Subscriptions set transactions to run for a specified amount on a predefined schedule.

You have a few choices to make when deciding how to configure subscriptions for customers:

• Which payment methods to support.
• Who is responsible for the payment schedule.
• Whether you want transactions to run automatically or if you want to manually control when to run the transactions.

Payment methods

You can allow customers to choose from several different payment method options for a subscription.

• Card - for automated (with the saved card token) or manual (with the saved card token or full card information) payment schedule.
• Echeck - for manual payment schedule.
• Alternative payment method with "Pay later" feature (Klarna, PayPal, and Paypal (with Braintree)) - for automated payment schedule. This seems like a short-term subscription to the customer.

Schedule responsibility

You can also decide who is responsible for the schedule of payments for the subscription.

• Nexio - available for card transactions.
• Merchant - available for card, echeck, and Paypal (with Braintree). The merchant creates an automatic or manual recurring transaction schedule.
• Bank - available for card transactions. The bank fully funds the merchant up front and handles billing the customer.
• Payment provider - available as "Pay later" feature with Klarna, PayPal, and Paypal (with Braintree). The payment provider fully funds the merchant up front and handles billing the customer.

Subscription schedule examples table

When creating the subscription (or payment plan or installment), you have control over defining the schedule. For subscriptions and payment plans, you can specify the interval and the count. Combined, these values determine the schedule. For an installment, you can specify the count only. The gateway determines how to interpret this value (usually, on a monthly basis).

The interval can be in days, weeks, months, or years. And the count determines how often to run the transaction for that interval. So, an interval schedule of 4 weeks (to run a subscription transaction every 4 weeks) is roughly equivalent to an interval schedule of 30 days or 1 month. Or an interval schedule of 14 days is exactly equivalent to an interval schedule of 2 weeks.

The following table shows some examples of how to set up a schedule using these two parameters.

Manual or automated schedule

For some gateways or connections and payment methods, it is possible to save a token or indicate that a transaction will be recurring and then manually run subsequent transactions. You could use this workflow to control when transactions run or to make a change such as lowering the payment amount for a time. The downside to this approach is that you must remember to run the transactions at the appropriate time and date. It is possible to create an application or website using the Nexio API to run these transactions, but each transaction must be sent individually.

Explore the following tutorials, based on how you want to implement the subscription:

• Creating a Nexio-scheduled card subscription
• Using pay later option for subscription
• Running merchant-initiated transactions for a subscription
• Setting up installments for a bank to handle the subscription

See also

• Create a subscription endpoint for additional information about creating recurring transactions.
• Getting started with payment plans for the payment plan feature.