How to best handle rewewals (both auto and not)

[towens]

Our scenario: Many accounts where the user has a single hosting account with free domain and user may or may not want to be billed automatically. We'd like it as an option but disabled by default. In addition we have some accounts where user has a mixed set of hosting accounts and domains. Same with these users we'd like to have an option that's not on by default but lets them turn on auto-renewal so they'd be billed automatically from their credit card.

 

Issues so far: To avoid a scenario where I have a lot of angry users who were charged for renewal, I have automatic CC processing disabled by default as a hook in the system upon account creation. While this is great, it means that users don't have a way in the system that I can tell them to say "I want you to bill me automatically". Since most of our accounts are annual that also causes a handful of issues where someone forgets to pay an invoice for renewal and then the domain goes into redemption.

 

How should we best handle this? And to be clear I'd like a solution that works for hosting and domains (where sometimes the domains are a separate entity and others they may be included for free with a hosting invoice). With so many accounts in our system and a user base primarily of students I don't want to mess this up and have angry folks who've been charged without them knowing. It would also be helpful to know which email templates are sent for what scenarios because I know sometimes it's the credit card invoice, sometimes it's invoice created, etc. Ideally I'd love a way for a reminder to be sent on what their renewal status is and whether any action would need to be taken by the user. Thoughts on the best way forward?