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Accepting recurring payments on your site can offer an array of benefits, from enhancing customer convenience to generating a steady cash flow for your business.
Whether you offer subscription boxes or a membership service, recurring payments can help accept payments, streamline transactions and boost customer retention.
The subscription economy has grown by a staggering 435% over the last decade and is projected to reach a market size of $1.5 trillion by 2025, reinforcing the ever-growing need to set up recurring payments on your online stores.
This article will walk you through how to add recurring payments on your website so you can start accepting recurring payments online efficiently.
Choose the Right Payment Gateway
Before you can effectively accept recurring payments online, you must choose the right payment gateway for your business.
Payment processing is essential for accepting payments online, ensuring that customers can securely provide their payment details to set up automatic recurring payments.
Popular recurring payment options like Stripe, PayPal and Square allow businesses to accept credit or debit card payment, as well as other payment methods, on a recurring basis.
Selecting the right payment gateway that offers a recurring payment option ensures that the entire process is smooth and helps reduce failed transactions.
It is also important to consider a payment gateway that accepts multiple payment methods, re-attempts missed or failed payments and offer robust customer service.
Set Up an Account and Configure Recurring Payment Options
Once you've selected your payment gateway, you might need to set up a merchant account with a merchant account provider.
During the set up process, you'll need to configure your recurring payment options, including billing intervals (e.g., monthly or yearly), trial periods and exclusive offers such as free trials.
For businesses using a WordPress site, plugins like WP Simple Pay make it easy to activate and configure recurring billing all from the WordPress Admin Dashboard.
The SetUp Wizard guides you through the recurring payment configuration form as well as other additional features, such as pricing tiers and flexible billing periods, ensuring that the tailored recurring fee structure meets your customers' needs.
However, it is possible to accept recurring payments without a SetUp Wizard and WP Simple Pay. Recurring payments can be accepted with only a payment processor, so long as you have a self-built billing engine on your end or utilise the basic billing engines provided by popular payment gateways.
Integrate the Payment Gateway with Your Website
The next step in accepting recurring payments is integrating your chosen payment gateway into your site.
For businesses using WordPress Admin Dashboard, tools like WP Simple Pay make it easier to embed payment methods that facilitate recurring payments.
Whether you have online stores or offer online courses, the integration process relies on ensuring that payment information can be securely process each time a customer's chosen payment method is regularly charged.
Most reputable payment gateways offer developer-friendly APIs for custom-built websites, ensuring that recurring payment system functions smoothly without any interruptions.
Create a Subscription or Recurring Payment Page
Subscription services are becoming increasingly popular, with 81% of consumers using subscriptions due to the convenience that they offer.
Creating a dedicated subscription service page on your website, that includes a recurring payment form, is essential to begin accepting payments.
This webpage must clearly outline your subscription pricing tiers, recurring donations (if applicable), utility providers and the benefits that regular payments provide your customers.
Businesses that offer subscription boxes, membership services, or are utility providers can boost their conversions by detailing how customers can benefit and save time through automatic recurring payments.
By clearly displaying the terms of subscription payments, such as the billing period and retry policies for missed payments, can help to further build trust with your customers.
Implement a Secure Checkout Process
The recurring billing payment process must be secure in order to encourage customers to complete their transactions.
Ensure that your payment system uses SSL encryption and is compliant with PCI DSS standards to protect customers confidential payment details.
Many payment gateways also offer fraud protection tools, ensuring customers’ credit card payments are processed safely.
A secure checkout process will help your business easily accept recurring payments while building customer loyalty.
Enable Customer Account Management
Allowing your customers to manage their recurring subscriptions is essential for boosting customer retention.
Implementing an easy-to-use subscription dashboard allows customers to easily update their payment information, change their payment plan and review their billing history.
Businesses that allow self-management of subscriptions often see higher rates of customer satisfaction, leading to fewer cancellations.
Allowing customers to update their bank account or credit card information, retry failed payments, and manage their recurring basis helps to streamline the billing process and reduce support queries.
Set Up Automated Communication and Invoicing
Many payment processors offer automated invoicing features to simplify your billing process and keep customers engaged.
One of the many benefits of recurring payments is its ability to fully automate processes like invoicing and communication.
Your recurring billing system can be set up to send automated reminders for failed payments, billing confirmation and notifications prior to the billing interval. These automations help to avoid any disruptions in cash flow, ensuring that your customers are informed about their upcoming payments.
Test the Recurring Payment System
Before setting your eCommerce store as live, test the system in its entirety to ensure that it can handle online payments and recurring payment options seamlessly.
Verify that the system can handle various scenarios, such as retrying failed payments, updating payment information via payment forms and processing trial periods.
By testing the integration on your own website, you can guarantee that the recurring payments are set up correctly, without any issues, allowing you to start accepting payments confidently.
Monitor and Optimise
Once live, it is important that you regularly monitor your payment performance. Tracking metrics like failed payments, churn rates and customer satisfaction allow you to continuously optimise your recurring payments model.
By offering features such as flexible billing intervals, customisable payment options, and automated billing can help to reduce churn and improve predictable cash flow.
Analysing data from your payment gateway and merchant account helps you to identify any additional areas of improvement, ensuring that your online business continues to experience steady growth.
Ongoing optimisation not only improves customer retention, but allows you to enjoy the benefits of recurring, predictable revenue.
Payments Made Simple with Cardflo
Setting up recurring payments on your website is a powerful way to streamline transactions, improve customer retention, and provide a steady revenue stream.
By carefully choosing a payment gateway, configuring your billing options, integrating a seamless checkout process, and allowing customers to self-manage their subscriptions, you can create an efficient system that benefits both your business and your customers.
Cardflo simplifies this entire process, offering an all-in-one solution to help you implement recurring payments quickly and efficiently.
Ready to boost your revenue? Start with Cardflo today.
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