one could buy a badge for $5 for a year and after the year is complete he get a notification that he needs to renew his badge.
Although, while typing I also got an idea of paid groups? This is a rough idea but it can work pretty well if brainstormed well with all the community members here. And this can also provide one monetary help for website owners.
Yes that’s true, groups would be a better idea to implement this. And I also did a search for subscription before posting it here. The thing is, there aren’t any solid payment method in Stripe which Indian audience can use easily. That’s why I left the Subscription plugin aside.
Yes, I think I can use Razorpay since that works perfect in India and is also increasing in popularity for it’s easy to use. I can make a custom page to showcase the badges and then provide the Razorpay link below for payment. Once the payment is done, we can add the member in the correct group and also give him the flair. The group will also show us the correct date on which that member is added and we can contact him after an year for the renewal base on that date. This will be a manual process but it can work initially.