PayFast Subscription Billing

With managed subscription billing switched on for PayFast, your customer saves their card on PayFast's payment page at checkout, and CheckoutJoy collects every renewal through your PayFast account.

What PayFast merchants get

• Subscriptions - renewals collected on the billing date, for as long as the subscription runs
• Payment plans - a fixed number of payments, then the plan completes on its own
• Free trials - nothing is charged at checkout and the first payment is collected when the trial ends
• Setup fees - charged at checkout, with or without a free trial
• Automatic retries - a declined renewal is retried on a schedule
• Customer emails - sent when a payment fails and when a subscription ends
• Card updates - on PayFast's secure card update page
• Pause, resume and cancel - from your CheckoutJoy dashboard

How it works

1. Checkout. Your customer pays on PayFast's payment page as usual. PayFast saves the card and gives CheckoutJoy a token for it. The card details stay with PayFast.
2. Renewals. On each billing date CheckoutJoy asks PayFast to charge the saved card. The payment appears in your PayFast account and settles the way your other PayFast payments do.
3. Confirmation. CheckoutJoy confirms the result with PayFast, records the payment on the order and moves the billing date forward.
4. Declines. A declined renewal starts failed payment recovery: your customer is emailed and the payment is retried on a schedule.

Capabilities

Currency

PayFast charges in ZAR. If your product is priced in another currency, CheckoutJoy converts the recurring amount to ZAR once, at checkout, using the latest exchange rate. That same ZAR amount is charged on every renewal.

Free trials

When a product has a free trial, your customer still goes through PayFast's payment page so that the card can be saved. Nothing is charged for the subscription. The first payment is collected when the trial ends. If the product has a setup fee, the fee is charged at checkout.

Updating a card

Your customer signs in to your Customer Portal, opens the order and chooses Update Payment Method. They are taken to PayFast's secure card update page to enter the new card. The next retry in the schedule uses the new card.

Before you turn it on

• Passphrase. Set a passphrase in your PayFast dashboard and save the same passphrase under Settings > Payment Methods in CheckoutJoy. CheckoutJoy uses it to charge saved cards and to verify every payment notification from PayFast. If the two do not match, payments cannot be confirmed.
• Customer Portal. Set up your Customer Portal, so that customers have a place to update their card.

Then contact CheckoutJoy support and ask for managed subscription billing on PayFast.

Frequently asked questions

What happens to my existing PayFast subscriptions?

They carry on as they are. Subscriptions sold before managed billing was switched on keep renewing through PayFast's recurring billing. Subscriptions sold after the switch are collected by CheckoutJoy.

Where do I see the renewal payments?

In both places. Each renewal appears on the order in your CheckoutJoy dashboard and as a payment in your PayFast account.

Will I still see a subscription in my PayFast dashboard?

The saved card and each payment appear in your PayFast account. The schedule itself, meaning the billing dates, retries and status, is kept in CheckoutJoy, so manage the subscription from your CheckoutJoy dashboard.

Which payment methods can be used for a managed subscription?

A card, because the renewals are charged to the card saved at checkout.