Development Timeframe

Depending on your company resources and timeframe for processing payments, you may want to go live immediately or invest more time to perfect your Recurly implementation. In all cases, an important consideration is your merchant bank account, which can take 1–2 weeks for approval and setup. We recommend kicking off the merchant account application process right away—you can always start work on your Recurly implementation while you await approval.

Admin Console

The Recurly administrative console can be used to manually create subscriptions—perfect for handling orders over the phone or in the field.

Hosted Payment Pages

Individual subscription plan checkout pages can be created in under 30 minutes.

Recurly.js

Recurly.js forms can be embedded on your website in 1–2 days.

API

Depending on your developer resources, merchants can be up and running with a full API implementation in under a week.

Technical Skills

Recurly offers different implementation methods for different levels of technical skill, enabling any merchant to quickly start processing payments through our platform.

Admin Console

The admin console does not require any technical expertise. All interactions are handled through an easy-to-use virtual terminal.

Hosted Payment Pages

Perfect for the non-coder, Recurly hosted payment pages are created automatically via the admin interface. They only require sending your customers a link to the hosted page for checkout.

Recurly.js

Slightly more advanced, Recurly.js does require familiarity with APIs and generating HMAC digital signatures. Recurly.js forms are predesigned (but fully customizable), and great for a company who may want a more tailored checkout form without heavy design workload.

API

Any developer familiar with Recurly's client libraries (Ruby, PHP, Python, and .NET) will be able to fully implement using Recurly's API. More advanced developers will be able to work closely with the API to create most any type of billing scenario they desire.

Look & Feel

The look and feel of your checkout page is a critical part of your billing—the customer should feel they are making a secure payment directly to your company. In all cases, your customer's credit card statement will reflect your business name.

Admin Console

No customer interaction with Recurly is handled with this implementation option—all actions would be handled by your staff through Recurly's virtual terminal.

Hosted Payment Pages

Hosted Pages offer minimal customization—background color and a company logo can be applied. Hosted Pages are hosted by the Recurly servers—the subscribe URL will be hosted at :your_subdomain.recurly.com/subscribe/:plan_code.

Recurly.js

Recurly.js offers the same security as the Hosted Payment Pages, but with a fully customizable pre-built form. Here you can add more advanced CSS, wording, and functionality to match your business look and feel.

API

Using the Recurly API allows you to fully own the checkout experience. The designs, form creations, and errors are all customizable by your developers.

Billing Flexibility

Recurly's different implementation options support different billing scenarios—the more advanced your billing scenario, the more likely you'll need to choose an advanced implementation option.

Admin Console

The admin console allows for advanced signup, including future start dates, extended trials, one-time transactions, and custom pricing plans, all managed by your staff.

Hosted Payment Pages

Hosted Pages are meant for simple subscription signup—subscriptions created from a Hosted Page start immediately (or with a trial) and are billed on a regular recurring basis.

Recurly.js

Recurly.js allows for regular subscription signups and one-time payments.

API

The Recurly API can be used to create subscription plans with a variety of options, such as future start dates, custom trials, custom prices, and pre-defined quantities. Using the API allows for the most flexibility in your subscription billing scenario.

PCI Compliance

As a PCI-DSS Level 1 compliant provider, Recurly can help you meet the PCI Compliance requirements of your merchant bank account. Your level of PCI compliance is determined by one simple test: does your customers' sensitive cardholder data (credit card number, security code) pass through your environment?

Admin Console

All card information is handled directly inside Recurly, making your business eligible for PCI DSS Self-Assessment Questionnaire A.

Hosted Payment Pages

All card information is handled directly inside Recurly, making your business eligible for PCI DSS Self-Assessment Questionnaire A.

Recurly.js

All card information is passed directly to Recurly, making your business eligible for PCI DSS Self-Assessment Questionnaire A.

API

Cardholder data passes through your system to Recurly. Even if your system only stores credit card data in memory, users submitting credit card data directly via the API are required to complete the PCI DSS Self-Assessment Questionnaire C.

Customer Management

Your customers will need a place to view their invoice, change their subscription plans, update billing information, or cancel their subscriptions. You may choose to use Recurly's Hosted Account Management Pages with any implementation option for maximum flexibility.

Admin Console

Your support staff will be able to use the Recurly admin console to modify customer accounts on their behalf.

Hosted Payment Pages

Recurly offers Hosted Account Management Pages for customers to update their billing information, cancel/reactivate a subscription, or view invoices. Hosted Account Management Pages are not customizable beyond company logo and background color.

Recurly.js

Recurly.js offers a form to update billing information. Any other account actions would need to be handled via another method.

API

The API can be used to fully implement customer account management into your site. You can also use the hosted_login_token found on an account to directly log a user into their Hosted Account Management Page—no need for the customer to set a Recurly password!

Migrate Your Existing Subscribers

You can migrate account and/or subscription data into Recurly without our assistance. However, due to the highly sensitive nature of billing data, we strongly recommend that you leverage our Account & Billing Import service. This is a PCI-compliant process that eliminates risk for you while transferring customer billing data from your legacy provider into Recurly. Our Professional Services organization has dedicated experts available to assist you in subscriber migrations. An overview of our two services can be found here.

Account Information

You can use our create_account API endpoint to recreate your existing customer accounts in Recurly. More information on that endpoint can be found here. If you plan to have Recurly manage your credit card or subscription import, do not create accounts beforehand.

Account & Billing Information

We can provide a PCI-compliant transfer of existing subscribers and their billing information from your legacy provider onto the Recurly platform through the service described here.

Subscription Information

To migrate the details of your customers’ existing subscriptions into Recurly, you have three options. There are two self-import methods for you to choose from, which are described in detail here. Alternately, our Professional Services Team can assist you with the entire process: migration of subscriber accounts, their billing information, and their existing subscriptions. Details on that service can be found here.

Payment Methods

Recurly handles credit card payments for your customers, but can also handle transactions through PayPal (for approved merchants) and 3D Secure, depending on your implementation:

Admin Console

The admin console supports credit card payments.

Hosted Payment Pages

Recurly hosted pages will support PayPal payments and 3D Secure transactions.

Recurly.js

Recurly.js supports credit card payments and PayPal payments.

API

The API supports credit card payments.