FAQs

Starting with Recurly

How do I get started with Recurly?

You can begin using Recurly today. Begin by requesting a demo or signing up for a free account to experience Recurly. When you first sign up, you’ll be provided with a sandbox environment which will allow you to experience our solution. Our trial provides access to our features and functionality so you can ensure that Recurly works for your business. Note: that some functionality (e.g. elite features and PayPal transactions) is not available in the sandbox environment. When you’re ready to charge and collect money from customers, you’ll need to connect Recurly to a payment gateway and merchant account.

Do I need my own payment gateway?

Payment gateways are responsible for processing transactions and distributing funds into your merchant bank account. You’ll need to input credentials for your payment gateway (Note: this requires assistance from Recurly for first time Recurly merchants.) Gateway support is dependent on your business location. Applying for a gateway can take several days so you’ll want to plan accordingly. To view a list of supported gateways, visit our Gateway Page.

For help configuring your payment gateway, learn more at Payment Gateway Configuration.

What is credit card data portability and should I be concerned about it?

Credit card data portability means that Recurly will export the credit card data that we store for you to another PCI-certified provider should you ever request we do so. This gives you the option to switch to another service provider if needed, and we require PCI certification in order to keep your credit card data secure. Unlike some cloud computing service providers, Recurly is committed to data portability. It’s important to our customers, and it’s important to us.

How do Recurly’s pricing plans work?

Recurly’s pricing plans charge on a per-transaction basis, % of revenue, and a base monthly fee. A per-transaction fee will be assessed against successful payments, refunds, voids, authorizations, and declines. Recurly does not charge for transactions that failed due to a gateway connection issue. Additional fees apply for using specific optional features (e.g. manual invoicing, Salesforce integration and multi-currency support).

For more information, visit Recurly’s pricing packages or contact Recurly Sales.

Is there a setup fee to use Recurly?

Recurly does not charge a setup fee. You may sign up and start implementing Recurly for free at any time. We only charge our fees once you sign up for a Recurly subscription and are ready to start collecting money.

Does Recurly require a long-term contract?

Recurly is a month-to-month service so there are no long-term commitments, and you can cancel at anytime.

How do I get paid?

Because you have a merchant bank account, the subscribers’ funds processed by Recurly are deposited directly into your account. You should expect to receive your money within a few business days of the transaction, which can vary depending on your banking institution.

Do the Recurly fees include the Merchant Service fees?

No. Financial institutions separately charge their own fees, and merchants are responsible for those merchant account fees.

My customers are located around the world. Will Recurly work for everyone?

In selecting your payment gateway provider, you should consider the location of your business to address your specific needs and requirements. Using Recurly, your customers may come from all over the globe. Multi-currency support is available in the Recurly Professional and Elite editions, and merchants can run transactions in more than one currency through one or more payment gateways that accept the currencies they wish to collect.

Does Recurly support foreign currencies?

Recurly supports over 140 currencies around the world, including USD, EUR, GBP, INR, MXN, and many more. For a full list, please visit our docs.

Can I customize the Hosted Payment Pages?

Hosted payment pages provide merchants with an easy, PCI-compliant approach to get up and running with minimal effort. The look and feel can be customized with your logo and custom background color. Beyond the basic required fields such as name, email address and billing information, you may update your hosted pages to request a variety of additional data from your users including Company Name, VAT Number, and Coupon Codes among others.

Refer to Hosted Payment Pages for additional details.

How can Recurly help me reduce churn?

With subscription-based businesses, unwanted credit card errors drive subscriber churn with recurring credit card transactions failures typically ranging from 5-15%. Recurly’s proprietary decline logic automatically corrects more than 60 common error types without having to reach out to your customers. Our ability to correct and successfully retry these cards prevents lost revenue and increases your customer retention rate. Combined with our Account Updater and Dunning Management capabilities, Recurly not only reduces churn but optimizes revenue opportunities.

Handling Subscriptions

Can I create subscriptions without billing information?

Recurly is designed to handle paid subscriptions, so an account must have billing information before a subscription (fully discounted, or free subscriptions) may be created. However, you can create subscription plans that do not require billing information at sign-up, if there is a free trial. Subscriptions can also be created without billing information if the collection method is manual.

What happens to accounts (customers) that subscribe to a plan if I change the price or delete the plan?

Recurly supports price grandfathering. When a subscription plan changes, your existing subscribers will remain grandfathered in at the terms they agreed to. New subscribers will be subscribed with the updated pricing terms. Price grandfathering does not apply to changes in bill cycle (i.e., monthly to yearly), however, so changes to billing frequency should be made with a new subscription plan.

How does billing work in shorter months, such as February?

Customers are always charged on the closest corresponding date of the following month. For example, a customer who would normally be billed on the 31st of a month will either be billed on the 30th of a 30-day month, or on the 28th of February.

Does Recurly support one-time transactions as well?

Yes. We have a one-time transaction API so you can submit one-time charges for immediate collection. Charges can be submitted at any time, which will be rolled up and collected when a subscription renews.

Can I accept check payments in my Recurly site?

Yes. You can use the Manual Payments feature to log check payments in Recurly.

Mobile SDK Overview

What features are included as part of the Recurly mobile SDKs?

Recurly supports credit cards so you can accept payments while preventing card declines and unwanted churn with Account Updater and Recurly's proprietary retry logic.

Gateway support is dependent on your business location. Applying for a gateway can take several days so you’ll want to plan accordingly. To view a list of supported gateways, visit our Gateway Page. At the current time, PayPal is not supported in our native mobile SDK solution.

How does Recurly work on mobile?

Recurly’s mobile SDKs are easy to implement quickly and are built with your existing UI.

When customers enter payment information and submit your payment form, Recurly's mobile SDK transmits the payment information to be encrypted and stored at Recurly. Then we provide you an authorization key (or token) to complete the subscription process using our powerful API.

With this authorization key, you never handle any sensitive payment information, thereby reducing your PCI scope.

For more information, please refer to our documentation and contact our Support Team.

Android and iOS Support

Do I still need to work within Apple guidelines using the iOS mobile SDK?

Yes. We encourage our merchants to read through the iOS documentation, especially around In-App Purchases, to familiarize themselves with the iOS ecosystem and guidelines.

Do I still need to work within Google guidelines using the Android mobile SDK?

Yes. We encourage our merchants to read through the Android documentation, especially pertaining to In-App Purchases, to familiarize themselves with the Android ecosystem and guidelines.

What version of iOS is supported by the Recurly iOS SDK?

The Recurly iOS SDK supports iOS 8 and greater.

What version of Android is supported by the Recurly Android SDK?

The Recurly Android SDK supports Android 4.0 and greater. Our Android SDK has also been tested with versions as recent as Android 5.0.

Can I use the mobile SDKs outside of the U.S.?

Yes, but you must adhere to the Apple and Google In-App Purchase guidelines and select a payment gateway provider that supports the countries where you conduct transactions.

Mobile Web

Are Hosted Payment Pages mobile friendly?

Hosted payment pages provide merchants with a mobile friendly, PCI-compliant approach to get up and running with minimal effort. Optimized for mobile devices, the look and feel can be customized with your logo and custom background color. For advanced customization options, please check out our Recurly.js documentation.

What type of data can Hosted Payment pages request?

Beyond the basic required fields such as name, email address and billing information, you may update your hosted pages to request a variety of additional data from your users including Company Name, VAT Number, and Coupon Codes among others.

For more information, refer to our Hosted Payment Pages documentation.

Where can I learn more about the mobile SDKs and mobile friendly hosted payment pages?

You can read more about Recurly’s mobile SDKs in our Documentation. Check out our Hosted Payment Pages documentation.

Contact Recurly Support if you have any questions.

Integrations

How does Recurly work with my accounting software?

Data can be exported out of Recurly for import into accounting software. Our upcoming Platform integration will allow merchants to more directly connect Recurly with a traditional ERP. An accounting solution can also be integrated with Recurly’s API.

For more information, visit Recurly Integrations.

How does Recurly notify me about events that happen in my account?

Recurly can send webhooks to notify your systems about changes inside Recurly. When an event in Recurly triggers a webhook (e.g., an account is opened), Recurly will attempt to send this notification to the endpoint you specify. We recommend always verifying the data included in a webhook with an API query.

For a list of the notification types, refer to Notifications.

Does Recurly integrate with a shopping cart solution?

Recurly’s checkout forms themselves can be used as a shopping cart solution, using add-ons as a list of “opt-in” product choices. A shopping cart solution can also be integrated with Recurly’s API.

Does Recurly work on my mobile site/mobile app?

Yes. Recurly.js forms can be customized to be used on mobile devices.

Contact Recurly Support for additional details.

Security and Compliance

How is security and PCI compliance enforced?

Recurly is PCI-DSS Level 1 compliant, the highest level of security a business can offer. Cardholder data is sent directly to Recurly to minimize risk to your business. Recurly meets and exceeds all industry-standard payment security practices to protect you and your customers. Your merchant bank account requires your business to be PCI compliant, and Recurly helps you meet those requirements.

What is PCI DSS?

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a set of requirements designed to ensure that all companies that process, store or transmit credit cardholder information maintain a secure environment. The PCI DSS is administered and managed by the PCI SSC, an independent body that was created by the major payment card brands (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover and Japan Credit Bureau). Cardholder information is any personally identifiable data associated with a cardholder, which could be an account number, expiration date, name, address, social security number, etc. All personally identifiable information associated with the cardholder that is stored, processed, or transmitted is also considered cardholder data.

Is Recurly PCI compliant?

Yes. Recurly meets and exceeds all industry-standard payment security practices to protect you and your customers. Recurly is PCI-DSS Level 1 compliant, the highest level of security a business can offer. Security breaches relating to credit and debit cards have caused significant problems for credit card providers and merchants. Each new problem damages the trust that consumers have placed in the merchants that get hacked and credit cards in general.

Does my business need to be PCI compliant?

Yes. Your merchant bank account requires your business to be PCI compliant, and Recurly helps you meet those requirements.

See Security documentation for more details.

Other Platforms

Will Recurly work on my WordPress/Drupal/SquareSpace site?

Yes. Recurly will work with a bit of custom integration. There are many third-party resources available to integrate with these services.

Does Recurly work with mobile card readers (e.g. Intuit GoPayment, Square, SecureNet)?

Recurly doesn’t have any integrations with card readers at this time. You can manually enter credit/debit card information into the Recurly application for merchants shopping at your physical location.

Can I use Recurly with mobile wallets (e.g. Apple Pay, Google Wallet)?

Yes, Recurly supports Apple Pay on the Web, PayPal, and Pay with Venmo. We’re determining merchant interest for adding more.

Contact Recurly Support if you’d like to see this added to Recurly in the future.