Introducing managed subscription billing for PayFast and Paystack

CheckoutJoy now runs your subscription billing for PayFast and Paystack. We collect every renewal on the day it is due, retry failed payments on a schedule, and email your customer each time so they can fix their card before they lose access.

If you sell a membership, a course subscription or a payment plan, you already know the quiet problem with recurring revenue. A card expires. An account is short on the 25th. The bank declines a charge for no clear reason. Nobody cancelled, yet the payment did not arrive, and unless someone follows up that customer is gone.

This is called involuntary churn, and it is the easiest churn to win back. Most of these customers still want what you sell. They need a second attempt and a nudge. Managed subscription billing does both for you, automatically.

Why we built it

PayFast and Paystack are the gateways your customers already know and trust. They move the money safely, and we are proud to build on them. What we wanted to add is everything that happens around a renewal: deciding when to try again, telling your customer what happened, and making it easy for them to put it right.

A subscription is worth the most while it is still alive. As long as your subscriber's details are on file, one successful retry or one updated card brings the revenue back. Once a subscription has ended, the only way back is a brand new checkout, and every extra step loses a few more people. So we set ourselves one goal: keep every subscription alive for as long as there is a fair chance of collecting the payment, and make the fix effortless.

With managed billing, CheckoutJoy looks after the subscription on top of your gateway and keeps your subscriber's details on file for the whole recovery window. While we have them, we do everything that can be done to bring that payment in:

Retries you control. The spacing of the attempts is set for your business.
Reminders that carry the fix. Your customer gets an email after every failed attempt, and every email has the link.
One link, one page. A click opens a secure page. They enter the new card, save, and they are done.
No second checkout. The subscription never has to be bought again.
Nothing for you to do. No follow-ups, no spreadsheets, no awkward emails. The system does all of it.

Because the process is managed from the first decline to the last retry, and almost all of the friction is gone for your customer, you will most likely see less churn and more recovered revenue.

What is new

Until now, PayFast and Paystack subscriptions sold through CheckoutJoy were scheduled by the gateway. With managed billing, CheckoutJoy keeps the schedule and charges the card your customer saved at checkout. That one change unlocks everything below.

Renewals collected on time. Every subscription is charged within the hour it falls due, whether you bill daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly.
Automatic payment retries. A declined renewal is retried four more times over 28 days. You do nothing.
Dunning emails that explain what happened. Your customer hears from you after every failed payment, with the reason in plain words, the date of the next attempt and a button to update their payment details.
Instant recovery when the card is fixed. When a customer updates their card, we retry straight away instead of waiting for the next scheduled attempt.
Payment plans that finish on their own. Set the number of payments and the plan completes after the last one. No reminders, no manual cancelling.
Free trials. Offer a trial on PayFast and Paystack. The first payment is collected when the trial ends.
Pause and resume. Pause a subscription from your dashboard and pick it up again later, either on the old billing date or from today.
A full payment history. Each subscription shows every attempt, every decline reason and every recovery on one timeline.

How failed payment recovery works

A single declined card should not end a subscription. When a renewal fails, the subscription moves to Past Due and CheckoutJoy starts a retry schedule. Your customer keeps their access while we try again.

Day 0, renewal. The card is charged. If the bank declines, the customer gets an email.
Day 3, retry 1. We charge again. Still declined: another email with the next date.
Day 7, retry 2. Same again, a week after the first try.
Day 14, retry 3. Same again.
Day 28, retry 4. The final attempt.

As soon as a retry succeeds, the subscription is Active again. The next renewal stays on the original billing date, so one late payment never shifts the cycle.

Every email tells the customer why the payment failed when the bank gives a reason, such as insufficient funds or an expired card. It names the date we will try again and links to a page where they can update their payment details. Replies go to your address, not ours.

If all five attempts fail, the subscription ends. Your customer gets a final email, and your course platform or membership site is told, so access is removed without you lifting a finger. The spacing of the retries and what happens after the last one can be adjusted for your account.

Subscription billing for PayFast

PayFast merchants in South Africa get recurring billing in rand with recovery built in. Your customer approves a PayFast tokenization agreement once at checkout, and CheckoutJoy charges that token for each renewal.

Free trials start without an upfront charge.
Failed card payments are retried on the schedule above.
Customers update their card on PayFast's own secure page, so card details never touch your site.

Subscription billing for Paystack

Paystack merchants in Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa can now sell subscriptions without creating a Plan in the Paystack dashboard. Your customer pays by card at checkout, and CheckoutJoy charges the saved card for each renewal.

Free trials are now possible on Paystack. We verify the card with a small charge and refund it.
If a bank asks for extra authentication on a renewal, the email takes the customer straight to the Paystack page that completes it.
Billing works in NGN, GHS, ZAR and USD.

What this means for your business

More of your recurring revenue arrives. A payment that fails on the 1st has four more chances to succeed before the subscription ends.
Fewer customers lost by accident. People who never meant to cancel get a clear email and an easy way to fix the problem.
No more chasing payments. You stop checking for failed renewals, sending reminder emails and switching access on and off by hand.
Access always matches payment. Your course platform hears about a subscription ending at the moment it ends, not weeks later when you notice.
One place to see what happened. When a customer asks why they were charged or why they lost access, the answer is on their timeline.
More ways to sell. Trials and fixed-length payment plans now work on the gateways your local customers already trust.

How to get managed subscription billing

Managed billing is switched on per account by our support team. Send us a message, tell us whether you use PayFast, Paystack or both, and we will enable it. Every subscription and payment plan sold after that is billed and recovered by CheckoutJoy.

Read the subscription billing guide for the details, or see the feature overview.

Frequently asked questions

What happens to my existing subscriptions? Nothing changes for them. Subscriptions that already run on the gateway's schedule keep running there. Managed billing applies to subscriptions sold after it is switched on.

Do customers keep access while a payment is being retried? Yes. Access is only removed if every retry fails and the subscription ends.

Can I change the retry schedule? Yes. The number of days between retries, and whether a subscription expires or is cancelled after the last attempt, are set per account. Ask support to adjust them.

What does a customer do when their payment fails? They click the button in the email and update their payment details. We retry the payment straight away.

Which payment gateways are supported? PayFast and Paystack. Subscriptions on other gateways continue to use the gateway's own recurring billing.