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I've been working with Joomla! since its release about 6 years ago, and have tried most, if not all the paid and/ or free subscription add-ons with mixed results.

AEC is the one and only paid subscription add-on, that truly gives you an unlimited number of options with regard to what type of offering you'd like to present to your members. Until I finally decided to start using AEC, I was a slave to whatever subscription add-on I was using, like, some add-ons will only allow me to have one level subscription, one offering, that's it, so that's all I was able to offer. Others forced me to use work-around type of hacks, which meant manually hacking core Joomla files, which of course means when you upgrade, everything blows up in you face, that's no way to run a business. With AEC I've never had to use any hack of any kind with Joomla 1.5. If using an older Joomla version, it is possible that a hack may need to implemented, but AEC does it for you with a simple click of the mouse, when you need to upgrade your Joomla installation, simply click to undo the hack, then reapply when the upgrade is completed, no hunting for files, searching through code, just click.

Here's an example of typical deployment for me with AEC... User joins as basic member for free, for 30 days, with access to a limited amount of member content, then at the end of 30 days, upon log-in, present the user with two offers, one lower price option for short term (trial) with full access, automatic recurring billing at full monthly price at the end of the trial period... or, choose full monthly price now, automatically billed monthly... or, pay for a year up front and receive a percentage discount... from there, you can even offer multi-level options, starter package, allow upgrade to middle level package, then up to full package, can be made so that middle package is only presented if the user was previously subscribed to the starter package first, only show full package if previously subscribed to middle level... and so on, can be as simple or as diverse as you like.

But... if you have a very simple subscription you'd like to offer, simple as can be, nothing fancy, it'll do that too. Not sure why anybody would want to do this, but you can even offer multi-level subscriptions, that are all free, there's no end to what you can do, personally I've never seen anything like AEC, I could go on for days about how many different ways subscriptions could be configured, I've yet to find something it can't do.

There's also what can only be described as an amazing number of payment processors, there's like over 40 now, always more in the works, no other add-on even comes close to that. If I see yet another "PayPal Only" subscription add-on my head is going to explode. AEC is extremely flexible when it comes to how payment options are presented, like... you can present the user at sign-up with 3 different credit card processors, and a pay by phone option, or if you need, a fully integrated purchase and fulfillment of major event tickets( concerts, theater... and son on), or you can just accept subscription orders, and process payments offline if you like.

You can also offer coupon codes, that can for example, provide the user with 1st month free, then automatically start recurring billing after the 1st month, doesn't have to be a month, can be 1 day free, whatever you want. you can make a coupon only available to a specific member, or group of members.

Another great feature, is that it logs everything it does. This may sound weird, but it even logs the fact that it did nothing, like, user created account, chose a plan, but never completed the transaction, or if it tried the transaction, but the customer was denied by the processor for whatever reason. Even if there's no work to be done with no user accounts created that day, you still see that AEC woke up, looked to see if there was anything to do, just to ensure nothing was overlooked or got hung up. That gives me piece of mind that things are still up and running. If there did happen to be an error, you can set it to email with the error details.

If you download AEC, and feel like it looks too complicated for you, it's likely not AEC that's hard to grasp, because it's all very logical and intuitive in my opinion. What you need to do when creating multi-level plans, is take the time to sit down and map things out on paper as to what you want to offer, what membership levels with be available, which credit card processors you'd like to use, whether there will be trial memberships, recurring or one time fee, terms, wording, billing... get that all mapped out before you begin, then go to the AEC forums, and do a bit of homework, ask some questions (you'll likely get great answers) because otherwise you may confuse yourself by losing your place mid-way through, or you might a mistake because you tried to wing-it. Proper planning takes a very small amount of effort, this is key to the success of any business. If you don't take the time to do that, any confusion on your part can't be blamed on AEC, because AEC, can and will, do exactly what you configure it to do, nothing more, nothing less.

One concern I had at the onset, is that with all the amazing amount of options and flexibility AEC has to offer, I thought for sure it was going to be a bug filled nightmare, with code errors and processes bumping into each other and timing out, causing things to fail... or worse. I am EXTREMELY happy to report, that I've thrown just about everything I can at this add-on, and it hasn't skipped a beat. Look up at everything I just wrote in this review that I've been able to do with this add-on, and it hasn't skipped a beat, not one code error, not one conflict, no hiccups, not even a sneeze, that's amazing in my view.

To the AEC Team... a sincere thanks for creating AEC. You've done a very fine job, it takes a lot of skill to done what you've done in creating this add-on with such fine results. Bravo!

-Danny

First, thank you VERY much for donating your time for such a great cause.

There are a lot of sites out on the Internet that offer unsigned artists a place to sell their music, but all of them charge high fees and/ or take a big chunk from each sale.

Maian Music is the perfect solution... it allows an artist to sell direct, without having to pay a middleman.

Easy to install
Breeze to setup
Very flexible
Very tweak-able
Great navigation
Smooth cart flow
The list goes on...

Yes, I made a donation, not only because of a job well done, but also because I really appreciate that you donated your time to help out unsigned artists (for the record, I'm not a musician, but have built sites for friends that are unsigned artists).

I have no idea how ANYBODY could ever give this extension a bad review. I've used many, many extensions, both free and paid, and this one ranks among the best I've ever used.

-Danny