I am developing a website that will handle a paid monthly service to users. I would like to know how the mechanics of the payments would work.
Basically I want this:
- User registers and enters their credit card/bank card to subscribe to a monthly service plan.
- If they cancel payment, I want to be sure it stops the service.
- If they cancel service, I want to be sure it stops charging them.
What's a good way to do this? I assume a third party is best to handle the credit cards and charging, but how will it interact with my website?
In case I ever get tons of members, I expect the site to automatically handle the service. For example, if they miss a payment I want the site to automatically disable their service. And if they cancel their service, I want it to automatically tell my third party merchant to stop charging them.
I'm quite tech savvy and know PHP/MySQL, so don't be afraid to explain in tech terms. However, I have never handled any sort of online payments other than Google checkout, so the mechanics of charging for services is new to me.
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If you need more info, read on...
Here's what I would like if everything were perfect:
-User registers, enters their card info.
-Their card info is sent/saved to the third party merchant.
-Somehow, the merchant interacts with my database and sets that user to "active" and the service will work.
-When the user cancels their service on my site, the site tells the merchant to stop charging their card.
-When the user misses a payment, the merchant tells my database to set that user to "inactive".
In a perfect world, I think that's how it would work.
Also, I don't think its a good idea to charge everyone's card at a specific time every month. If payments are taken out on the 1st of every month, the person who signed up 2 days before would be screwed out of 28ish days of service. So the payment times would be different for each member.
I hope I didn't confuse anyone.
