Support

#401 Forever membership plan settings

Posted in ‘PayPlans’

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Latest post by CreativeGraphics Support on Sunday, 01 November 2026 09:40 UTC

Saturday, 03 October 2026 21:01 UTC

Jeroen

I am a bit confused about the membership settings. I want to have a monthly subscription of 1,- which runs like forever (until user decides to stop).
On the Y M D it says: "Set all to 0 for Life Time." but when I save I receive the following error message: "Recurring plans expiration time should never be Lifetime. Please set a valid expiration time for recurring plan."

If the Y M D setting is to decide when the amount is withdrawn is would be correct to set to 'Monthly'
But expiration time in my opinion is more like: the membership runs for 8 months or 2 years ...

Setting the 'Expiration Type' from recurring to forever could be the solution but I am not sure if there will be a monthly withdrawal then.

Please help clarify the for me confusing configuration so it withdraws monthly and runs like forever. Thanks!

Attachments

Screenshot 2026-10-03 at 22-49-57 CRE8 Members - ALL4FREEDOM - Administration.png

Monday, 05 October 2026 05:02 UTC

CreativeGraphics Support

To be honest, this is – for most payment providers – not possible.

This has nothing to do with the configuration possibilities in CRE8 Members.

For example Stripe is limiting the maximum payment interval to 3 years.

A second example, Paddle is limiting recurring payment count to 100.

Whatever you configure in your recurring plan, as soon as you define/use specific payment gateway(s), you/your users will hit their limit(s).
This is a customer-protection measure and every serious payment provider uses it.

So I'd recommend to adapt the recurring count/time interval to the value the payment provider of your choice defined in their docs.

Regards, Pascal

Tuesday, 06 October 2026 20:18 UTC

Jeroen

Thanks for clarifying this, still a little confusion about the configuration though...

According to stripe it is:

Billing frequency (interval): Maximum 3 years between charges and Total subscription duration: No limit.

So how do I configure the monthly membership to bill with a frequency of every month and with an unlimited forever plan in the Cre8 Members settings of the screenshot?

Hope to hear from you soon!

Saturday, 24 October 2026 05:39 UTC

CreativeGraphics Support

Hi Jeroen,

Your configuration in the screenshot is already correct:

- Expiration Type: Recurring
- Regular Price: 1.00
- Expiration Time: 0 Y / 1 M / 0 D
- Number of recurrence: 0

For recurring plans, "Expiration Time" is the billing interval: the subscription runs for one month, and at the end of each month CRE8 Members automatically charges the member again (with Stripe, via the cron job, using the saved card) and extends the subscription by another month. "Number of recurrence = 0" means unlimited, so this keeps going until the member cancels (or you cancel the order in the backend).

The hint "Set all to 0 for Life Time" only applies to non-recurring plans. We'll make that clearer in the next release. "Forever" would be a one-time payment with no monthly charges, so keep it on Recurring.

Please make sure the Joomla/CRE8 Members cron is running regularly, because it triggers the monthly charges.

Regards, Pascal

Friday, 30 October 2026 21:19 UTC

Jeroen

Thanks for the info and great that you are further developing!

And I can test it by setting it to one day? Or do you have a different preferred test method?

Could it be that the Membership plans have to be manually activated die to the fact that we are still using Stripe in test/safebox mode and once we switch to live modus, will the status be automatically switched or does the use and/or admin still have to activate?

Sunday, 01 November 2026 09:40 UTC

CreativeGraphics Support

Yes you can test it like that.

There is a per-plan setting in the register "Advanced".

When the option "Moderate Purchases" is activated, the subscription will need to be approved by the site administrator before it becomes active.

If it is off, it the activation happens automatically after successful payment.

Best regards, Pascal