WordPress Pay Per Post Plugin (CMPPP) + WordPress User Submitted Posts + WordPress MicroPayments (CMMP) - Use Case - How to Let Authors Publish Posts and Sell Them For Virtual Points

Use Case - How to Let Authors Publish Posts and Sell Them For Virtual Points

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Introduction

The WordPress Pay Per Post plugin allows charging users for accessing content on your site.

WordPress MicroPayments allows you to create digital wallets for your users, reward them with points, and let them pay for them using real money.

WordPress User Submitted Posts is a plugin that allows logged in users submit posts, review drafts and upload images via a customizable form. Update and moderate their content and provide writing tips.

Combining these three plugins allows your site users to publish posts without accessing the site back-end, sell access to these posts, and earn virtual points. Virtual points can be converted to real money.

Use Case Front-End

Publishing a post from the front-end form and setting up a price for it:

Purchasing the access to content:

How It Works

To allow users to purchase virtual points which they can spend for purchasing the access to locked posts, the WordPress MicroPayments plugin uses either EDD (Easy Digital Downloads) or WooCommerce. Both plugins are free and grant access to payment gateways such as PayPal and Stripe (note that some gateways might be paid).

When authors publish their posts on your site, they can set a price that they want to sell the post for.

Use Case Assumptions

In this example use case guide, we'll cover how to let users set up prices for their posts, get donates and receive points for sold access to their content. 

We also consider you bought all 3 plugins, but not installed them yet, and that you have not installed either EDD or WooCommerce. 

It follows:

• Installing the plugin
  • Installing payment plugins
• Quick recap
• How to sell points
• Allow selling access to posts
  • Author's share
• Initial setup of the posts submission form
• Setting up a price for post
• Purchasing access to content
• Refund
• Charging points for publishing posts
• Translating front-end labels
• End result

Installing the Plugin

The process is the same for all CM plugins and add-ons.

• Download the plugin from your customer dashboard.
• Log in to WordPress and navigate to the WordPress Admin → Plugins settings.
• Click on Add New.
• Activate it and add the license.

Installing Payment Plugins

Direct Payment: EDD or WooCommerce

You must choose between either Easy Digital Downloads or WooCommerce.

Head to Admin Dashboard → Plugins → Installed Plugins and click Add New. 

Search for either Easy Digital Downloads or WooCommerce and install it.

Configure Payment Plugins

Don't forget to configure the payment plugin! This way you can connect it to payment providers such as PayPal or credit card companies.

External Resources

• Introduction to EDD - Easy Digital Downloads
• Configuring WooCommerce Settings - WooCommerce Docs

How to Sell Points

First thing you need to do, is to configure the plugin WordPress MicroPayments - to create user wallets and to let users buy points, so they could use them for purchasing access. In this use case guide, we will briefly cover this process.

To configure the plugin, navigate to Admin Dashboard → CM Micropayment Platform → Settings → General tab.

Depending on the payment plugin which you choose (EDD or WooCommerce), enable option the option to use the relevant system for checkout. The process is the same for EDD and WooCommerce. In this use case guide we're using EDD, so we enable the option Use Easy Digital Downloads for Checkout.

Now scroll down and find the section Wallets. You can allow users to have either single or multiple wallets. For our use case guide we will let users to have only 1 wallet, so we enable the option Assign a single wallet to each customer. Then we click the button Generate missing wallets for existing users, so wallets will be created for all users that are registered on your site.

TIP

You can let users create wallets manually. Just place the shortcode [create_wallet_button] on the needed page. Learn more about the plugin Shortcodes.

Under the section Presentation you can define the following pages:

• Wallet page - To let users check their balance and the transactions history of their wallets.
• Checkout page - To let users purchase more points.

Both of these pages are created and defined automatically once the plugin is installed, but you can change them if needed.

Don't forget to save the changes by clicking the relevant button:

Now head to the tab Points. Here you can create and manage points values. Setting this up is required if you want to enable your users to buy the point packages. The plugin supports up to three decimals (for instance, 0.025). Click the button Add New to create new point value:

Here you can define the following:

• Points - Define the amount of points the user will receive after the payment.
• Cost - Define the cost of the defined points value (the cost is set according to the currency you set up in the payment plugin - either EDD or WooCommerce).
• Order - Define the position that the point package will be displayed on the checkout page.

Please note that the points value must be unique - so you always have one standard price for a given amount of points.

Allow Selling Access to Posts

Now it's time to configure the WordPress Pay Per Post plugin. This plugin allows to restrict content and sell access to it.

Let's briefly go through the important settings. Navigate to Admin Dashboard → CM Pay Per Posts Pro → Settings → General tab.

Under the Subscriptions section you can configure the following:

• Subscription model - You can choose between 3 models. This option is mostly used when you and your authors create posts from the back-end. In case with the integration with WordPress User Submitted Posts Posts, you can choose any model, as the access to posts created from the front-end form offer only 1 pricing plan. The access to each post is sold separately for lifetime for a defined price. So in this case the option Subscription model does not have effect.
• What should be hidden in the frontend before purchase - Here you can choose what is shown before the access to post is purchased. For our use case we choose Hide content. It means that the content will be hidden, but the rest parts of the site/page will be visible. There are a few more options. You can learn more about them in this user guide: WordPress Pay Per Post Plugin (CMPPP) - Settings - Subscriptions Settings (General Tab)

Below, under the section Post types, you can choose which posts types can be restricted. Choose here the post type that users will be creating from the front-end:

Now head to the Pricing tab. When the WordPress Pay Per Post Plugin is used on its own, this tab is useful for creating Pricing groups. But in case with the integration with the plugin WordPress User Submitted Posts, you need here another settings:

• Allow authors to charge for access - Enable this option to let users set up the price for posts which they create on the front-end.
• Enable donate points - Optionally, you can allow users to choose if other site visitors can access their posts by donating a chosen amount of points instead of the required payment.

Author's Share

Now scroll down to the section Author's share. Here you can define if to pay the author his share when the access to his post is purchased. The settings are:

• Allow transferring points to author for his post/page - Enable this option if you want to transfer points to the post author's wallet for selling the access to his post/page.
  • Author's share - Set a % that the author will receive for selling the access to his post/page. Maximum value is 100. Note: this option appears only if the previous one is enabled.

The value that is set in the Author's share field is default for all new users and for all existing users when you enable this feature for the first time. It means, when you set this value for the first time, and change it later - it won't be changed for already existing users. This value can be changed by admin individually for each user that is able to create content on your site.

To set different % for a specific user, navigate to Admin Dashboard → Users → All Users. Hover on needed user and click Edit. 

Scroll down to the section CM Pay Per Posts. There you can change the % individually for this user in the option Author's share (%). Don't forget to click the button Update User to save the changes.

Also, have a note that the author gets the defined % only when the user purchases the post with the certain price. If the author didn't set up a certain price, but allows to donate any amount of points - the author get 100% of the donation.

Initial Setup of the Posts Submission Form

The users can create posts using a front-end form provided by the plugin WordPress User Submitted Posts. The user can define a price for his post in this form.

First, let's go through a few important plugin settings.

Navigate to Admin Dashboard → CM Pay Per Posts Pro → Settings → General tab.

2 important settings on this tab are:

• Who can create/edit posts - Here you can choose user roles that are allowed to create and edit their posts on the front-end.
• Editor Page - Here you can define the page where the Posts Submission form is displayed. This page must contain the shortcode [add_post_form] .

Now head to the tab Form.

Under the section New Post you can define the following:

• Added or edited post status - Choose the status of the post that is published using the front-end submission form. You can define if to publish it immediately or hold it for moderation by setting the status draft for example.
• New post type - Select post type for every new post added by users from the front-end form.
• New post template - Here you can define the template for user posts.

And below you can find the settings that allow you to configure what fields the users are allowed to edit while creating a new post:

The plugin also provides a dashboard, where the user can manage posts his published. The admin can display this dashboard on the needed page using the shortcode [cm_usersp_posts_list] .

Example of the user dashboard:

Setting Up a Price for Post

To define the price for a post in the Posts Submission form, the user needs to use the setting Amount of points to access a post.

This setting provides 3 options:

• Free - Choose this option to make the post free to access.

• Points - Choose this option and define the post price in the appearing field.

  

• Donates - Choose this option to make the payment optional for accessing the post - the user will be able to decide whether to view the post for free or donate a chosen amount of points.

Purchasing Access to Content

Let's consider how both methods work - the required payment and donates.

Required payment

Once the user visits the restricted post, he will see a box that informs he has to pay to access the content.

Clicking on the purchase button will show him a message that the points are deducted from his wallet, and then the content will load:

As a result, the 100 points is deducted from the user wallet:

And as we set the 60% as author's share for this author, the author gets 60 points:

Donation

Now let's see how it works when the donation option is chosen.

Once the user visits the restricted post, he will see a an offer to donate to access the post or just skip it (meaning to access post without paying):

If the user clicks Skip, he sees a message that he was charged for 0 points, and then the user can see the content.

Alternatively, the user can enter any amount of points on his choice and click Donate. After the message about charging, he will see the unlocked content.

The user will be charged for the specified amount of points:

And the author gets 100% of the donated amount:

Refund

The integration of the WordPress Pay Per Post Plugin with the WordPress MicroPayments allows users to request refund.

To configure it, navigate to Admin Dashboard → CM Pay Per Posts Pro → Settings → Refund tab.

The settings are:

• Enable refunds - Turn on this option to allow users to request refunds.
• Refund reasons - Create new refund reason by creating new field and filling unique flag (left field) and text label (right field).
• Time limit to allow refund [minutes | seconds] - Set the time limit in minutes and seconds to allow refund for users that activated a subscription. After this time user won't be able to refund.

Front-end Result:

After the user purchased the access to content, he will see the button Refund below the content:

When clicking on it, he can choose a reason for refund:

And after submitting it, he will get his points back:

And the author will lose the points he got for selling this post:

Charging Points for Publishing Posts

Besides allowing users to earn points by publishing articles on your site, you can also charge them a certain number of points for each post as a publication fee.

To specify the fee, navigate to Admin Dashboard → CM User Submitted Posts → Settings → Payments tab.

You can find the following settings:

• Action on publish post - Choose Charge in case if you want the authors to pay for publishing posts on your site.
• Number of points to charge on publish post - Define the amount of points the author has to pay for publishing each post.

Don't forget to save the changes.

Front-end Result:

When submitting a post, the user will see a message that he will be charged for a certain amount of points for publishing a post:

If he has enough points in his wallet, the post will be published and the user will see a message that the points were taken from his wallet:

Translating Front-end Labels

All 3 plugins offers sets of front-end labels which you can change or translate to another language. You can find relevant labels under the Labels tab in the settings of each plugin.

WordPress Pay Per Post Plugin labels:

WordPress MicroPayments labels:

WordPress User Submitted Posts labels:

End Result

Following instructions found in the plugins and guide, you should be able to let users sell access to posts that they publish on your site and receive virtual points for that. 

Use Case Front-End

Publishing a post from the front-end form and setting up a price for it:

Purchasing the access to content:

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