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Most adult sites use CCBill for billing and they handle the recurring, as well as affiliates
and related things. Strongbox is most recommended to make the members' area secure
in coordination with CCBill.
> should i custom code a script that does this?
A standard figure of speech in the programming field for the last 20 years
has been "it's like writing your own security", to refer to a newbie doing something
really dumb, especially spending thousands of dollars coding some piece of crap
in house when much better code is available for far less cost. For example, if you
asked techies "should I design my own video format rather then using MPEG4?",
they might say "that's like writing your own security" - stupid, because mpeg4 is
far superior than anything you'd create, and it's readily available.
CCBill has probably spent more than $250,000 developing a great system for billing
(and rebilling). Why would you spend $4,000 developing something that sucks balls
in comparison when you can just use CCBill? NATS and Mansion also have nice
systems that they've spent many years on.
Similarly, the Strongbox people have spent the last twelve years doing nothing but
developing better and better security for your site. Why spend a few thousand to
make your own piece of crap security which will get hacked immediately when you
can just buy Strongbox for $150? Figure over the last twelve years there's been
maybe $150,000 of development work to make Strongbox what it is, and you can
buy that $150,000 worth of effectiveness for $150. Writing your own would be
extremely silly.
There are two or three scenarios when it makes sense to write custom business software.
a) It makes sense to write custom if there is nothing available to meet your needs.
b) It makes sense to write custom when it's your core business competency - Google does their own search, eBay does their own auction software. Neither does their own employee clock in / clock out software.
c) It MAY make sense to write custom if you intend to invest in doing it much better than what's available, but really this is only if a combination of a) and b) apply.
You probably don't need "better" if what's available does what you need it to do
and it's not the focus of your business anyway.
Those are the "rules" about custom software that are normally used.
I would add another. It may make sense to go custom if the need is so simple that
it can be written faster/cheaper than it can be found elsewhere, and it's not likely
that you'll need more advanced features later.
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