g.  Membership Plans and Packages

Membership plan gives administrator an opportunity to coordinate interaction between user and site. Membership plans are created by administrator. To post listings on a site,  user must be subscribed to one of membership plans assigned to a group this user belongs to.

Each membership plan can be assigned to one or more user groups. User group may include several membership plans at once.  

There are two types of membership plans: Fee Based and Subscription. Membership plan type can’t be changed once the plan is created.

If a user is subscribed to the 'Fee Based' membership plan and then administrator changes its settings, these settings become operative immediately for the user. E.g., a user is subscribed to the 'For Sale by Owner' membership plan ('Fee Based' type). Let's suppose that at first this membership plan had the following setting: 'Listing Amount' = 10. Then administrator lessens the number of listings: 'Listing Amount' = 7. Even though at the beginning the user was subscribed to the membership plan where 'Listing Amount' = 10, after changing the settings user's listing amount will be lessened.

The membership plan of Subscription type provides services and features for a particular period of time. So, if a user is subscribed to the 'Subscription' membership plan and the administrator changes settings of this membership plan, these settings will not be changed for the user until user’s membership plan expired. Returning the example mentioned above, let's suppose that at first the user had the membership plan ('Subscription' type) with the following setting 'Listing Amount' = 10. Then the administrator lessens the listing amount: 'Listing Amount' = 7. After changing the setting the 'Listing Amount' will not be lessened for this user till the membership plan expiration date.

There are several examples of a membership plan(s) subscription work: 

If the administrator assigns more than one membership plan to a user group, the system will require a user to choose a membership plan during the subscription process.

If the administrator assigns the only membership plan where the 'Price' is not free for a user group, the system will not require a user to choose a membership plan during the subscription.

If the administrator assigns the only membership plan where 'Price' = 0 for a user group, the system will subscribe users to this membership plan automatically during the first signing in the system.

When the subscription process is finished, a user starts to interact with the system according to the membership plan conditions subscribed before.

Package is a set of listing features, options and limitations which will be applied to a particular listing. A membership plan may include as many packages as the administrator wants.

There are several examples of how packages work:

If the administrator assigns a list of packages to a certain membership plan, the user subscribed to it should choose a package, fill in listing details and then pay for this package.

If the administrator assigns the only package where the 'Price' is not free for a membership plan, the system will redirect a user subscribed to this membership plan to the payment page automatically. In this case the system will not require a user to choose a package. 

If the administrator assigns the only package where the 'Price' = 0 to a membership plan, the system will allow users to add listings without choosing a package and paying for listings and the listings will be active automatically.

You can find more information about Membership Plans and Packages in the  'Membership Plans' section.