Rental pricing and windows
Sell the same title several ways at once. Eight hours for less, forty-eight for more, and a deadline on unopened purchases.
A title has no single price. What it costs is set as one or more rental windows, and each window is a price paired with a length of time. A fan picks between them at checkout.
Every window grants exactly the same content. Only the clock and the amount differ. That is the whole point: an impulse rental at a low price and a relaxed weekend at a higher one, sold side by side on the same page.
Where to set it
- Go to Films then Titles and open a title.
- Stay on the Details tab.
- Scroll to What it costs.
Windows save the moment you add or edit them, so they do not wait on the Save button at the bottom of the form. The shelf life below them is part of the title, so that one does.
Adding a rental window
- Click Add window.
- Optionally give it a Name, such as "Weekend pass". This is what fans see on the button instead of the bare number of hours. Leave it empty and the window names itself, so "48 hours" appears rather than nothing. Up to 80 characters.
- Enter the Price in your store's currency, like
4.99. Two decimal places at most. - Enter the Window (hours), which is how long the rental runs once it starts. Anything from 1 hour up to a year.
- Check the sentence underneath, which shows exactly what fans will read.
- Click Add window.
The form restates your numbers as a fan sees them, for example "Fans will see: $4.99 for 2 days, counted from first play." Hours are converted for you, so 168 reads as "7 days" and you never have to do the division in your head.
When the clock starts
The rental window runs from first play, not from purchase. A fan who buys on Tuesday for a Saturday night does not lose four days of their rental for buying early.
For a series, one clock covers everything. It starts when any episode is first played and it covers every episode you have released before it expires.
One window per length of time
A title can only sell one live window of any given length. Two windows that differ only in price are two prices for the same thing, so this is refused, and the message tells you which length is already taken. Change the hours or edit the existing window instead.
Free windows
A price of 0 is allowed and it is a real thing, not an accident. A free rental still binds to a fan's account, still runs a clock and still expires. It shows as Free everywhere a price would go.
What is not possible is a window with no price at all. A title that is not on sale is simply a title with no windows, and the form refuses a blank price rather than quietly reading it as zero.
A title with no windows cannot be published
Until a title has at least one live window it is not on sale, and the publish button stays refused. The What it costs section says so directly when the list is empty.
The order fans see
Windows are listed to fans in the order they appear on this screen, top first. A title nobody has reordered lists cheapest first, which is what a fan scanning a row of buttons expects.
Use the small up and down arrows on the left of each row to move a window. The new order saves as you go and a note under the list confirms "Fans see these in this order, top first."
A window you add after reordering is appended to the end rather than jumping to the front of an order you just arranged by hand.
Editing a window
Click Edit on any window to change its name, price or length.
If fans have already rented at that window, the dialog tells you how many. Editing changes what the next fan pays and never moves a sale that already happened. Somebody who paid $4.99 last week is still recorded as having paid $4.99.
Taking a window off sale
The button on a window is either Remove or Retire, and which one you get depends on whether anything has ever sold at it. The confirmation says which is about to happen, so the outcome is never a surprise.
- Remove appears when nothing has ever been sold at that window. It is deleted outright.
- Retire appears when there is a sale behind it. It comes off sale immediately, the rentals already bought at it keep running to the end of their window, and the amount those fans were charged never changes. You are free to sell the same length of time again at a new price afterwards.
Retired windows are hidden by default. Turn on Show retired windows to see them. They are kept because a past sale points at one, so a report naming a price you no longer sell still has an answer on screen.
Removing the last window
Taking away the last live window takes the title off sale and blocks publishing until you add another one.
Shelf life: how long a fan has to press play
Under the windows is one more setting: Days to start watching (shelf life).
Because the rental window runs from first play, a purchase that is never opened would otherwise stay openable for ever. The shelf life is the deadline on that. A fan who has not pressed play by then loses the rental and the window never starts.
- Enter a whole number of days, from 1 up to 365.
- Leave it blank and the title keeps whatever it already has. New titles start at 30 days.
- Under the field, the promise you are making is restated in the fan's own words, for example "A fan has 60 days after buying to press play."
What the shelf life never does
It has no effect on a rental that is already playing, and changing it never shortens one somebody has already bought.
Click Save at the bottom of the Details form to store a change to the shelf life.
Two clocks, side by side
It is worth holding both in your head at once:
- The shelf life is the deadline to start. It runs from purchase.
- The window is how long they have once they do. It runs from first play.
A title with a 30 day shelf life and a 48 hour window means: buy any time this month, and once you press play you have two days.