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Account Updater: Things to consider

Before enabling Account Updater, review key compatibility factors: tokenization setup, gateway overlap, bank participation limits, and prepaid card exclusions. Confirm readiness with a pre-enablement checklist.

💳 Revenue Recovery

Account Updater

Protect your recurring revenue by automatically keeping card details up to date — before payments ever fail.

77x
Average ROI
18%
Of recovered revenue
96M+
Card updates in 2025
🔍

Is Account Updater right for you?

Confirm technical readiness by reviewing tokenization compatibility and understanding bank-level participation rules.

💡

Good news: Most merchants are already set up

For the majority of Recurly customers, enabling Account Updater (AU) is a simple configuration toggle. Recurly's Real-Time Account Updater (RTAU) now covers major networks globally—including American Express (AMEX) and Discover—on supported gateways.

🔑 Key questions to ask before you enable

1

How are you tokenizing payment data?

Recurly Account Updater (AU) works seamlessly with Recurly.js and Recurly-hosted checkouts. If you use external gateway tokenization, Recurly can still run AU as long as the token is managed within the Recurly vault.

2

Is your gateway already running AU?

Running Account Updater (AU) in both Recurly and your gateway can be redundant. However, many merchants choose to run Recurly AU alongside gateway RTAU to ensure coverage across all regions.

3

Are you an American Express merchant?

Modern Real-Time Account Updater (RTAU) now handles American Express (AMEX) globally for many gateways. Legacy "Cardrefresher" is only required for specific direct-AMEX configurations.

⚠️ Understanding network & issuer limitations

While Account Updater (AU) is highly effective, success is subject to card network participation and rules. A card may not update due to the following:

  • Bank participation: Not all global issuing banks participate in the automated update network.
  • Card type exclusions: Prepaid cards and certain specialized debit cards are typically ineligible for automated updates.
  • Closed accounts: Updates are only available for replacement cards. If a customer closes an account entirely, no new data is generated.
  • Visa opt-out: Specifically for Visa, some issuers allow cardholders to manually "opt-out" of sharing updated details with merchants.
⚠️

Stored billing info required: Account Updater (AU) requires a Billing Info object to exist in the Recurly vault. It will not run on "guest checkouts" where card details are not saved for future use.

📋 A note on Adyen Users

Recurly supports a dedicated Adyen Real-Time Account Updater (RTAU) integration. For maximum efficiency, we recommend enabling both Adyen RTAU and Recurly Account Updater (AU) to ensure comprehensive global coverage.

⚡ Quick diagnostic

✅

Enable AU in Recurly if…

You have credit/debit cards stored in the Recurly vault and want to proactively ensure they remain valid, regardless of gateway-level services.

Recommended
🔀

Check gateway config if…

You are using a third-party hosted checkout that does not pass card metadata or tokens back to Recurly for storage.

Gateway Focus

✅ Pre-enablement checklist

✅

Before you enable

Stored billing info (Credit/Debit) exists in the Recurly vaultTokens and raw cards are both eligible
Identified if you need legacy AMEX Cardrefresher or modern RTAURTAU is preferred for global AMEX support
Coordinated with payment ops to avoid overlapping gateway feesVerify if your gateway's AU is "Always On"
← Section 1: Why use it? Next: Section 3: How to enable it →

📚 Additional resources

📖 Recurly Docs: Account Updater 🎧 Contact Recurly Support 🌐 Join Global Office Hours

Updated about 9 hours ago