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Been using AEC for some time now, and i had no major problems in J1.5 or j2.5
I think support is fair and nice, i had just few interactions with them, but the answers were quick and useful

Once again I used this extensions on a coustomer´s site and it works perfectly!

I had to migrate about 300 users with their appropriate membership and all worked fine! :D

Support was surprisingly fast!

If you need a real membership extension use this one!

A fantastic extension and great support. When I contacted the developer about helping create a payment gateway for CardSave they were brilliant.

David has done a lot of work for us, I am currently testing it out on our live site and so far so good.

Have just renewed our subscription for a year this time.

There are a lot of options to set up plans, but with careful planning and watching the extensive tutorial videos on their site you can be up and running quite quickly.

Really pleased with it and the new version is great.

And a big thank you to David for his help!

I inherited a site that has been using AEC for several years. The component is powerful once you understand the cryptic structure; it is not intuitive, but definitely full featured.

Support has been the major weakness. After my subscriptions suddenly stopped expiring and I was unable to get the issue resolved through the ticket system, I traced the problem to a dB issue and defect in the code. I submitted the details, but have been ignored for weeks.

So, I advise to look elsewhere unless you are willing to invest significantly.

When you get used to this component you really feel the power of it. The support is fast and answers every mail. Keep up the development.

I have always used AEC for my membership sites because it provides me with the ability to integrate with any Joomla extension that I might need.

This time I needed help with Post Affiliate Pro affiliate software which is not a "standard" Joomla extension and a rather complex piece of software, but David and his team went the extra mile to do the integration and make sure that everything worked properly. Definitely, not a trivial task.

Thanks for going above and beyond.
Great to be able to have that kind of support.

OK - I've used AEC for a LONG time, and I've been in the code and found bugs and contributed them back, done numerous beta tests, spent loads of time hanging out on the forum a while back helping people get it running.

Back then it was pretty powerful, and ever since its got more powerful. Micro Integrations may actually take over the world one day (don't say you weren't warned). For the last 2 years I've been sat with 0.14.2 on my site and its been doing what it should without any issues so I haven't upgraded.

Today I upgraded.
Today I fell in love! (sk0re don't panick) The new backend is a piece of beauty...

All the hard core functionality is there ... more in fact. but it also looks like it does the job.

Keep up the good work.

Though getting a handle on AEC can be a challenging experience, it's a truly incredible component that has hundreds of potential uses on a Joomla site. I've used it for sophisticated membership sites, and on the few occasions where I ran into difficulties, Valanx support was top notch. Well worth the cost of a subscription.

I have been an AEC user since the days of Joomla! 1.0.x but am now coming to use it much more with 2.5.x purely due to the number of micro-integrations available, the ease of writing new MI's, and the number of payment gateways supported.

Don't be under the misconception that this is an easy thing to get to grips with, even the geeks will need to refer to the manual to get your head around how it actually works, especially if you want to do something different.

The one failing I would have to say, which the guys at Valanx have identified as something they're working on, is the documentation. It is there, but it's often a challenge to find the correct information, and some parts are not up to date due to the fact that a new beta version has been released (which is awesome, and I would rather them spend time on getting the new version out than writing documentation when it's mostly the same)!

All in all, it's a great extension, hugely powerful, needs some respect when configuring it, and has a good support team behind it.

Hy. I have used AEC for about 10 months. It was tricky to set up first, but after reading the manual and some practice it was more than ok to do the settings. Now I'm testing the Version 1.0 beta, Revision 4906. My opinion is that AEC is for joomla membership what Mercedes is for cars.

been using AEC for over two years and rarely has there been a scenario that wasn't already covered by this amazing component. To top it off, the developer has been rapidly improving upon what was already a massive component. The myriad of options and controls can be intimidating to beginners and may even seem overkill if you are just starting out with your site but it also means you are future proofing your site's backbone to a large extent. Most controls are well documented with tool-tips within the software itself however it may be a bit of a challenge to configure advanced flows as the software manual is still work in progress. So take advantage of the discussion forum while you have access to it. The developer's business model is a bit unconventional in the sense that he makes money off of technical support rather than the software itself. As a result, technical support is only provided to active paying members of their site. This makes sense from a commercial perspective however, if you are used to having your software purchases backed up with technical support at no extra charge, it can be a bit frustrating, as was the case with me in the beginning. The company however has shown awareness of the issue and lately I have had good experiences with the developer David going out of his way to help me. I recommend this component wholeheartedly to folks looking for a serious commercial grade billing component.

I decided to write this review especially for Russian people. Because this component is best suited to monetize the content of Russian sites. In the first place because it supports the Russian payment processor Robokassa.

I have to say that the way to properly configure the component has not been easy. This happened because of many objective factors. Among them release a new version of the AEC, Joomla upgrade to version 2.5 and not a simple scheme of interaction with the payment system.

A total of debugging components on the site took more than two months. During that David took an active part in writing the payment processor and debugging. I could only test the component and send reports.

Perhaps, this stage was the most difficult. Because the remaining configuration of the system is intuitive, graphical user interface are excellent and provide great opportunities.

I would also like to note a great template design, almost no demanded changes to adapt to the design of the site. In the end I managed to do exactly the same site, which was conceived.

I am very glad that I was right to choose, and received a wonderful experience with the developer.

I'm using Joomla 1.5 and AEC fit right into our way of handling membership plans and with the added support of integration with a number of add-on components such as Community Builder, JUGA and Docman, all our bases were covered.

Whenever I ran into an "issue", my questions were always answered promptly and once I figured out that it wasn't an issue but more of a lack of understanding on my part on how AEC worked, it all came together and AEC works as advertised and does exactly what it needs to do on a regular basis - it eases the burden on our membership administrator tremendously!

Great work, guys!

I have tried a few similar components for our web site, but none met all of our requirements.
AEC is very flexible and with the excellent advice of the Support Desk I was able to quickly implement the workflow that we had in mind.
After giving feedback on some minor issues I had, The Support Technician (Jake), quickly realised I had some errors in my Joomla installation (true, I had tried some other components and hacked around a bit) and he helped me solve them within no time.

Jake, thank you very very much for helping me today. You were fast and professional
.... and I am a lot less stressed

AEC is a great component and definitely worth the money

Anton Karsten

I am building a new website and I have used AEC forever. There is no other product like it. All comparable products do less and charge much more. Since I started to build a new site using joomla 2.5 I was devastated that AEC wasn't at 2.5 when I started the build. So I used OSE Membership... disappointing! I just logged in today and saw that the AEC beta version compatible with 2.5 has been released. Let me just say, I quickly uninstalled OSE and installed AEC!

I wanted to thank the developer(s) for all the hard work they put into this product. You are amazing, and thank you for providing such a comprehensive product at a price that small business owners like me can afford.

Thank you again,
Sincerely,
Nicole
joomcoach.com

We have used AEC for different sites that includes www.irishpubsglobal.com along with many other sites and found it excellent tool for paid membership. It comes with good documentation and is easy to customize. We'll recommend this extension for all who is looking for paid membership on their site.

The AEC component is a must have product if you wish to use subscriptions in your site. I have Jomsocial and it works seamlessly with that component where others fell short.

They keep the product updated on a regular basis so that it adapts to the most used Joomla components so that helps.

Customer Support was excellent as they took the time to help me to understand how the product works and assisted me in setting it up.

I tried others listed here and to say that they were nightmares is an understatement... Try this out, the price is right and they will help you along if you need help.

We used AEC for a couple of years and I really really really wanted to like it. It has so much potential but there are some really tough points I just finally had to walk away from.

As other reviewers have mentioned, the configuration possibilities are endless in terms of how you can set up your subscriptions, the payment gateways you can use, and the integrations to other components really give you some power. The sheer fact that I can fire off just about any kind of action (db, email, web, sms) from a custom script in response to subscription events makes this a very powerful tool.

But AEC's greatest strength is also it's weakness - vast configuration. So much time has been spent trying to cover every angle that alot of polish was missed on just getting the very basics solid.

Here's an example, in the US, Authorize.net is utilized heavily. AEC recently moved from using Auth.net ARB based subscriptions to the more powerful CIM system at Auth.net - a good move in my view, but the implementation was very sloppy. The "happy path" works for checking out, but things get confusing when you run scenarios like a "failed" credit card at checkout, or incorrect handling of the messaging coming back from auth.net - like a cv2 code problem, or mismatched billing address (if you're using that verification in Auth.net, which you certainly should be). AEC also doesn't utilize the "preauth" feature (or at least offer it as an option) with CIM where you can validate the card at checkout time - you could as a result end up giving a customer access to a paid service until the first payment is attempted on the billing cycle. Offer a trial, and it compounds the issue. On failed transactions at checkout, the screen that comes back is insanely confusing to the end user. It displays the "profile" that was created in Auth.net (why do they need to see this? The customer doesn't care) with a cryptic message about having to re-enter their cv2 code and credit card number if they are changing their profile..."huh? profile? I just want to check out man!" This is where alot of the polish is missing - an attractive, but solid and functional end-user interface that handles all the permutations. The basics. But - I can sure create "fallback" subscription rules and "subscription limits" and coupons to my heart's content....if anyone's using that. My opinion only of course, but those advanced features are nice to have and should be developed after the basics are good and solid. I suppose that having to support so many checkout gateways, causes this problem as it's pretty common in most of the subscription management components out there - lots of the "basics" of operation just miss.

Aside from that the other real problem here is the business model. As others have stated this just has to be thrown out if the masses are going to take AEC seriously. I have no problem paying, and continuing to pay for upgrades and direct support like any other software model. AEC is mature enough that it's worth paying for. It's absolutely maddening though that I have to keep paying to get access to the documentation for a version I've already paid for, and especially access to a forum that is end-user driven ONLY. I lost count of the times I ran into an issue (i.e., custom code cleanup to fix that end-user interface html 101 stuff - come on guys, get a designer!) and wanted to visit the forum to see if any other users had suggestions or similar problems, only to find that my subscription had "just" run out. This is probably the single reason we finally walked from AEC and went with another tool. That's just absolutely re-donk-ulous.

As an aside, the ultimate future and direction of AEC is/was really unclear. David, AEC's creator (I believe) often saw it fit to turn the AEC site into a soap box for complaining about technology this, and process that, and often wrote long essays on how depressed he was and needed a vacation and yadda yadda. The problem is, you're users see this and wonder "ok, is AEC dying? Is this project stable? We've all invested alot of time into this so are you going to stop working on some of these issues that are so close to really working well". Really unprofessional in my view. Take the rants to Facebook - and keep the AEC site focused on AEC.

Aside from those negative points, again AEC is probably the most advanced and moldable Joomla paid subscription manager out there. Some of the bits are in fact REALLY well thought out, and you can see that when you dig into the code. I won't say it's the best solution out there - because everyone's needs are different. There are simpler and more attractive components out there if you're needs are simple, and you need it to "just work".

If you're going to use AEC, prepare for a learning curve, and have some html/php/Joomla skills on hand. It's really got the potential to be THE BEST component in this class, if Valanx and crew get that business model more realistic (even if it ultimately costs the end user MORE - let me pay for software upgrades and support - not documentation and end-user forums!), get some of the permutations with checkout and profile management in line, and get an artistic designer in there to fix the front end blah. It's close guys! Help me come back to you -

I'm new to AEC and was an early adopter to Joomla 1.7. The local vendor did the initial setup and everything was fine including the integration with Community Builder. Then afer about a month it started flaking out and interface was not functioning properly. I also had some issues with PayPal integration.

I submitted a support ticket and expected that it would be addressed in a few days. Nope, within the hour Jake had responded and said that the version my site was running did not support 1.7. He upgraded to the correct version and then spent some time reviewing the configurations. He made some changes per Best Practices and answered my follow-up questions promptly. And the email responses were almost as quick as online chat.

What a wonderful experience. I've had software maintenance from major manufacturers that I paid much more for and had not received near the level of support that I had from AEC.

Thanks!

HI,
First please do not believe the owner reply if they reply to my comment as I am a PHP, Java developer myself and I am 100% sure of everything I say, of course they will try to make their software and company look good in here and customers like me are “inexperience enough or they did not know how to fix the issue the right way…”
I personally think after buying and trying AEC for few months it is full of bugs and especially the "subscription has expired page"
I have seen this ugly page many times and in different occasions! Sometimes it comes up when someone tries to register on the website and sometimes it disappear and another time when I turned SEO on …….much more to say here and I am not making this comment to get the issue solved here!
When i contact support they always put the blame on joomla and vanish or try to give you some unprofessional work around to make it work “as it should”!
I found the way they talk about their component as if AEC is the professional content management system and joomla is a silly small under development component!
If the problem with joomla, then why don’t you make GOOD PHP FIXES for it? People like me paid you MONEY and I really expected a better service and software.
When i submit a ticket it takes long time for them to assign to someone to response.
They are very slow and seem board when they reply to messages or response to tickets.
Currently they have one person who replies to messages on the “dead “forum “he is just a guy who has a general knowledge about programming and ok knowledge about AEC” he only reply if he feels like it and if you really insets! And he always promises to refer the issue to the main developer to look at in the “soon future”
I had this problem and many other problems on joomla 1.7.2 and 1.7.3 i have the latest AEC installed.
Finally I can’t deny it is a very good effort they made to bring this software up which looks very professional at first but sadly it needs good programmers to finish it off as it is incomplete component.
I am going to make a PayPal claim to get my money back as I did not get what I have paid for and what the discretion of the software say in here!!
Buyers Beware!!!!
Do not rely on this component and make a business website with loads of customers!
You will end up hiring a private programmer to fix many issues and bugs with this component which will cost you a lot!
You might as well find a better component or a professional company to do it for you from scratch!