How to Use Recurring Payments
The GoPay payment gateway enables your customers to make a recurring payment by card. This function is perfectly suitable when you offer services, which repeat periodically, such as subscriptions.
GoPay’s tip:
If you want to get recurring payments activated for your website, contact the GoPay support center.
The customer makes the payment in a standard way. The customer gets information about having made the payment, which has specific parameters (amount of money, frequency of the recurring payment, etc.) 2 times: during the payment process, and after finishing the payment process.
You can combine the recurring payment with another function provided by GoPay - with a pre-authorized payment. In this case, you can offer a free service to your customer which can be used for a certain time (for example a trial version of your product). The customer makes a standard payment, however, the payment is blocked on their account for a certain time and after that time period is over, the payment is collected from the customer’s account and at this point the recurring payment gets set.
There are 2 kinds of the recurring payment which you can offer:
- an automatic recurring payment
- an on demand recurring payment
Automatic recurring payment
An automatic recurring payment is very similar to a standing order when a fixed amount of money is collected at regular intervals.
The main principle of this service is similar to a direct debit. The customer agrees to a certain amount of money, collected at a certain interval, and also to the limit of termination. The very first payment authorizes the complete settings. If the first payment is successful the following recurring payments are created automatically, at a defined period. The customer doesn’t have to enter any specific instructions in order to make the payment.
On demand recurring payment
When you want to provide on demand recurring payments, amount of money and time interval for the payments can be different - the settings are up to you.
The main principle of this service is similar to that of the periodical recurring payments. When the first payment is created the customer is asked to agree to make the following payments (the amount of money depends on to what extend the customer uses the service) and to the limit of termination. The very first payment authorizes the settings, the following payments are created automatically. The amount of money and payment due date depend on your requirements.