Recurring payment setup

Hi Tuan,

Just looking to understand the Membership Pro better and I am reading the documentation but I am getting confused on the recurring payment bit with what I'm reading.  As mentioned in other posts, I help run a kids football club and we are looking to use your Membership Pro, with Stripe, to allow parents to pay a monthly membership fee.

Requirement - The membership structure is that we charge £30 per month from September to May and then nothing for 3 months.  Then it starts again from September to May.

My recurring payment query - The documentation is clear that to use recurring payment, set it to yes in the radio button. However the 'Basic Information' also contains fields that I would presume are recurring related.

So should I have 'Subscription Length' set to 9 months (September to May requirement)?
I have an 'Expiry Date' of 31st May in case someone new joins in January for example.
I have 'Prorated Signup Cost' set to No as this would not be fair on a new starter who joins in January for example.
'Recurring Subscription' is set to yes.
'Number of Payments' is where I get confused, have I not already determined this in 'Subscription Length'?
If a new person joins in January, I don't expect the Plan to run from January for 9 months.

I guess my main question is what drives the number of payments of the plan?

My secondary question is if the plan expires at the end of May, how can I set it to renew from 1st September?  After thought. - should I start membership plan from 1st June with first three months free then it starts to charge from September?