New Supporter Badges

[Travis]

Howdy all.  We've been on our new server for 3 months now.  Everything seems to be working well.  I've been monitoring our server usage, and we're in the green!  So that's great news.  Thanks everybody for your patience as I went through these severe growing pains.  Naturally, when a little site like SSV begins to grow, things get more complicated and considerably more expensive.   @Scrappile suggested a good idea in offering different levels of support for SSV patrons.  So I thought I'd give it a try and see how it goes.

I have created 3 levels of support for SSV Patrons;  Bronze, Silver, and Gold.  The 3 levels offer the exact same benefits.  The only difference is the supporter title and the color of the supporter badge below your avatar.

• Bronze is $10/year and is the same one we've always had (still says SSV Patron).
• Silver is $3/month (cost of a cup of good coffee).  
• Gold is $5/month (cost of a cup of fancy Starbucks coffee).  

I'm using a new payment processor that can handle recurring payments.  So these new subscriptions will auto-pay until you cancel it.  So you don't have to worry about trying to remember to resubscribe.  None of the credit card information is stored on my server and I don't have visibility into your information.  Payments are processed by Stripe which is embedded into SSV.

You can upgrade and downgrade your plans at any time.  Upgrades will charge the prorated difference between the two plans.  Downgrades are also prorated with the difference given as account credit.

I'm going to give this a try for awhile.  If it becomes more trouble than it's worth, I'll revert back to the old way.  But if it does work, it is a nice way to pitch in a few extra bucks to cover the cost of running SSV.

If you're interested in becoming an SSV Patron, or you want to upgrade, you can find the new badges here.

 

Thank you everybody for your continued support!  I really appreciate it.

[Scrappile]

Well me and my big mouth!!  What choice do I have?  It is a pleasure, Travis.  Thank you for the great site.

[merlin]

great idea.........................

[New Guy]

This reminds me of a post some time ago that told where to go and see when it is time to renew.

I have no idea where to find the date.

[lawson56]

Sounds like a pretty darn good plan.I like it.Thanks for all your hard work Travis.

[scrollerpete]

This sound pretty good to me, we appreciate all your time and efforts that you put through to keep this site up.

[Travis]

You can renew your Patron account here:  http://www.scrollsawvillage.com/clients/  It's also located under the Support SSV tab at the top of the screen in case you need to find it again.

To upgrade to a different plan, go to your Manage Purchases.  Find your active supporter badge and click the Manage button.  Right below the product information is the Upgrade/Downgrade link.  That will allow you to upgrade/downgrade your plan to another one.  It's important that you upgrade your plan this way.  Adding a plan to your cart and checking out will add the plan IN ADDITION to your previous plan.  

If anybody runs into any trouble, please let me know.  I'm happy to get things sorted out.

[WayneMahler]

Great idea Travis. I just renewed in May ( I think ) but if we wanted could we just add the whole amount as a lump sum payment ? To explain if you wanted to go silver just pay the whole year you would pay 12 time that amount ? 

[Travis]

I got a couple questions regarding upgrading.  You DON'T have to wait for your current subscription to expire before switching.  You can change at any time.  Your account will be credited and you'll only be charged difference between the plans.

To upgrade to a different plan, go to your Manage Purchases.  Find your active supporter badge and click the Manage button.  Right below the product information is the Upgrade/Downgrade link.  That will allow you to upgrade/downgrade your plan to another one.  It's important that you upgrade your plan this way.  Adding a plan to your cart and checking out will add the plan IN ADDITION to your previous plan.  

If anybody runs into any trouble, please let me know.  I'm happy to get things sorted out.

[Travis]

1 hour ago, WayneMahler said:

Great idea Travis. I just renewed in May ( I think ) but if we wanted could we just add the whole amount as a lump sum payment ? To explain if you wanted to go silver just pay the whole year you would pay 12 time that amount ? 

I don't think it's that cut and dry.  Let me see if I can figure that out.  There's gotta be a solution.

[kmmcrafts]

Not to take this topic off coarse but I sent in a payment to support the site about 2-3 months ago and I never received any support logos.. I then just figured it was because I had to do more posting as I thought maybe it was based on that.. guess I should have questioned it way back when.. Not a big deal really other than those that know how it's supposed to work probably think I'm a cheapskate because I been on here a lot and never paid a donation to support the site.. But I really did...  I received a thank you note.. I'd have to go through my PayPal statements to see how much I donated and when that was.. Believe it was a $200,000 donation   and you all thought I was a cheapskate..

 

[Scrappile]

48 minutes ago, kmmcrafts said:

Not to take this topic off coarse but I sent in a payment to support the site about 2-3 months ago and I never received any support logos.. I then just figured it was because I had to do more posting as I thought maybe it was based on that.. guess I should have questioned it way back when.. Not a big deal really other than those that know how it's supposed to work probably think I'm a cheapskate because I been on here a lot and never paid a donation to support the site.. But I really did...  I received a thank you note.. I'd have to go through my PayPal statements to see how much I donated and when that was.. Believe it was a $200,000 donation   and you all thought I was a cheapskate..

 

Send me $25 and I will see if I can fix it for you..... Just kidding, Travis can fix it.

[Travis]

1 hour ago, kmmcrafts said:

Not to take this topic off coarse but I sent in a payment to support the site about 2-3 months ago and I never received any support logos.. I then just figured it was because I had to do more posting as I thought maybe it was based on that.. guess I should have questioned it way back when.. Not a big deal really other than those that know how it's supposed to work probably think I'm a cheapskate because I been on here a lot and never paid a donation to support the site.. But I really did...  I received a thank you note.. I'd have to go through my PayPal statements to see how much I donated and when that was.. Believe it was a $200,000 donation   and you all thought I was a cheapskate..

 

It depends on how it was sent.  If you bought a supporter badge, the badge would show up.  But I know several folks sent in a donation to help with the server move.  If that was the case, shoot me a PM and I'll transfer so it shows up as a supporter badge.  It's nice to have the supporter badge.  Not only does it give you recognition for supporting our awesome group, but it has a few other pirks like turning off advertisements and a few other bells and whistles.  

[kmmcrafts]

27 minutes ago, Travis said:

It depends on how it was sent.  If you bought a supporter badge, the badge would show up.  But I know several folks sent in a donation to help with the server move.  If that was the case, shoot me a PM and I'll transfer so it shows up as a supporter badge.  It's nice to have the supporter badge.  Not only does it give you recognition for supporting our awesome group, but it has a few other pirks like turning off advertisements and a few other bells and whistles.  

Oh I see.. well to be honest I think it was around the new server time and I seen a posting about supporting the site.. before that I didn't even realize you took donations... then I noticed all the badges etc and thought I would send in.. as I never had before and the thought never really crossed my mind... I think I must have donated for the server move.. No big deal though.. I will just send in another once I get some more cash in my PayPal again.. This time maybe I will get it right so I can get that awesome looking badge.

Thanks for all you do to keep the site going,

Kevin 

[amazingkevin]

Piece of cake!

[Travis]

On 7/17/2017 at 3:50 PM, WayneMahler said:

Great idea Travis. I just renewed in May ( I think ) but if we wanted could we just add the whole amount as a lump sum payment ? To explain if you wanted to go silver just pay the whole year you would pay 12 time that amount ? 

OK.  It took some doing, but I think I got it figured out so you can buy several months at a time instead of going monthly.  First, you'll have to upgrade to a monthly plan and checkout like normal.  So this will purchase the first month.  The upgrade might even be free because many times there is a credit to your account when you switch to a monthly plan.

Here's how to upgrade to a different plan:

To upgrade to a different plan, go to your Manage Purchases.  Find your active supporter badge and click the Manage button.  Right below the product information is the Upgrade/Downgrade link.  That will allow you to upgrade/downgrade your plan to another one.

 

Here's how to buy several months at a time:

After you upgraded and you want to buy several months in advanced, go to your Manage Purchases. and click the Renew Now button.  From here, you can choose how many months you'd like to renew for.  (You can also do this same thing for a yearly membership too)

It's also worth noting that these new memberships will auto-renew.  If at any time you want to cancel the auto-renew, you can go to your Manage Purchases.  Click the Manage button.  Then below picture, there is a Cancel Renewals button.  Click that to cancel your auto-renewals.

 

Don't worry, I'm going to put this tutorial in the Articles section.  If at any time you want to manage your SSV Patron account, click the Support SSV tab on the top navigation bar and choose Manage Patron Account, then choose Manage Purchases.

 

[Travis]

I've added a tutorial to the Articles section under Using SSV.  You can find that here:

 

 

[WayneMahler]

Travis

Just tried it and not sure  how it worked out. Guess I'll just watch and see. Been a very long day but wanted to upgrade my support.

Thanks for everything. From my heart.

Great idea Travis. I just renewed in May ( I think ) but if we wanted could we just add the whole amount as a lump sum payment ? To explain if you wanted to go silver just pay the whole year you would pay 12 time that amount ?