Cart software with recurring billing

[mobilemaverick]

Hi guys,

As the title says, I'm looking for a cart software that will allow my customers to set up recurring billing. Most of our customers buy the same products every month or every 2 months.

Many have requested we set up recurring billing to save them time. So far I've not have much luck in my search.

Netflix have the exact feature I'm talking about, though maybe it's a custom cart?

If this feature isn't available in any of the existing softwares, what would it cost for a custom cart with such a spec?

Thanks guys

Paul

[ByronM]

x-cart allows re-curring billing but it sounds like you would need customizations to track what is associated with that billing cycle no matter what.

[mobilemaverick]

After a little research, I see many carts and payment gateways offer recurring billing.

Question is, which one is the best option.

[ByronM]

The billing is the easy part.. to me it sounds like you will need something that helps you streamline fulfillment so customers get what they need, when they need it - on time and billed correctly.

[rocknbil]

Here is the problem you will face, in my experience.

You have a database set up on your website that manages membership start and expiration (or in your case, recurrent purchases, but it's the same concept.) When time comes to expire, you have to automatically bill them (at the member's option) and update your database.

Most payment gateways have recurring billing, true, but the ones I've worked with don't have a method of connecting with your site to let it know the renewal (recurrent purchase) went through and update your database. Which leaves you with the tedious task of checking your merchant account daily and manually updating their memberships (adding new purchases.)

I have found two exceptions. payPal has what's called Instant Payment Notification. The idea is when a successful transaction is made, payPal "notifies" a URL on your website that the transaction went through. This URL is a script that updates your database accordingly. The IPN can come through at any time; for a credit card purchase it's semi-instant. For an e-check, which can clear days later, it comes through later. For a renewal subscription, it should work the same way - when the payPal renewal occurs, it sends and IPN to your site you use to update your member's accounts.

The other is a gateway that uses CISP storage. In the initial transaction, you send a variable that says "store this credit card" to the (PCI compliant) gateway. When the transaction is made, the gateway returns a transaction id. You store **only** the last four digits of the CC, the transaction ID, and the expiration date of the CC. No CVV/CVV2.

When it comes time to renew, your site queries the gateway again with a combination of the transaction id, the last four digits, and the expiration date for the CC. The transaction occurs as if another purchase is made, and you update your database based on the response.

The only other option is to store CC's on your site and make ordinary transactions yourself at renewal time, but to do this you need to be PCI compliant which is beyond the means of most merchants.