Recurring payments are always awesome as they guarantee the money coming at regular intervals. But this recurring nature of payments also makes them a bit complicated to set up as compared to one-time payments. But don’t you worry. There are plenty of options for you when it comes to how you can accept recurring payments in WordPress. This post discusses some easy ways to help you with accepting recurring payments.
Whether you want to make use of Paypal, Stripe, or any other completely different payment gateway; this post will help you find what you need. So. let’s get started.
1. WP Simple Pay
It is a good choice if you want a simple and easy way for accepting the basic recurring payments and do not wish to have a broader eCommerce functionality for your WP site. WP Simple Pay, as the name suggests, is an easy and simple way using which you can start accepting payments in the recurring form via Stripe.
If you don’t know about Stripe then let me tell you that Stripe is a popular payment gateway that makes it extremely easy for you to accept credit card payments or other payment methods with competitive fees.
The ease of use that WP Simple Pay provides is its biggest advantage. You will be able to easily access a beginner-friendly and user-friendly payment solution through WP Simple Pay’s streamlined interface as well as Stripe interface.
You will first need to create a subscription product in the Stripe interface. This makes it easy to:
- Select the currency
- Select the price
- Set your billing interval
Once you have added the pricing plan in the Stripe interface, you will be able to select it in WP Simple Pay and easily embed a form or button on the WP site.
You can get the free version of WP Simple Pay at WordPress.org. However, you will need to have the WP Simple Pay pro Business plan which is for $99 approx. for subscription payments.
2. Woocommerce Subscriptions
This is a nice choice for those who want to have comparatively more control over the subscription payments. More control means it may be in the form of functionality or in terms of payment gateways.
Woocommerce plugin is the most popular eCommerce WP plugin. It is the overall most popular platform for building an eCommerce store. Though Woocommerce has all the desired functionality essential for creating a full-fledged eCommerce store, you will see that there are many people using this plugin in a more targeted way. One of these ways is recurring billing.
Stacking the paid Woocommerce Subscriptions plugin on top of the free Woocommerce software, you will be able to create some great Woocommerce “subscription” products allowing you to create simple as well as complex subscription offerings.
This Approach Gives You So Many Benefits:
- You will get access to a large number of Woocommerce payment gateways.
- You will be able to get creative with your subscription products. You may even stack on other Woocommerce plugins.
- You can even set up recurring payments for other plugins as well.
However, the potential downside is you will have to install the entire Woocommerce plugin. So, even if you wish to create a few basic subscriptions, you will have a lot of features and codes that you will never need.
A good approach, to begin with, is to go for simple ways such as WP Simple Pay. But if it doesn’t work for you and you want more flexibility, then using Woocommerce and Woocommerce subscriptions will give you desired results.
To use the Woocommerce Subscriptions plugin on a single site, you will have to pay $199 approx.
3. WordPress PayPal
It is also a good option if you need to create a simple way that allows accepting basic payments and you don’t need any broader eCommerce functionality.
When it comes to choosing simple options to accept recurring payments in WordPress, WordPress PayPal is a suitable one. You can say that it is a lot more similar to WP Simple Pay but is for PayPal.
It is very easy to use.
In the plugin settings, first, you add your email address and the currency.
After this, you can make use of the shortcodes to create the subscription button. The shortcode for a basic subscription payment looks:
[wp_paypal button=”subscribe” name=”My product” amount=”1.00″ recurrence=”1″ period=”M” src=”1″]
You will find all the shortcode options documented on the plugin’s page.
You have to add that particular shortcode to that page or post where you want to add the recurring payment option or where you want the recurring payment to appear. After this, the Subscribe button appears.
Once the users hit this Subscribe button, they will get diverted to the PayPal interface, where they will get to know how this subscription would work.
Apart from being simple and easy, another advantage of this method is this plugin is absolutely free.
4. Easy Digital Downloads – Recurring Payments For WP Add-on
Easy Digital Downloads is a full eCommerce platform similar to Woocommerce. However, it leans a bit more towards digital products than the latter.
- You will be able to create digital products with automatic recurring payments with the paid Recurring Payments add-on. This approach gives you similar benefits as that of using Woocommerce. i.e.
- You will be able to choose any popular payment gateway including PayPal, Stripe, 2Checkout, and Authorize.net.
- You will be able to integrate easily with other Easy Digital Downloads Add-ons to be able to create more customized subscription products.
- You will be able to connect to other plugins for creating recurring payments.
So if you want to accept recurring payments in WordPress with Easy Digital Downloads, the Recurring Payments WordPress add-on costs around $199. Purchasing the Extended Pass is a much better option that also costs the same and has the Recurring Payments add-on and available payment gateways included.
Summing Up:
These are the four easy ways using which you can start accepting recurring payments in WordPress. For a simple and easy solution. WP Simple Pay for Stripe or WordPress PayPal is a smart choice. For complicated recurring payments. eCommerce plugins like Easy Digital Downloads or Woocommerce offer more functionality.
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