How do I support automatic or recurring billing for subscriptions?
SOLO Server integrated eCommerce
Our integrated shopping cart supports automatic recurring billing if you are using a compatible payment gateway, such as PayPal Pro with the PayFlow Pro payment gateway.
In SOLO Server, you will configure a payment plan, which can be customized to charge the customer on any interval and automatically renew the license or maintenance subscription. If the payment fails, the license will expire due to the expiration date, or you can immediately disable the license in SOLO Server.
SOLO Server can automatically email customers a custom Pending Payment Plan Notification mailing X days before a payment plan charge is attempted, and it can even be configured to only notify customers if their credit card will be expired when the upcoming charge is attempted. The customer will be able to log into the Customer License Portal to update their credit card details.
FastSpring
If you are not using our integrated eCommerce, our integration with FastSpring also supports automatic recurring billing. In this case, you will need to use the Approach 2: License Status as described in this post to enforce subscription licensing. FastSpring sets the Status of the License ID to Expired when a subscription is not renewed, as opposed to Approach 1 which updates the expiration date of the license when a subscription is renewed.
Other eCommerce Solutions
It is also possible to integrate with your own eCommerce solution using our web services. This will allow you to programmatically add and update customers and licenses to SOLO Server. We recommend using Approach 2: License Status as described in this post as the simplest way to enforce recurring subscription licensing.
Note that more advanced integrations can be become complex quite quickly, and we do offer our Professional Services if you need guidance on integrating with other systems.