Some CBSubs usage questions

It's tough because the "sponsor" that they list in their registration is not a moderator. Each registrant will have a different person as a sponsor. And the sponsor has to approve to us that yes, they recommend this applicant.

Our admissions committee are also not moderators. They are in different parts of the country and might approve whenever they get a free moment.

It would be ideal that we get the last say as moderators.

What do you think?

You can still use the moderator workflows except setup CB Auto Actions to send emails out to the sponsors. Then your moderators when they do approve the registration only have to do so with a button click. CB Auto Actions could act on the after registration trigger with an Email action to send whatever you like to whomever you like.

Ok that would be good.

When the user has to login to pay- do they still get access to our "members only" section of our website even though they haven't paid yet?

Nope, if their subscription is not active they will not have access to whatever that plan protects.

Great!

Another question- if we had another service that we would like some members to pay for if they are participating in, could we have a payment portal for that?

If it's within Joomla then most likely yes. If it's outside Joomla then it depends on how the external service works. You could also just accept the payments either with a subscription or merchandise plan, but without details of your service I can't really suggest anything specific.