If you have a membership site with multiple premium memberships then you probably want to offer your members an option to upgrade their account. Upgrading an account is very easy.

Creating Upgrade/Renewal Payment Buttons

i) Option A – Plain PayPal Button for Membership Renewal/Upgrade

Simply create a payment button the same way you created it for your membership joining page.

When a member wishes to upgrade his/her account, all this member has to do is click on this button and make the payment. After the payment, the plugin will use the payment email address to identify the correct member account and upgrade or renew the account automatically.

ii) Option B – Using an eStore Button for Membership Renewal/Upgrade

Simply create an eStore payment button the same way you created it for your membership joining page.

When a member wishes to upgrade his/her account, all this member has to do is click on this button and make the payment. After the payment, the plugin will use the payment email address to identify the correct member account and upgrade or renew the account automatically.

WP eStore’s payment buttons are a little more advanced than a plain PayPal button in the sense that it can carry more data. So when using an eStore button it is also possible to upgrade the member account that is logged into the site at the time of making the payment (In this case it doesn’t matter which email address the payment is coming from).

What if the Member Account is Expired?

What about the members whose account just got expired? They can’t log into the site anymore! We have thought about that too. Simply go to the eMember settings menu and check the “Allow Expired Account login” field from the “Account upgrade and renewal settings” section. Don’t worry… just because they can log in doesn’t mean they can view the restricted content. Members whose account is expired will not be able to view the protected content. They will see a message that tells them to renew the membership.

Adding More Flavor to Your Upgrade/Renewal Buttons

If you want to add a little bit of flavour to your membership upgrade path then create special payment buttons that are just like the payment button for the normal premium membership but with a discounted price. Then place it on a page that only premium members have access to. Now, your members can make payment using these buttons to upgrade their account at a discounted price. Since this page that contains these buttons can only be viewed by a premium member, an anonymous visitor won’t be able to signup at this special discounted price.