Tokenization & Recurring Payments

Tokenization gives merchants the ability to securely save payment information. By tokenizing a customer's payment method, merchants can schedule future card-on-file (CoF) charges and create recurring payment plans.

Tokens save the payment method while fully protecting the cardholder’s sensitive data, simplifying your PCI compliance requirements. Payrix Tokens do not expire. 

Note: While Payrix Tokens do not expire, OmniTokens do have an expiration date, shown on the Transaction Details page.

Payrix provides the following resources for implementing tokenization and card-on-file/recurring payments:

This page includes the following information about the Payrix tokenization and recurring payments solutions:

How to Tokenize a Customer’s Payment Method

A cardholder’s payment data can be saved two ways for CoF and recurring payment transactions:

Creating a Customer in the Payrix Portal

Merchants have the ability to tokenize a cardholder’s payment method data directly in the Portal on the Customers page. When creating a customer, the Merchant will be prompted to enter the cardholder’s personal information, including name, address, and email address.

Saving address information on a customer is not technically required to create a token. However, we strongly recommend saving the customer’s address to increase successful recurring and card-on-file transactions when using the token.

After a customer is created, a Merchant can attach a saved payment method (that is, a token) to that customer for future CoF or recurring billing.

A Merchant can also attach multiple tokens to a customer if they have more than one payment method that will be used for future CoF and recurring payment transactions.

See Create a Customer Payment Token for step-by-step instructions on attaching a tokenized payment method.

Tokenizing a Payment Method Via the API

A customer’s payment method can also be saved (tokenized) using the Payrix API. This is done by sending a POST request to the /tokens endpoint. Within the body of the request, include the customer’s personal information (such as name and address) as well as the payment method (such as the card/account number and expiration date) that you want to tokenize.

Technically, the customer’s address is not required when creating a token. However, we strongly recommend including it to prevent future payments from being blocked or declined due to AVS mismatch.

See the Payrix API reference for optional fields and additional information.

[POST]https://api.payrix.com/tokens

Content-Type:application/json
APIKEY:{{private_api_key}}

{
	"customer":{
		"first":"John",
		"last":"Smith",
		"email":"john@example.com",
		"address1":"123 Main Street",
		"city":"New York",
		"state":"NY",
		"zip":"12345",
	},
	"payment":{
		"number":"4242424242424242",
		"cvv":"123"
	},
	"expiration":"0120"
}

Creating a Token Simultaneously As You Submit a Transaction in the API

You also have the ability to tokenize a customer’s payment method simultaneously as you submit a transaction using the API. To do this, you will need to include the customer’s personal information within the body of your POST request to the /txns endpoint.

Note that the syntax for creating a token simultaneously as you submit a transaction differs slightly for card payments and eCheck payments (as shown in the sample code below).

[POST]https://api.payrix.com/txns

Content-Type:application/json
APIKEY:{{private_api_key}}

{
    "merchant": "t1_mer_59efbf4e69b27a4760b885d",
    "type": "1",
    "origin": "2",
    "token": {
        "payment": {
            "number": "4242424242424242",
            "cvv": "123",
            "expiration": "1020"
        },
        "customer": {
          "first": "John",
          "last": "Smith",
          "email":"john@example.com",
          "address1":"123 Main Street",
          "city":"New York",
          "state":"NY",
          "zip":"12345",
          }
    },
    "total": "10000"
}

{
	"merchant": "t1_mer_59efbf4e69b27a4760b885d",
	"type": "7",
	"origin": "2",
	"token": {
		"payment": {
			"method": "8",
			"number": "123456789",
			"routing": "123456789"
		},
		"customer": {
			"first": "First",
			"last": "Last",
			"email":"john@example.com",
			"address1":"123 Main Street",
			"city":"New York",
			"state":"NY",
			"zip":"12345",
		}
	},
	"total": "10000"
}

Recurring Payments

One of the key features of tokenizing a payment method is the ability for Merchants to use it to schedule recurring payments. This solution gives a Merchant the ability to charge their customer’s tokenized payment method in their desired amount and at their desired frequency. For example, Merchants can use recurring payments to charge their customers a monthly fee or for billing on a subscription-based business model.

Recurring payments can be set up directly in the Portal, by creating a recurring payment plan and subscribing your desired customers to that plan.

Setting Up Recurring Payments

See Create a Recurring Payment (Subscription) for step-by-step instructions on setting up recurring payment plans and subscriptions.

Setting up recurring payments within Payrix consists of three components:

Creating a Customer

In order to set up recurring payments, you must first save the cardholder’s personal and payment information by creating a customer (with a token). See Create a Customer to read more about creating a customer.

In the Portal, you have the ability to create recurring payments using a new payment method, and this will save the customer simultaneously as you subscribe them to a recurring payment plan.

Recurring Payment Plans

A plan dictates the amount and how often a recurring payment will be charged. Plans are not unique to a specific customer. Rather, multiple customers can be added to the same plan, and each will be charged the same amount at the intervals dictated in the plan.

Subscriptions

After a plan dictating the recurring payment amount and frequency is created, customers can be added to the plan through subscriptions. Therefore, customers can be added or removed from a recurring payment plan without any changes being made to the actual plan. Simply adjust a customer’s subscription to make any changes.

To summarize, a plan determines the amount and frequency of a recurring payment, and customers can be added to a plan through a subscription.

How to Submit a Card-On-File (CoF) Payment Using a Token

After a customer’s payment method has been tokenized, it can also be used by Merchants to submit CoF transactions.

How to Submit a CoF Transaction in the Portal

To submit a CoF payment in the Portal, locate the customer’s profile page. Scroll to the bottom of the customer’s profile page and select Charge Customer. You will then have the option to select any of the customer’s existing tokens as the payment method, and then you will be prompted to enter the payment details (including the amount).

How to Submit a CoF Transaction Via the API

To submit a CoF transaction using the API, you will need to add the token (which can be found on the customer’s profile page) to your POST request to the /txns endpoint. If the customer’s address information was saved, then it will be automatically included when a Merchant submits a transaction using their token.

The API syntax for CoF card payments and CoF eCheck payments differs slightly as shown below.

[POST]https://api.payrix.com/txns

Content-Type:application/json
APIKEY:{{private_api_key}}

{
    "merchant": "t1_mer_59efbf4e69b27a4760b885d",
    "type": "1",
    "origin": "2",
    "token": "b73443457d0202be0489fed2b5687f81",
    "total": "10000"
}

{
	"merchant": "t1_mer_59efbf4e69b27a4760b885d",
	"type": "7",
	"origin": "2",
	"token": "944afd0919c5561724f511d4846e40b9",
	"total": "10000"
}

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