Zype supports the ability to create and manage tiered subscription plans via API. This allows you to set up multiple levels of subscription plans around different playlists of videos, so that consumers can only have entitlement access to subscription playlists that belong to their corresponding subscription plans.
Tiered subscriptions are an advanced feature and should be implemented with significant forethought. We recommend connecting with your Account Manager before proceeding with creating and configuring them.
Keep in mind that purchasing of tiered subscriptions is also only supported via API, which means if you plan to offer tiered subscription sign up and purchasing on the web, you should not plan to use Zype's embeds to provide subscription purchase support out of the box.
What are some examples of tiered subscription plans?
For example, you could set up Bronze, Silver, and Gold subscription plans in your Zype account. The Bronze plan might have access to only 2 playlists of videos; the Silver plan might have access to 5 playlists, and the Gold plan might have access to all 10 playlists of videos.
You could also set up non-overlapping tiered subscription plans. For example, you might offer a Soccer, Basketball, and Baseball plans, each offering access to distinct playlists of videos with no overlap at all.
What are the prerequisites for using tiered subscriptions?
- You must have a payment processor set up in Zype (i.e., Stripe, Braintree, Recurly or your own 3rd party processor)
- You must use APIs to create, configure, and manage tiered subscriptions
- You must have an account with access to the tiered subscription feature (currently available for Premium and Enterprise customer accounts).
Keep in mind, as this is an advanced feature, we recommend you reach out to your Customer Success Manager before proceeding with creating and configuring tiered subscriptions
How do tiered subscription plans work?
Tiered subscription plans are assigned to playlists in your library. Any videos added to a tiered subscription playlist will inherit the associated tiered subscription plan.
- First create your tiered subscription plans (instructions below)
- Next create playlists (additional notes below)
- Then associate your playlists with tiered subscription plans via API (instructions below)
- Playlists will inherit tiered subscription plans from their parents
- For example, if you want Gold plan subscribers to have access to all Silver and Bronze plan content, and all Silver plan subscribers to have access to Bronze plan content, you should nest the Silver and Bronze plans under the Gold plan, and the Bronze plan under the Silver plan -- see example screenshot below
- Note: a playlist associated with a plan will inherit all plans within its child and any grandchild playlists as well
- Lastly, add videos to these playlists to associate the plans to the videos (additional notes below)
- Note: you may choose to assign your normal playlists to tiered subscription plans, but the above use case is helpful if you want to make sure certain videos are associated specifically with certain tiered subscription plans, regardless of content display
Once tiered subscriptions are configured, consumers requesting access to videos within tiered subscription assigned playlists will have proper entitlement checks performed by the Zype platform.
Please note at preset tiered subscription plans support entitlement checks in the Zype platform, but are not configured to work with Zype's app templates or web embeds. We'll update this in the future as we add support in our default templates and embeds.
How do I create and configure tiered subscription plans?
Step 1 - Create a standard subscription plan in Zype (and your payment processor).
Begin the configuration process by creating a standard subscription plan in Zype. You'll also want to create this plan within your designated payment processor flow.
All subscription plans retain the same attributes, whether set as a tiered subscription plan or a standard (global) subscription plan. For example, you can set a plan name, payment processor ID (i.e., Stripe, Braintree or Recurly ID), price, interval type and occurrence, and trial period.
Step 2 - Change the subscription plan from global to 'tiered' via API
The default type of a subscription plan is 'global' as normally subscription plans will provide entitlement access to any subscription enabled videos in your library. If you'd like a subscription plan to specifically be a tiered plan and only provide entitlement access to the playlists the subscription plan is assigned to (e.g. Gold plan access), you must first change it to a tiered plan.
You can access the API endpoint for changing a plan from 'global' to 'tiered' here:
https://docs.zype.com/v1.0/reference#updateplan-1
Once you have the specific plan you're updating, look for the parameter 'plan.entitlement_type' and change the value to 'tiered' for that plan.
Step 3 - Create playlists
Option A - Create new playlists only for tiered subscription management, if your existing consumer facing playlists are not set up for a natural tiered plan structure
You can create playlists that are ONLY used for purpose of assigning tiered subscription plans, not for display in your OTT endpoints or website. In this use case, consumers can purchase a tiered subscription plan, e.g. Gold plan, that includes specific content outside the confines of your curated playlist structure.
You can ensure these 'tiered subscription' playlists are not for display on your endpoints by un-nesting them from the primary playlist i.e. moving them outside the existing playlist hierarchy. These playlists should remain 'active' if you would like them to be accessible to consumers.
Option B - Use existing consumer-facing playlists if already set up in natural tiered structure
Alternatively, you can create consumer-facing tiered subscription playlists, intended to be viewed by consumers. In this use case, consumers can purchase a tiered subscription plan that directly corresponds to the playlist curation, e.g. Playlist 1 plan. In this example you can use existing consumer-facing playlists and simply associate them to the newly created tiered subscription plan in the next step.
Step 4 - Associate playlists to the tiered subscription plan via API
Once you know which playlists you would like to add to your tiered subscription plan, you'll want to add the playlist IDs (visible from the Playlist details page) as an array in order to make the proper API call.
You can access the API endpoint to update tiered subscription plans with playlist IDs here:
https://docs.zype.com/v1.0/reference#addplaylists-1
Look for the 'playlist_ids' parameter -- this is where you'll set the playlist IDs as an array for a given tiered subscription plan.
Step 5 - Add videos to playlists
You can add videos to playlists manually or dynamically using category tags. You may also choose to leverage our API to add videos to playlists. Once added, these videos will only be accessible to consumers properly entitled to the associated playlist tier.