Recurring Payment For Credit Cards

Question

The gateway I am using is Cardsave (http://www.cardsave.net). I obviously can't store credit cards on my servers, but to store credit cards on their servers, there needs to be an initial transaction. I am writing a billing management website that customers are going to be migrating to from other systems. There wouldn't be a reason to have their clients pay in between billing cycles.

The only solution I can think of is making a small payment to the credit card (like $1, PayPal style) and then either crediting this amount back to the customer on the next billing cycle, or issuing a refund. Is this the correct approach?

Is this the common way of handling recurring monthly 'subscriptions' where the amount is variable every month and don't start right away. For instance, is this how trial periods that require your credit card information to start is handled?

Answer 1

$1 charges are no longer allowed by Visa and MasterCard. You can do $0 authorizations so if your processor allows that you'll probably be able to do your original plan.

Some payment gateway providers, like Authorize.Net, offer services that allow you to create payment profiles and charge against them at any time for any amount. Their service is called Customer Information Manager. You should see if your provider offers a similar service.

Answer 2

For Cardsave Payment gateway you have Automated Subscriptions and Cross Reference Transaction Code Examples

For the reference check out this link: Click Here