A recurring payment is a method used to charge a customer on a regular schedule for ongoing products or services. Recurring payments are useful for membership plans for services like gyms and media streaming, and bill payments, such as storage unit rentals, utilities, and mobile phone bills.
A recurring payment is set up using two components:
Plans: Defines the amount and frequency of the recurring payment.
Subscriptions: Links the customer’s saved payment method (token) to the Plan, tracks failed payments, and enforces limits.
When configured, recurring payments are processed automatically without any need to re-enter payment details.
Get Started
To get started setting up a recurring payment, you must have or create a customer and tokenize their payment method.
See Tokenization and Recurring Payments for steps to create a customer and tokenize their payment information. You can also create tokens using Quick Charge, Invoices, PayFields, PayFrame, or the Customer Profile page.
Once the payment method is tokenized, retrieve the token hash value from the Customer Profile to link it to the Subscription.
Important!
Digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay cannot be used to set up recurring payment plans.
Set Up a Recurring Payment
To set up a recurring payment for a customer, you must define the schedule and amount using a Plan, and link their token to that Plan using a Subscription.
Create a Plan
To set up a recurring payment, you must define how much the customer is charged and how often payments occur.
To create a Plan:
Select Plans from the Recurring Payments dropdown in the left navigation panel.
Click Add Plan.
Enter the Amount and Plan Schedule: Every.
Select Interval for the time interval of the schedule.
(Optional) Enter a Max. Consecutive Failures limit.
Important!
If you don’t set a Max. Consecutive Failures limit, the Subscription keeps retrying the same payment method indefinitely at each scheduled Plan interval after a payment fails. For details, see Handle Subscription Failures and Retries.
(Optional) Enter a Description and Transaction Description.
Click Add.
Create a Subscription
After creating your Plan, you must assign the customer’s payment method and set additional parameters to automatically process payments based on the Plan’s schedule.
To create a Subscription:
Select the new Plan from the Plans page.
Click Add Subscription.
Set the Recurring Schedule dates and click Create with Token.
Paste the customer payment token value into the Token field.
Click Add.
Processing Schedule
All subscription payments are processed daily shortly after midnight Eastern Time (ET). The following schedule outlines the specific times and corresponding email notifications for each subscription type:
Time (ET) | Plan Interval | Email Subject |
|---|---|---|
12:08 AM | Days | Daily subscriptions processed |
12:09 AM | Weeks | Weekly subscriptions processed |
12:10 AM | Months | Monthly subscriptions processed |
12:11 AM | Years | Annual subscriptions processed |
Time the First Payment
The first payment in a Plan is not processed immediately. The first payment processes at the next scheduled interval based on the Plan’s Interval value and Subscription’s Recurring Schedule dates.
To charge a customer immediately, submit a separate Sale transaction.
Cancel Recurring Payments
You can cancel a Plan that might be used across multiple customers or cancel individual customer Subscriptions, based on your needs.
Cancel a Recurring Payment Plan
To cancel a Plan, you must update the Status to Inactive to stop processing payments for all Subscriptions assigned to the Plan.
To cancel a recurring payment plan:
Select Plans from the Recurring Payments dropdown in the left navigation panel.
Select the relevant Plan.
Select the Details tab.
Click the edit icon.
Select Inactive from the Status dropdown.
Click the confirm icon to save.
Cancel a Subscription
To cancel a single Subscription assigned to a customer, you must update the Status to Inactive to stop processing payments.
To cancel a Subscription:
Select Plans from the Recurring Payments dropdown in the left navigation panel.
Select the relevant Plan.
Select the Subscriptions tab.
Select the relevant Subscription.
Click the edit icon.
Select Inactive from the Status dropdown.
Click the confirm icon to save.
Handle Subscription Failures and Retries
Payrix Pro doesn’t retry failed Subscription payments within the same Plan interval. Instead, each failure increases the Consecutive Failures count. The Subscription attempts a new charge at the next scheduled interval.
When the Max. Consecutive Failures limit is reached, the Subscription becomes Inactive. If no limit is set, the Subscription keeps trying to charge the same payment method until you update the Status to Inactive manually.
To track and respond to failed payments, enable a Subscription Failed alert. See Use Case: Enable Subscription Event Alerts for setup details.
Reactivate a Subscription
If a Subscription becomes Inactive, you can reactivate it to reset the Consecutive Failures count and continue processing payments. Payments process immediately if the Start Date is today, or at the Plan’s next scheduled interval.
To reactivate a Subscription:
Select Recurring Payments in the left navigation panel.
Select the relevant Subscription.
Click the edit icon.
Select Active from the Status dropdown menu.
Click the confirm icon to save.
Important!
Reactivating a Subscription does not retry the last failed payment.