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Subscription Model

How It Works

The Subscription Model allows you to choose how Business Users engage with the hub.

Standard Monthly Subscription

The Digital Town Hub is designed to charge a monthly fee (e.g. £5) to Business Users after a Free Trial Period (e.g. 12 months).

Loqiva uses Stripe Connect to collect the monthly subscription payments. The fee amount and the free trial period duration must be set at the time of installation in association with your Loqiva account manager.

If this option is toggled ‘on’ then businesses will be able to click on “Join as a business” and follow the sign-up process. This means that any business with an approved postcode (set in Service Area) will be able to sign-up and join online.

At the end of the sign-up process, the Business User will be asked for their card details. If a free trial has been put in place, then the card will not be charged. The card details will be retained (by Stripe) to start charging businesses after the free trial period, e.g. after 12 months. Users receive a reminder email to let them know their card is about to be charged.

The Standard Monthly Subscription also offers the option to supply a ‘promo code’ to businesses. This allows the business to bypass the requirement to add card details to join the free trial. Typically a promo code is used if sign-ups are being carried out in-person, or if the Admin has an existing relationship with the business.

If a promo code is used it means that, at the end of the free trial, businesses can’t be automatically charged a monthly subscription. So, before the end of the trial, the business will sent an email letting them know they must add their card details to their account. If they don’t do this, their account will be automatically ‘switched off’ at the end of the free trial.

Free BID Subscription

If you are as Business Improvement District (a BID) and you would like to offer levypayers a free subscription then you have two options:

1. Solomon CRM Integration

If you use Solomon CRM, you can synch the levypayer database with your Digital Town Hub to provide your members with a free subscription.

If the business is a levypayer, a personalised invite and landing page is sent to the primary business contact recommending they join the Digital Town Hub for free. Use of the hub remains free so long as they remain levypayers.

If the business is a non-levypayer, a personalised invite and landing page is sent to the primary business contact recommending they join the Digital Town Hub for the Standard Monthly Subscription fee.

What’s clever about the way the Hub integrates with Solomon is:

  • If a levypayer changes to a non-levypayer whilst the business is using the Digital Town Hub, the system recognises this and transfers the user from a paid subscription to a free subscription.
  • If a non-levypayer changes to a levypayer whilst the business is using the Digital Town Hub, the system recognises this and transfers the user from a free subscription to a paid subscription.
  • The system handles exceptions including possible possible duplicates, e.g. the same email address being used for two businesses.
  • Syncs can be run manually or automatically. If the system is set to run automatically then the databases will be compared once a week with, for example, invites to new levypayers on Solomon CRM being sent automatically.

2. Excel Upload of Your Levypayer Membership List

If you don’t use Solomon, then you can upload a list of your members with the help of an Excel template.

This will allow you to:

  • Create free subscriptions
  • Send personalised invites to levypayers
  • Upload new copies of the excel files to manage your free subscriptions (e.g. add new members, cancel old members etc).

One Option Or Both Options?

Either the Standard Monthly Subscription or the Free BID Subscription must be toggled ‘on’ to enable Business to join up.

  • Most host organisations will use the Standard Monthly Subscription only.
  • Those organisations with Free BID Subscription will typically have both options turned on.
  • Only BIDs that wish to exclude independent sign-ups (from the Internet) will turn off the Standard Monthly Subscription.
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