Membership subscription

In order to become a member and access the pay-to-play version of RuneScape, players must first have a subscription. When players subscribe, they receive members credit which allows them to access the pay-to-play version of RuneScape. Subscriptions through different payment methods may have varying lengths, although there is a minimum length of one month. Jagex is affiliated with several payment providers which each provide different subscription payment methods and prices. Different payment methods require different information to be given during a secure payment process. Subscriptions can also be canceled and extended.

Member Credit
Member credit is obtained by paying for a subscription. Member credit is essentially the number of days remaining in a subscription. When member credit expires, the account will revert to free-to-play, and all extra features available only in the pay-to-play version of RuneScape are inaccessible again. Remaining member credit is displayed when members log in. Membership cannot be frozen, and a day of member credit is used each day until it runs out.

Starting a Subscription
Players can subscribe for membership by clicking the 'Start a new subscription' option in the 'Membership' section of the sidebar on the RuneScape website. The site will then attempt to automatically detect the player's home country. If it can't detect the country of a player, it will bring them to a page where they will be prompted to select their home country. After a country has been determined, a page listing a variety of payment methods available in that country will be displayed. Players can then select a payment method of their choice from those displayed, and will be prompted for information (different depending on selected payment method) in the following pages during the secure payment process.

Cancelling a Subscription
Subscriptions can be cancelled by selecting the 'Cancel an existing subscription' option in the 'Membership' section of the sidebar on the RuneScape website. Players will be offered various cancellation options:


 * Players may log into the site by entering their RuneScape username and password. After logging in, players will be taken to a cancellation page where they may choose from a list of reasons for cancellation and go to the cancellation confirmation page or they may choose not to unsubscribe. The cancellation confirmation page requires a final confirmation of the cancellation of the account's subscription and also provides a final option to choose not to unsubscribe.
 * Players who have forgotten their username and/or password may cancel their subscription by providing their credit card number and expiry date as well as the surname and email address provided when the subscription was taken out. This will cancel all RuneScape membership subscriptions on the credit card. After submitting the information, players are taken to a final cancellation confirmation page where the credit card number and expiry date entered are displayed and there is an option to confirm cancellation.
 * Players who have subscriptions using alternate payment methods through the payment provider PayByCash can cancel their subscriptions on the PayByCash website.

When a subscription is cancelled, players will continue to have access to members only worlds and features until their member credit expires. When a player's membership expires, they will be teleported to Lumbridge to prevent them being stuck in a members-only area. Players that have cancelled their account will be subject to the limits of Free-to-Play players, including a restricted bank allotment of 60 items. If you have more than 60 items, including Members Objects, in your bank, you cannot put any more items into the bank until you have reduced your bank size. If you have a stackable item in the bank you can still deposit this, it is only new items which will not be deposited. Plan carefully, as you cannot sell or trade "Members Objects" on a F2P server once your account is cancelled.

Note: It was once possible to cast the high alchemy spell on members' items such as yew longbows however Jagex changed this after players would 'stock up' on nature runes and yew longbows and spend weeks/months training their magic meaning Jagex lost membership revenue.

Extending a Subscription
Several payment methods are not ongoing, and need to be extended in order for payment to be continued. In order to prevent member credit from expiring, players must extend subscription. RuneScape subscriptions may be extended by clicking on the 'Extend an existing subscription' option in the 'Membership' section of the sidebar on the RuneScape website. This will bring players to either the normal page displaying payment methods for their detected country or the country select page if the country is undetectable. From this page, players may extend their subscriptions by choosing a payment method and entering their payment information as normal in the secure payment process.

Payment Methods and Subscription Prices
RuneScape subscriptions have a relatively low price compared to other MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) such as Guild Wars, which is bought on a compact disc for anywhere from $20-$60 depending on the campaign, although it has no monthly payment, and World of Warcraft, which costs $20-$80 for the disc depending on whether the expansion pack is included, and is additionally $12 a month for game play. RuneScape is also unique among most MMORPGs in that it also has a free-to-play version, and is hosted on a website rather than being distributed on discs.

There are various payment methods for RuneScape. Several payment providers who have agreements with Jagex process the transactions, and compete to offer better prices and availability. Sections below contain information from the RuneScape Knowledge Base's Billing section on all available payment methods.

Credit Card Payment
The cheapest subscription payment method is via credit card. Credit card payment is available to customers worldwide. When a subscription is paid via credit card, each month the payment is taken from the credit card account and a month of subscription is credited to the player's account. This is ongoing, and payments will continue to be taken from the credit card account a few days before the player's membership credit runs out until the subscription is cancelled. Credit card payments are processed immediately. Payments from the credit cards Visa, Visa Delta, and Mastercard are accepted from all customers regardless of location. The debit cards JCB, Visa Electron, Visa Debit Switch/Maestro, and Solo are also accepted from customers in the United Kingdom. Subscriptions paid for via credit card cost $5.00 USD, £3.20 GBP, $8.20 ASD, or the equivalent in the customer's local currency. Further information is available during the secure subscription payment process (instructions for beginning above).

Alternate Payment Methods
Other payment methods are also available. These payment methods are made available for convenience and cost substantially more than payment via credit card to cover the costs of transaction fees paid to other parties. Some of these payment methods are not available to all locations, are not ongoing, and do not process immediately. Jagex calls the extra cost of these alternate payment methods a 'convenience premium'.

PayByPhone
The PayByPhone payment method is available from payment provider Surfpin to players in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, and Ireland. Players wishing to subscribe via PayByPhone call Surfpin's PayByPhone service and receive a PIN redeemable (after a processing period of 5 minutes) for one month of member credit on the RuneScape website. Subscription is paid for by the cost of the call, which is added to the caller's phone bill and is dependent on the country the caller is calling from. Players who subscribe via PayByPhone can unsubscribe simply by not calling again to resubscribe. No longer subscription lengths are currently available through PayByPhone. Further information is available during the secure subscription payment process (instructions for beginning above).

PayBySMS
The PayBySMS payment method is available from payment provider Surfpin to players in the United States and the United Kingdon. Players subscribing via PayBySMS send a text message from their cellphone to Surfpin and receive a message in reply with a PIN redeemable (after a processing period of 5 minutes) for one month of member credit on the RuneScape website, very similar to the PayByPhone payment method. PayBySMS is only available in the United States and the United Kingdom, and is generally the most expensive payment method, costing $9.99 USD or £5.00 GBP plus any charge made by the subscriber's mobile phone operator. The subscriber's network provider may also charge for the text message sent. The cost of the message is added to the subscriber's telephone bill if the subscriber has a contract or removed from the credit on the subscriber's phone.

PayBySMS currently supports the following telephone networks:
 * Networks in the United Kingdom:
 * 3 (Hutchison 3G UK Limited)
 * O2 (O2 (UK) Limited)
 * Orange
 * T Mobile
 * Virgin Mobile
 * Vodafone
 * Networks in the United States:
 * Alltell Wireless
 * Cingular
 * Dobson
 * Nextel
 * Sprint

Players who subscribe via PayBySMS can unsubscribe simply by not sending another text message to resubscribe. No longer subscription lengths are currently available through PayBySMS. Further information is available during the secure subscription payment process (instructions for beginning above).

PayByCash
The provider PayByCash also provides a wide variety of payment methods. PayByCash offers different costs for different lengths of payment, with discounts available for longer payments. Costs are listed in the table below, while the payment methods that PayByCash offers are in the table below that.

Note that costs are taken from the RuneScape Knowledge Base, where an asterisk next to the cost listings for PayByCash states:

''Cost per month dependent on chosen payment method. Exact amount will be displayed during subscription process.''

Payment Method Comparisons
Below is a table comparing all available payment methods from all payment providers except PayByCash showing the provider, payment method, monthly cost, locations available, length of payment, and processing time.

Note that PayByCash also accepts several other payment methods. See |PayByCash's complete list of accepted payment methods for details. At the top of PayByCash's complete list of accepted payment methods, PayByCash states:

'Please note that not all options are available for all services or are available to people in all countries.'

Players should only allow those in their immediate family to pay for their membership. Otherwise, there is a larger risk of credit card fraud, which will cause the player's account to be banned indefinitely.