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Basically something that handles the low-level "plumbing" code for a subscription-based service. I see a lot of things dealing with basic membership, but nothing that handles the subscription aspect (recurring billing, automated jobs for setting up billing, notification for billing, etc). This might be the one thing that keeps me from using ASP.NET MVC for my SaaS idea, since it would take a fair amount of development time to write my own; if I go with my other option, Ruby on Rails, I can buy a kit that does all of this for $250. I haven't found anything even remotely close to this for .NET - all of the SaaS sample apps I've seen are more like StackOverflow et all where you have one site that multiple people log on to, not the web application model where you have subscribers who are billed monthly, each of whom has users and other entities (e.g. Customers, Tasks, etc) for their own site.

Is there anything similar for ASP.NET, or some kind of guidelines for writing my own if I have to, so I don't waste too much time? As a startup that means that I'm doing all the coding myself.

I've found this, but it seems to only be for billing and didn't seem to have much (any?) documentation on exactly how to set it up.

Matt Kocaj
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Wayne Molina
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  • There should be one for MVC. I dont one exists. I'm sure if you wrote a good one it would be enormously popular. This should cover the subscription/billing for you if you wanna get started - http://spreedly.com – Matt Kocaj Nov 15 '09 at 09:38
  • This is a good place to start for the automated/cron/jobs/notifications - http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2008/07/easy-background-tasks-in-aspnet/ – Matt Kocaj Nov 15 '09 at 09:40
  • I just watched the vid from that rails kit you mentioned - i'd so start with that if i was you. Unless you have some strange desire for aspnet mvc (or you don't know rails, like me) i'd really suggest using that kit. I'm sure the dood provides good support for it too. – Matt Kocaj Nov 15 '09 at 09:49
  • Yeah.. I want ASP.NET MVC so I can use my BizSpark membership that's been idle for a year, and also because potential employers in my area use .NET so if my startup doesn't work I'll at least have marketable skills. – Wayne Molina Nov 15 '09 at 14:50
  • mabey there is new business model to earn money, just like Apple app store... :) – Sam Zhou Mar 16 '10 at 06:58
  • @Wayne - Did you find any starter kit? I am looking for exactly the same thing. Did you end up developing this yourself? – Nick Feb 11 '11 at 01:06
  • Adding a bounty to this question – Nick Feb 11 '11 at 01:19
  • Honestly, I abandoned the idea while back. If I were to revisit it I would use Rails, which is a shame because my BizSpark membership has gone to waste. – Wayne Molina Feb 17 '11 at 19:40
  • For anyone new coming here, Bizspark these days doesn't require you to use ASP.Net, or any MS technology for that matter (not sure what it was like in 2011). You could quite easily use RoR if that's your thing – flipchart Jun 24 '14 at 18:15

3 Answers3

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Website Spark (Microsoft partner program) just put out Freemium 1.0 which might be a good starting point. I haven't yet played with it, just saw the ad in my inbox today.

http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/WATFreemium

Paul

Paul
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BrainTree supports recurring billing and offers a (documented) client library for .NET.

Also, they're being used by some big names such as 37signals, github and animoto.

Vlad Iliescu
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  • +1: Very good (even if, unfortunately, it is only affordable inside the U.S.). – rsenna Feb 17 '11 at 18:18
  • While that's a good service, it doesn't really fulfill what I was looking for in my OP so long ago. So it seems the answer to my question is "No, there's just libraries you have to integrate yourself". Still, going to mark this as the answer. – Wayne Molina Feb 18 '11 at 13:14
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I'm not sure this is entirely helful, but .NET has the built in membership provider that you can ovverride to customize it. If you start with that, it wouldn't be that hard to build in some simple subscription code to handle the authorization. Then you could probably buy a e-commerce library to handle the acual billing code to integrate with a payment gateway and other payment services like paypal.

Personally I would recommend ASP.NET MVC because version 2.0 just came out! Plus your skillset would be much more portable with Win Forms and WPF, and even Mono and the iPhone with Mono Touch! How much of a market is there for ruby right now in your area?

John B
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