Create recurring vendor plans with Stripe Subscriptions

In the early stages of your marketplace, generating steady revenues through selling and listing fees can be tough.

This is why MultiMerch now supports recurring vendor plans via Stripe Subscriptions.

Here's how you can start generating recurring revenues with your very first MultiMerch seller.

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Create a Stripe Connect platform account

I've already mentioned the process of signing up for Stripe in my  previous blog post covering Stripe Connect.

The process is similar for Subscriptions with one exception – you don't really need a Connect account, a regular Stripe platform account will do.

Create one or more Stripe pricing plans

MultiMerch lets you tie your Stripe plans to vendor groups to create different payment schedules for sellers signing up for different plans.

First, you'll need to create at least one pricing plan via Billing > Products > Pricing plans.

MultiMerch currently supports Stripe's fixed and per-seat (per-product) pricing plans.

Configure Stripe Subscriptions in MultiMerch

Now, you'll need to specify your Stripe API credentials in Admin > Extensions > Payments > Stripe Connect (see my previous blog post for more details about the configuration).

Starting with MultiMerch 8.16, you'll see a new section called Subscriptions in your MultiMerch Stripe settings.

Here, you'll need to specify your Stripe product ID – now, you can retrieve your plans via Stripe using the Retrieve button.

Link Stripe plans to MultiMerch seller groups

After you've linked your Stripe product and retrieved the plans, you'll be able to link the plans to seller groups via Admin > MultiMerch > Seller groups > Edit.

Now, you'll see the new Stripe Subscriptions tab when creating or editing a seller group.

This lets you assign a base and a per-seat plan to each seller group – you're all set now!

Create a landing page to let your sellers choose a plan when signing up

If you'll be using multiple different seller plans, you can create a landing page with a pricing table to let your sellers choose a plan when signing up.

We've created a basic landing page template for you via OpenCart's Information module.

You can use it as a template for your own landing page or design a completely custom page.

MultiMerch now lets you create "Sign up" links or buttons for individual seller plans by passing the seller group identifier to the sign up URL.

Start generating recurring revenues with MultiMerch and Stripe Subscriptions

We're done – your sellers can now sign up for specific seller plans!

During the final registration step, MultiMerch will use Stripe's Checkout form to collect seller's payment information and create a Stripe subscription for the seller.

Sellers will be able to access their subscription details via their Settings area.

The best thing – all payment data is processed by Stripe, which means no tedious PCI compliance processes.

What's next?

Subscriptions don't end here!

In the future MultiMerch versions, we'll implement:

• support for more complex Stripe Subscription plans in addition to fixed and per-seat pricing
• more subscription management options for sellers – such as upgrades and downgrades
• manual subscriptions (recurring payment invoices) for third party gateways that don't support recurring payments natively

Meanwhile, MultiMerch 8.16 is now available for download in your accounts – go grab it!