Requirements
- The Enterprise plan or above
- The WooCommerce Subscriptions extension
- Customer Vault enabled on your merchant account
Setup
- Enable saved cards under the plugin settings. Renewals depend on vault tokens.
- Confirm the gateway appears as supported in WooCommerce, Settings, Subscriptions.
- Enable customer initiated payment method changes so subscribers can update their own card.
- Set the retry schedule. Spacing retries over about a week works better than three attempts in a day.
What happens on each renewal
// Renewal sequence
1. WooCommerce triggers the scheduled payment
2. Plugin sends a merchant initiated sale using the vault token
3. Gateway responds with an approval or a decline
4. Renewal order is created and marked paid, or the retry schedule starts
Testing a renewal
- Create a subscription product with a short interval in sandbox.
- Buy it, ticking save the payment method.
- Open the subscription in admin and use Process renewal.
- Confirm a renewal order was created, paid, and carries its own transaction ID.
Failed payments
Soft declines follow the retry schedule and trigger the standard WooCommerce customer emails. Hard declines are not retried, since the issuer has refused permanently. The subscription moves to on hold and the customer is asked to update their method.
Write the failed payment email yourself. The default text is functional and does not sound like your brand, and this email is what recovers the revenue.
Migrating existing subscriptions
Tokens do not move between gateways. Subscribers on a previous gateway must re-enter a payment method. See the migration guide for the sequence and the email that does most of the work.