Recurring billing is a convenient, attractive, and easy way to encourage larger carts and better conversion rates by providing your customers with flexible ways to pay for goods and services. Customers can take advantage of recurring billing through subscription (paying for goods and services on a repeated schedule) and financing (buying now and paying later).

Recurring billing is especially useful for businesses that sell big-ticket items, subscriptions and services, or businesses with average carts of over $100. Shoppers who may not feel comfortable spending a large sum of money at one time often find these purchases more accessible when they are broken down into smaller payments over time.

On BigCommerce, an app or specific payment gateway is required to add this functionality.  Not only do these apps and gateways add recurring billing as an option for your business, but experienced online shoppers will recognize and trust these payment methods — which can lead to better conversion rates for your store.  To learn more, see Why You Should Use a Subscription Business Model (entrepreneur.com) and Offering Layaways (ftc.gov).

 

Please note: If you are looking for information on billing for your BigCommerce plan, see Paying Your BigCommerce Invoice.

 

Types of Recurring Billing

Any time that a customer is charged at regular intervals is considered recurring billing. There are a couple models that are common for recurring billing:

Subscription — a product or service that is purchased on a repeated schedule. For example, a shopper may set up a schedule to purchase pet food every two weeks, or sign up for a monthly gift box of pet treats.

Layaway or "Buy Now, Pay Later" — a shopper pays for one item or order over a period of time. For example, a shopper may pay $25 for a $100 item, and continues to pay the $75 difference over two months.

 

Recurring Billing with BigCommerce

To offer recurring billing in BigCommerce, there are several apps in our App Marketplace that allow you to add this functionality to your store: 

  • Bold Subscriptions — subscriptions
  • ReCharge Subscriptions — subscriptions   
  • Bread Finance —  flexible financing, flexible payment plans, and pre-qualifications 
  • PayWhirl — subscriptions, payment plans, layaway plans, pre-orders and more
  • Rebillia — subscriptions, recurring billing and credit card saving
  • MiniBC — automated recurring billing & credit card vaulting
  • Partial.ly — flexible payment plans in 25 countries
  • Credit Key (B2B US businesses only) — flexible payment solutions
  • Ordergroove — best-in-class subscription, membership, box, and reordering programs

Some apps may require your store to use legacy checkout, which may not be available in your store's control panel. We recommend confirming with the app developer before installing.

Some payment gateways offered on BigCommerce have features that allow merchants to offer a buy now, pay later option. In both offers, the payment gateway assumes responsibility for collecting the funds, but the merchant receives the full payment when the order is placed. 

  • Klarna Payments — offers various payment options to customers, allowing them to pay over time 
  • PayPal Pay Later — allows shoppers to buy now and pay later with their PayPal account
  • Afterpay and Clearpay — breaks transactions into four equal installments due every two weeks
  • Affirm — allows customers to pay over time
  • Laybuy — breaks transactions into six weekly installments
  • Mollie — allows merchants to set up recurring charges via SEPA Direct Debit
  • Sezzle — allows customers to split their purchase into four installments due every two weeks
  • Zip — allows customers to buy now and pay later with interest-free payments for the first three months
  • Adyen — offer revolving and installment payments in Brazil and Mexico
  • dLocal — allows merchants to set up subscriptions and recurring payments
  • Stripe — enable subscription payments with Stripe Billing
  • Commonwealth Bank — allows merchants to set up recurring payments
  • Optty — allows merchants to integrate with several "buy now, pay later" payment providers

In addition to the payment gateways listed above, all gateways that support stored payment instruments can be used to set up recurring billing via the Payments API.

 

Using PayPal or Braintree for subscriptions? Consider using Account Updater, a paid optional feature from Braintree to that automatically updates expired and recently changed stored card information. This ensures that stored card information is always current, leading to positive customer experiences. See our documentation on using Account Updater with PayPal and Braintree for more information

 

FAQ

Can I offer recurring billing if my business or customers are located in India?

India has additional limits for offering recurring billing to customers. We recommend contacting your recurring billing solution to determine if it supports transactions in India.