PaySubs

Use PaySubs when you want to bill customers at a fixed interval, such as monthly, quarterly, or annually, without requiring them to make a manual payment each time.

What you can use PaySubs for

PaySubs is well suited to businesses that charge customers on a recurring basis, including:

• membership fees
• software or digital service subscriptions
• maintenance or support plans
• recurring product deliveries
• education or training subscriptions
• other scheduled repeat billing models

How PaySubs works

At a high level, the PaySubs flow works as follows:

1. The customer starts the subscription process.
2. The customer is redirected to the hosted payment or subscription page.
3. The customer completes the setup step.
4. PayGate processes the request.
5. The customer is redirected back to your site.
6. Your system confirms the final result using the appropriate validation or notification process.

flowchart LR
    A[Customer selects subscription on your website] --> B[Redirect to PaySubs hosted page]
    B --> C[Customer completes subscription setup]
    C --> D[Subscription is processed]
    D --> E[Customer is redirected back to your website]
    E --> F[Show confirmation or next steps to customer]

    D --> G[PayGate confirms subscription status]
    G --> H[Your system validates and updates records]

    E -. For customer experience only .-> F
    E -. Do not use for final confirmation .-> H

Supported Payment Methods

PaySubs currently supports recurring billing on:

• Credit cards

Supported Banks

PaySubs credit card processing is supported by:

• Standard Bank
• Nedbank

Why merchants use PaySubs

PaySubs helps merchants:

• automate recurring billing
• reduce manual collection effort
• support subscription-based business models
• create a smoother payment experience for returning customers
• improve consistency in repeat payment collection

What you need before you start

Before setting up PaySubs, make sure you have:

• an active PayGate merchant account
• the correct PaySubs configuration for your account
• a clear billing frequency for each subscription type
• a return page on your website for the customer journey
• a process in place to confirm payment or subscription outcomes

Important note about customer returns

After a subscription request is processed, the customer can be redirected back to your website.

This return is useful for showing the customer a confirmation or failure message, but it should not be treated as the final source of truth for the subscription result.

Always confirm the outcome using your server-side validation, notification, or status-check process.

Common billing frequencies

Recurring subscriptions are typically charged using a defined billing interval. Depending on your use case, this may include monthly, quarterly, biannual, or annual billing.

To view the supported billing intervals and their codes, see Frequency Codes.

Next steps

To continue with PaySubs, see:

• Set up PaySubs
• Frequency Codes
• Return to Merchant