I am trying to set up a paid subscription to an email list using Drupal Commerce with payment via PayPal.

One of the way I came up with is upon completion of an order, a user will be redirected to a subscribe page and her role will be updated to view the form.

I am looking for pointers to functions, existing modules or any advise on how to achieve this.




Is the mailing list internal or using an external provider like MailChimp or Constant Contact? If you're giving the user access to an external provider's form that will work but it may also allow them to work around it (for example if they want to share it with their friends).

The most secure way would be to use an API call/period import (for external services) or direct update (for internal mailings) using a conditional action or module that's triggered by completed orders.

Edit for further details: Mailchimp does indeed have an API - http://apidocs.mailchimp.com/ - and a Drupal module at http://drupal.org/project/mailchimp so the current functionality is half-way there. I would go the last step and create a custom module that adds subscribers to Mailchimp when they complete their order. At that point it's still a one-time thing, so for bonus points on recurring payments you could keep track of the subscribers and remove them from Mailchimp using the API if they stop paying.

It would take a little coding but it's a realistic setup. I can't see anything you can do without any coding unless the Mailchimp module allows you to set up a page that can then be limited to the role of users who paid (and then you still have an extra manual step).

  • Thanks for the response richardg. The list is hosted on MailChimp. I was planing on using a rule that upon an order complete will upgrade user role and redirect user to the actual subscribe form. I know that MailChimp has an Amazon payments integration so there must be a way to pass API call but I am not sure where to start. Any suggestion? – ahimsauzi May 24 '11 at 5:15

After evaluating various options for building a memembership site with Drupal,
I've decided to use the Membership Suite.

The module was well-supported and implementation went successfully and easily, including visual customization.

At the time of my check, Drupal Commerce had various subscription extensions (search the Commerce extensions list for the word subscription and you will find them) but none of them fully supported my use-case of multiple subscription products per site, with multiple gateways.

Your Answer

