Subscription Based Billing [closed]

Question

I'm putting together a small start up company which will be set up with a subscription based billing model. The bill will go to customers on either a monthly or quarterly basis depending on the end user's preference. My question is two parted:

1. I'm new to online billing and I'm only really aware of Pay Pal when it comes to third party bill payment, but this seems more like a check out system. I'm sure there are better alternatives than PayPal for third party billing processors (I have tried Googling for them, but I'm having trouble finding exactly what I'm looking for). What options (companies) are available for third party payment processing and what types of experiences (good or bad) have you had with them?

2. We would like to give our customers the ability to set up recurring payments. I'd rather not store a customer's credit card number on our database as I imagine there are a plethora of compliance guidelines around this. Is there a third party solution for recurring payment processing?

On a side note, this is not necessarily a code related question and is more business focused. I wasn't sure if there was a better route for posting this question, and please commont or modify this if there is another route I should take.

Answer 1

You can also look into Amazon Flexible Payment System. I implemented this for a customer and the API, at least, was very easy to work with, and Amazon seems solid and trustworthy as near as I have been able to tell.

Answer 2

Take a look at http://chargify.com/

Answer 3

There are many business out there that will fit the bill. Be sure to look for a solution that believes in Credit Card Data Portability - which means that they'll transfer your credit card data to another vendor should you want to leave them in the future.

You have many, many options. Take a look at Recurly (where I work), Chargify, Stripe, CheddarGetter, Authorize.net's ARB, PayPal's recurring billing, Braintree, etc.