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Subscriptions

Subscriptions allow the merchant to take repeated payments from an end-customer.

Overview
Process
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Overview

Subscriptions are applicable to our Smart Checkout solution. The payment method should support recurring payments.

✔️ Subscriptions do support our ISV schema
❌ Subscriptions do not support pre-authorizations
❌ Subscriptions do not support card installments

A subscription payment is a payment made automatically by the merchant, initiated by the merchant without the involvement or presence of the customer (no 3DS authentication is required), done on a regular or non-regular schedule, for a fixed or variable amount (the payments may be for different amounts over time). This requires an initial payment to be done with the involvement of the customer (3DS authentication may be required), during which the customer provides consent to the merchant to make future automatic payments (recurring payments).

For further technical information and a step-by-step guide, please see our Create a recurring payment tutorial page

How it works

A customer opts in to have certain payment details retained in order to repeatedly charge them for an ongoing product or service. At the agreed-upon frequency, a payment is taken from the customer account without their active input/involvement.
This continues for the duration of the agreed – between merchant and end client - subscription period or potentially until the cardholder cancels their subscription.

Process

The below sequence diagram summarises the recurring payment procedure.

sequenceDiagram participant Merchant app participant Merchant backend participant Viva API Merchant backend->>Viva API:Create payment order for recurring payment Viva API-->>Merchant backend:Payment order created Merchant backend-->>Merchant app:Payment order Merchant app->>Viva API:Redirect customer to payment page to pay the payment order Viva API-->>Merchant app:Confirm payment & initial transaction created Merchant backend->>Viva API:Retrieve payment details Viva API-->>Merchant backend:Payment details Merchant backend->>Merchant backend:Verify payment loop Recurring payments Merchant backend->>Viva API:Create new transaction using ID of initial transaction Viva API-->>Merchant backend:Confirm payment & subsequent transaction created End

Initial Payment

Merchant generates initial recurring payment
Client completes payment
Viva exposes transaction ID to merchant. It is strongly recommended to automatically get this information through our webhook mechanism
Merchant stores ID on database using their chosen method and location

Sub Payments

When a subscription renews and charges a payment again, merchant should trigger the sub payment using the initial transaction ID and the desired amount
Viva exposes a new transaction ID for the sub payment for merchant. It is strongly recommended to store it for tracking and reporting reasons
For any sub payment in the future, the initial transaction id should be used
Viva’s functionality of subscriptions is open-source and as such is something which merchants can and should build independently as we do not advise on how to configure their subscription packages and/or services

Get Support

If you would like to integrate with Viva, or if you have any queries about our products and solutions, please see our Contact & Support page to see how we can help!