A recurring payment also referred to as a subscription, recurring billing, or automatic payment, is an electronically processed payment that repeats according to a preset schedule. Businesses often set up recurring payments to collect fees for memberships, subscriptions, lessons, and services. Recurring payments require customers to sign a one-time authorization form.
How Do Recurring Payments Work?
To enable automatic repeat payments, a business needs to save a customer’s credit card or bank account information in the business’ payment processing system. The customer must grant permission for both storing the information and for executing the recurring charge. Stored payment data can then be used to process recurring payments automatically.
The easiest way to do this is with an all-in-one payment processor or merchant account that handles the payments but also has software to manage the billing process and security features to protect your customers’ information.
The best payment processors for recurring payments are:
- Square: Best low-cost and user-friendly recurring payment platform
- PayPal: Customer-favorite invoice and subscription solution for online businesses
- QuickBooks Payments: Best for QuickBooks users
- Stax by Fattmerchant: Best merchant account with recurring billing software
- PaySimple: All-in-one platform for managing subscriptions and memberships
- Stripe: Best for online startups managing international, subscription, or in-app payments
- Wave: Free recurring invoicing and accounting software best for individuals
How Your Business Benefits From Recurring Payments
There are two huge benefits to setting up a recurring payment model for your business:
- Saves time: Instead of manually setting up invoices or calling customers for payment, automatic billing can save hours of your or your employees’ time every billing cycle.
- Offers predictable revenue: Membership and subscription models offer businesses a more stable revenue stream than ad hoc billing, as it’s easier to predict revenue when you know how much customers will pay in advance.
All the benefits are not just for businesses. Customers enjoy the convenience of a set-it-and-forget-it payment option, which is especially ideal for necessities or services they use consistently and would not want interrupted service.
Square
PROS
- Free iOS and Android app
- Automated payment reminders
- See when an invoice has been viewed
CONS
- High card-on-file processing fees
- No ACH or PayPal payment options
| RATING CRITERIA | Pricing & contract | 5 | OUT OF | 5 |
| Recurring Payment Types | 4 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| General Features | 3.75 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Expert Score | 4.69 | OUT OF | 5 |
Square is a top-rated retail point-of-sale (POS) system that covers every base when it comes to accepting credit cards—including recurring payments. Like everything else with Square, recurring payments are simple to set up and easy to manage long term.
Square offers affordable pricing (including no chargeback fees), free software for billing, invoicing, virtual terminal, stored payments, and an online store. This makes Square our top pick with a score of 4.2 out of 5. It also provides a free payment authorization template, which businesses need to have customers sign before implementing recurring payments.
Square’s recurring payments features include:
- Startup and monthly fees: $0
- Recurring payment and card-on-file processing fee: 3.5% plus 15 cents per transaction
- Non-recurring invoice and ecommerce transaction fee: 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction
- Payments accepted: Credit and debit cards and digital wallet payments including Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Square Pay
- Mobile app: Manage invoices, recurring billing, and reports from a free mobile app in addition to Square’s web-based dashboard
- Multiple invoice types: Create estimates, recurring invoices, card-on-file recurring billing, progress-based invoices, and multi-package invoices
Automated reminders: For upcoming and overdue payments.
How to Set up Recurring Payments With Square
Square’s PCI-compliant payment system allows your customers to store their credit card information as a card-on-file in Square’s secure payments vault. Customers can enter this information via a link from your emailed invoice, or you can enter this on their behalf using your Square POS system or the virtual terminal in your online dashboard.
Set custom reminders for each recurring payment.
Recurring payments are triggered by Square’s invoicing function. When invoices are run—either individually or in a batch—any card-on-file customer payments are automatically charged. Customers are then notified of the payment via email with a “paid” invoice receipt.
From your Square dashboard, easily see whether or not an invoice has been viewed.
The entire process is quick and requires very little setup or ongoing management. Being invoice-based, Square recurring payments make it easy to process regular payments plus add-on charges as needed. Added fees can be entered as a separate invoice or added to regular recurring charges—whatever fits the billing need.
PayPal
PROS
- Accept PayPal payments
- Accept partial payments
- Mobile app
CONS
- Monthly fee for subscriptions
- ACH and card-on-file payments only available through BrainTree
| RATING CRITERIA | Pricing & contract | 4.25 | OUT OF | 5 |
| Recurring Payment Types | 3.75 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| General Features | 3.25 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Expert Score | 4.69 | OUT OF | 5 |
PayPal is one of the best ways to accept credit card payments online, and it’s easy to manage online automatic repeat payments via online invoicing, email marketing, and website sales. PayPal recurring payment is an ideal solution for online-based businesses that need to bill customers for online memberships, repeat services, and subscriptions.
Affordable pay-as-you-go pricing, user-friendly invoicing tools, virtual terminal, fast payouts, and the ability to accept PayPal and PayPal Credit payments earned PayPal a 3.84 out of 5 in our evaluation. However, ACH and card-on-file processing is only available through PayPal’s BrainTree which requires a different account and application.
PayPal recurring payment features include:
- Monthly fees: $0 – $40 ($10 plus $30 for the needed Virtual Terminal feature)
- Recurring payment processing fee: 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction
- Payments accepted: PayPal payments, PayPal Credit, Venmo, credit and debit cards, digital wallet payments
- Customer portal: Customers can manage their own subscriptions including options to upgrade, pause, or cancel. Options to set free or discounted trial periods.
- Automated tools: PayPal will send reminders and payment notifications and automatically retry failed transactions
- Global features: Over 100 currencies
How to Accept Recurring Payments With PayPal
There are two main ways to accept recurring payments with PayPal: invoices and subscriptions. Either way, the first step in accepting recurring payments is by opening a free PayPal business account. PayPal also offers other features like tidy online shopping cart integrations. Plus, your per-transaction fee is lower than Square’s and a few others on our list—just 2.9% plus 30 cents per sale. PayPal also provides lower fees for nonprofits, which can be helpful for nonprofits setting up a subscription donation program.
Creating a Subscription in PayPal
To create a subscription, click on “Pay and Get Paid” in your PayPal dashboard. Then, click “Manage Subscriptions.”
First, you’ll need to enter the physical product, digital product, or service you want to create a subscription for. Then, choose how you want the subscription billing cycle to work—subscribers can pay the same rate each cycle or a variable rate based on the quantity of product.
Next, you’ll create a subscription plan description, set pricing, and tax settings. You can also choose to add on a set-up fee. Then, choose how you’ll bill customers, payment frequency, and set free trials. After you’re done setting up the product and pricing information, you can add “Subscribe” buttons to product pages, blog posts, and marketing emails.
Setting up PayPal Recurring Invoices
You can create, send, and manage recurring invoices with a PayPal Business account. From the user dashboard, create a new invoice and select a recurring option under the “Frequency” dropdown. You can create and save contacts, products, and services. Plus, you can add your business logo and information for a more professional look.
PayPal’s standard invoicing can also be used to set up recurring payments.
After adding recipients and products, choose tether to allow partial payments and tips. Add any relevant notes (like shipping or return information) and attach files such as work orders or estimates.
QuickBooks Payments
PROS
- Affordable ACH processing
- Automated reminders and real-time alerts
CONS
- Not ideal for ecommerce or product sales
- Requires QuickBooks Online account
| RATING CRITERIA | Pricing & contract | 4.25 | OUT OF | 5 |
| Recurring Payment Types | 5 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| General Features | 2.25 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Expert Score | 4.38 | OUT OF | 5 |
QuickBooks Online users can use QuickBooks Payments’ automatic payments feature to process payments seamlessly within QuickBooks. This feature lets you offer your customers the convenience of automated payments for whatever type of repeat service or purchase you provide—from dance lessons to donation collections to beer-of-the-month club payments.
QuickBooks’ robust recurring billing and invoicing tools, along with affordable ACH and stored payment processing earned it a 3.8 out of 5. However, QuickBooks Payments requires a QuickBooks Online subscription and is best suited for individuals and small businesses like service providers, not storefronts or anyone selling products.
QuickBooks Online recurring payment features include:
- Payments accepted: Credit and debit cards, ACH, and eCheck payments
- Cannot accept: PayPal payments
- Monthly fees: $25+
- Invoiced transaction fees: 2.9% + 25 cents per transaction
- ACH payments: 1% (max $10)
How to Accept Recurring Payments With QuickBooks
Like the other automatic repeat payment solutions on our list, QuickBooks Payments saves your customers’ payment data in a secure vault. To enable recurring payments in QuickBooks, simply click a button when you create a sales receipt. QuickBooks has a handy tutorial that walks you through the process step by step for both the QuickBooks Online and Desktop versions.
Easily see what scheduled payments have cards on file.
(Source: QuickBooks)
After you create and schedule the initial recurring payment for your customer, QuickBooks has a final step. It prints a customer authorization form for your client to sign. This keeps everything nice and tidy—and keeps the lawyers happy too. Other providers, like Square, PayPal, and Stripe, record authorizations electronically, but QuickBooks also provides a hard copy for your files.
Stax by Fattmerchant
PROS
- Customers can pay invoices via email and SMS text
- Automatically update customers’ expired and changed card numbers
- Wholesale payment processing rates
CONS
- High monthly fee
- Not ideal for product-based subscription businesses
| RATING CRITERIA | Pricing & contract | 3.25 | OUT OF | 5 |
| Recurring Payment Types | 5 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| General Features | 2.5 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Expert Score | 4.63 | OUT OF | 5 |
Stax by Fattmerchant is different from the other payment processing providers on this list in that it offers subscription-style payment processing services. With Stax by Fattmerchant, you pay more upfront, but if you are a high-volume business, you’ll pay less overall per transaction.
With other payment processing companies, total processing expenses are less predictable because fees are mostly tied to transaction size. With Stax by Fattmerchant, you have a good handle on the total you’ll pay for payment processing upfront, and hence, you can predict your expenses more accurately month over month.
Stax by Fattmerchant recurring payment features include:
- Monthly fee: $99 – $199 based on plan
- Recurring payment processing fee: 12 – 15 cents per transaction plus direct-cost interchange fees
- Payments accepted: Credit and debit cards, ACH and eCheck
- Cannot accept: PayPal payments
- Omni software: Send email and text invoices, store payment information, manage customers, view reports, and more through the Omni Dashboard.
- Automated features: Charge customer payment information stored on-file according to pre-set schedules, send payment reminders, update expired card information, and sync with QuickBooks accounting—all automatically.
How to Accept Recurring Payments With Stax by Fattmerchant
When setting up an invoice in Stax by Fattmerchant, you have the option to create a single invoice or a recurring invoice. If you want to set up a recurring payment or invoice, simply navigate to the Advanced Payment option in Stax by Fattmerchant’s Omni dashboard. From there, you can enter the price you want to charge and the invoicing frequency schedule.
Set up a recurring payment on Stax by Fattmerchant by navigating to the Advanced Payment option in the Omni dashboard and clicking on the Setup Recurring Invoice bar. (Source: Stax by Fattmerchant)
You have the option of sending recurring invoices that customers will need to click to pay, or storing payment information on file and automatically charging customers according to the set schedule.
PaySimple
PROS
- Membership and other automation features
- Good customer support
CONS
- Tiered (unpredictable) processing fees
- Monthly subscription fee
| RATING CRITERIA | Pricing & contract | 4.25 | OUT OF | 5 |
| Recurring Payment Types | 5 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| General Features | 2.25 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Expert Score | 2.94 | OUT OF | 5 |
PaySimple is more than a payment processor. It’s a full-service platform with a particularly strong membership, subscription, order, event, and booking management features. With PaySimple, you can create your own secure online sign-up forms or standalone membership site, accept one-time and recurring payments, and manage it all within PaySimple’s tidy package.
In our evaluation, PaySimple earned a 3.51 out of 5 for recurring payment services. PaySimple follows a tiered pricing model, which means the transaction rates you pay will vary based on the transaction and customer payment type. In general, we recommend businesses opt for merchant services with a flat-rate or interchange-plus pricing model. However, PaySimple’s subscription and membership features make it a viable option for this particular use case.
PaySimple’s recurring payment features include:
- Monthly fees: $59.95
- Recurring payment processing fee: Starting at 2.49% per transaction (rates will vary)
- ACH and eCheck processing fee: .2% + 60 cents per transaction
- Payments accepted: Credit and debit cards, e-wallet payments, ACH, eCheck
- Cannot accept: PayPal payments
How to Accept Recurring Payments With PaySimple
Recurring payments are a built-in feature of PaySimple’s online sales platform. With PaySimple, you get an array of online tools that let you accept and manage all sorts of customer registrations, memberships, and subscriptions. It also provides robust booking management tools, complete with prepayments and deposits.
PaySimple’s software makes it easy to set up custom recurring payments.
(Source: PaySimple)
In PaySimple, recurring payments can be initiated by your customer via online forms on your PaySimple registration or membership website. Or, you can create them yourself in the PaySimple dashboard on a customer’s behalf using the Manage Recurring Payments tab.
In the PaySimple dashboard, you can set up repeat billing schedules, manually process or refund payments, and manually initiate or cancel subscriber accounts. PaySimple will even prorate monthly billing amounts automatically.
Stripe
PROS
- Excellent developer tools
- International payment options
- Sophisticated billing logic
CONS
- Takes longer to set up and requires technical skill to maintain
- In-app payment features require coding
| RATING CRITERIA | Pricing & contract | 4.25 | OUT OF | 5 |
| Recurring Payment Types | 4.5 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| General Features | 1.25 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Expert Score | 4.69 | OUT OF | 5 |
Stripe is a leading online payment processing solution and a major competitor of PayPal in general. Like PayPal, Stripe delivers excellent recurring payment options for online subscription sales, online blogs, e-learning memberships, and online invoicing. It even supports mobile app-based services that handle in-app subscription services payments.
Stripe is a developer-friendly solution with open-source code and plenty of toolkits and APIs. This flexibility, combined with an impressive array of language and currency options, and plug-and-play solutions that can work with any website earned Stripe a 3.36 out of 5 in our evaluation. However, Stripe is trickier to set up and maintain than the other solutions on our list, and in some cases, will require technical skill.
Stripe’s recurring payment features include:
- Monthly fee: $0
- Payment processing fee: 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction
- ACH credit payments: $1
- Recurring payments: Additional 0.5%
- Payments accepted: Credit and debit cards, e-wallet payments, ACH, eCheck, plus over 135 currencies.
- Cannot accept: PayPal payments
- Flexible billing logic: Charge per-seat, metered pricing based on use, multiple membership options, pricing tiers, flat rate, and flat rate plus overage charges. Also account for trials, discounts, and prorates.
- Automated tools: Payment and past-due reminders, automatic card updater to update new numbers and expired dates, retry failed payments, membership renewals, and prorated billing when customers change plans.
How to Accept Recurring Payments With Stripe
Stripe recurring payments are simple to set up and integrate into most ecommerce platforms and blog sites. In fact, many online subscription box marketplaces like CrateJoy seamlessly integrate with Stripe as their primary payment solution. Setup takes just seconds.
Using Stripe, you can quickly attach subscription payments to most ecommerce platforms using Stripe’s automated integrations. Or, you can create quick pop-up membership or subscription forms that easily embed in your blog or website pages, and even in emails and online apps.
Stripe makes it easy to create custom subscription checkouts.
(Source: Stripe)
Like the other online recurring payment solutions on our list, Stripe saves your customer’s payment data in their PCI-compliant virtual vault to ensure security. Plus, Stripe can send e-receipts to notify customers that their automated payment has been successfully processed.
Wave
PROS
- No monthly fee, free invoicing and accounting software
- Low-cost ACH processing
- No additional fees for card-on-file or recurring payment transactions
CONS
- No phone support
- Slower, 2-day payout time
- Higher fees for American Express transactions
| RATING CRITERIA | Pricing & contract | 4.25 | OUT OF | 5 |
| Recurring Payment Types | 4 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| General Features | 2.25 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Expert Score | 3.5 | OUT OF | 5 |
Wave is a free, user-friendly invoicing and accounting software that can also be used to set up recurring invoices and payments. Switch between card-on-file payments to automatically charge customers and send a receipt based on whatever billing cycle you choose, or opt to send automated invoices that customers can pay manually. Invoices can be customized to match your branding.
Wave’s free invoicing tools, plus free accounting software with reporting for payments, payroll, taxes, cash flow, and more earned it a score of 3.33 out of 5. While these tools are a great resource for individuals, small businesses could quickly outgrow the limited-feature platform.
Wave’s recurring billing features include:
- Monthly fee: $0
- Credit card processing fee: 2.9% + 30 cents
- American Express processing fee: 3.4% + 30 cents
- ACH / bank payment fee: 1% ($1 minimum)
- Automated tools: Payment receipts, past-due reminders, send out recurring invoices, charge clients based on a set schedule, and invoices sync with accounting.
How to Accept Recurring Payments With Wave
The first step for accepting payments with Wave is to create a free Wave account. Once you’re signed up, you can choose to create individual invoices, or set up a recurring invoice, including options to save your customers’ payment information. There are also options to build payment plans.
Wave’s user-friendly dashboard and invoicing tool makes it easy to setup and track recurring invoices.
From the dashboard, you can see at-a-glance invoices that are past-due, outstanding, unsent, or up-coming invoices, and when your next payout is. Like Square and PayPal, Wave can also be used to create and send estimates that can then be converted into invoices.
Who Should Use Recurring Payments
Invoice-based recurring payments are ideal for:
- Service providers: Lawn care, house cleaning, personal training, and child care can process automatic repeat payments via single or batch invoices.
- Monthly tuition or lesson fees: Fitness clubs, music lesson providers, dance studios, and tutoring businesses can run invoices and automated payments on a monthly basis.
- Subscription services or club sales: Wine-of-the-month clubs and store loyalty programs can use recurring payments to automate monthly club sales or fees.
Online recurring payment solutions are ideal for:
- Subscription box businesses: Subscription box sellers use online websites and marketplaces to sell subscriptions, then automatically run recurring charges for subscribers before shipping scheduled boxes.
- E-learning academies: E-learning businesses make online course content and instruction accessible on an ongoing basis via an online checkout with scheduled recurring payments.
- Membership blogs with restricted content: Informational bloggers can manage access to members-only content using recurring membership payments.
- Online services: Recurring payments are what make all types of online services possible, including software as a service (SaaS), online advertising, gaming products, virtual service providers, and mobile apps.
If you’re selling anything online that auto-renews or requires periodic automatic payments, you’ll need a payment processor that can handle the recurring transactions. The easier you make it for customers to pay you, the better.
Costs of Processing Recurring Payments
Recurring payment processing fees are typically a small percentage of the transaction total. Each payment provider sets its credit card processing fees and some tack on monthly account fees. For example, Square charges 3.5% plus 15 cents per recurring payment, so a $100 charge costs $3.65 in fees. With Square, that’s all you’ll pay because Square has no other account fees.
Some automatic payment solutions match Square’s no-monthly-fee model, such as Stripe and certain QuickBooks Payments plans. In contrast, Stax by Fattmerchant and PaySimple both charge monthly fees for recurring payments but both providers have lower per-transaction fees.
You’ll also want to consider other payment processing services or perks that these providers offer. Value-added benefits such as Square’s free business management suite or QuickBooks Payments’ seamless integration with QuickBooks, might be the deciding factor.
How We Evaluated Recurring Payment Processors
The best recurring payment processor for you will really depend on the size of your business and the type of products or services you sell and whether they require invoicing, subscriptions, memberships, or something in between. However, we evaluated recurring payment processors based on general pricing, including transaction fees and overall pricing transparency, the types of recurring payments they can handle, and general features like customer support and payout times. Plus we considered the overall value each system offers, how easy it is to use, and took into account customer reviews along with our personal experience interacting with the product and customer support teams.
15% of Overall Score
We prioritized payment processors that don’t require monthly minimums, contracts, or have monthly fees. We also awarded points to solutions that have no or minimal chargeback fees, which can be especially important for subscription and membership-based businesses.
30% of Overall Score
While all the solutions on our list process recurring invoices, we awarded extra points to ones that offer low-cost ACH processing which can greatly reduce business expenses, card-on-file payments that guarantee on-time payments, and virtual terminals which are helpful for accepting payments over the phone.
35% of Overall Score
Cashflow is important to small businesses, so we awarded points to solutions with the same or next-day payouts. We also prioritized 24-7 phone support and tools for managing customer accounts. Recurring card-on-file payments also require customers to sign a payment authorization form, so we looked at whether each processor offers a template or has this feature included.
20% of Overall Score
In general, payment processors should offer transparent, predictable pricing. We also considered any stand-out features and the overall value each system offers for its price. Finally, we considered general account stability, ease of use, and user reviews.
Bottom Line
Based on our evaluation, we recommend Square as the best overall recurring payment processor for most small businesses. Affordability and flexibility are the key reasons Square tops our list for the best recurring invoice payment provider.
A free Square account includes card-on-file payments, a virtual terminal, invoicing software with automation tools, plus a free website and mobile app to accept payments online or in-person. Sign up for a free account and start accepting recurring payments today.
Salam Jaber
Hello, great article. Very informative. I own a hookah lounge and am planning to roll out a monthly membership for customers to smoke unlimited for a flat fee. What would be the best route for this scenario? I currently use the clover POS system.
Amanda Norman
Hi Salam,
Thanks for visiting the site! Glad you like the article. Are you looking to integrate recurring payments with your current POS? It appears they’ve release a Membership app feature that would allow you to do this. You can read more about that here, https://blog.clover.com/product-news/new-notable-in-the-clover-app-market-june-2018/.
Hope this helps. Thanks for reading!
Mandy, Moderator
Salam Jaber
Thanks for the information…
Jayleyne Goltz
We are a law firm that wants to collect monthly recurring payments. We are a service so we do not need to invoice, but can have that option. If we are not selling a product, which payment provider would you recommend? Also, we want to be able to link it to our website so which service would be best for that other than PayPal? We are trying to figure out if PayPal would be better than Square and/or Due based on your recommendations, but any one of them has to be able to link to our website.
Krista Fabregas
Hi Jayleyne,
Both PayPal and Square will link to most website platforms. Since you don’t mention the platform you use, I can’t say for certain, but both PayPal and Square are pretty universal, so either should work for you. Of the two, PayPal has a better recurring payments feature since it’s a true hands-off auto payment. Square’s recurring payment feature is tied to its invoicing function. So, with Square, you have to create an invoice to trigger the auto-pay each month. It sounds like PayPal might be the better option for you since clients can register for the auto-pay feature via your website, then it runs automatically to charge clients the set rate each month. However, if you have to change that amount each month, Square’s invoicing/auto pay might be the better option since you can set the payment amount with each monthly invoice. I hope this answers your question, good luck!
Cheers,
Krista
Gary Bravo
For Quick books recurring payments What is the diffence between option 1 & 2? Besides the fees. Do I have to qualify for option 1?
Krista Fabregas
Quickbooks Desktop options 1 and 2 have the same qualification and application. The only difference is the $0 monthly fee and higher rate vs. the $20 monthly fee and lower rate. Depending on your credit card volume, one might save you more than the other per month. However, if you process more than $7500/mo. in credit cards you can get lower rates, and that is a pre-qualified application based on your average monthly charges. I hope this answers your question and thanks for reading! Cheers, Krista