You run a tiffin service, a gym, an online course with monthly fees, or a software tool. Every month you send the same reminder, wait, chase the people who forgot, and mark them paid one by one. You would like the money to come in by itself, the way your phone bill or OTT subscription does.
That is possible, but recurring payments in India work differently from a simple “save card and charge it later”. Every automatic debit runs on a mandate the customer has approved, under rules set by the Reserve Bank of India. This post explains what those mandates are, which kind suits which business, how to set it up on a website, and what to do when a renewal fails. Please read it as general information rather than legal or financial advice; the exact rules and limits come from the RBI and your gateway.
Why you cannot simply charge a saved card
In many countries, a shop can store a customer’s card and charge it again next month. In India, the rules for recurring debits are stricter. Merchants do not keep customers’ full card numbers; gateways use tokens instead. And an automatic repeat charge needs the customer to set up a mandate with an extra authentication step, such as an OTP or UPI PIN, at the start.
After that, the customer’s bank or card issuer typically sends a notification before each debit, and the customer can cancel the mandate from their bank or UPI app. Above a certain amount, each debit may also need fresh authentication. The thresholds and notice periods are set by the RBI and can change, so check the circulars on the Reserve Bank of India website or your gateway’s help pages for the current figures rather than relying on a number in a blog post.
For you as a seller, the practical effect is simple. Customers stay in control, which builds trust, but you must expect more of them to stop or skip a payment than you would with an old-style saved card.
The three kinds of mandate
| Mandate type | How the customer sets it up | Usually suits |
|---|---|---|
| Card e-mandate | Pays the first time with a debit or credit card and approves the recurring mandate with authentication. | Subscriptions where customers prefer cards, including many software tools |
| UPI AutoPay | Approves a mandate in their UPI app with their UPI PIN. | Monthly fees from customers who live in UPI: classes, memberships, meal plans |
| eNACH (bank mandate) | Authorises a debit on their bank account through net banking or a debit card. | Larger or longer-term payments, such as instalments or annual contracts |
Not every bank, card or UPI app supports every type, and gateways support them to different degrees. Offering two types gives customers a fallback.
Fixed, variable or instalment?
Before choosing a gateway product, decide which pattern your business follows. It affects how the mandate is set up.
Fixed amount, fixed interval
Same charge every month or year. A gym membership, a monthly tuition fee, a software plan. This is the simplest case, and every recurring product handles it.
Variable amount
The charge changes each cycle: a meal plan billed by meals taken, a service billed by hours. The mandate is usually set up with a maximum amount, and each debit can be anything up to it. Customers may hesitate at a high maximum, so explain clearly what it covers.
Instalments
A fixed number of payments for one purchase, such as a course paid in parts. The mandate has an end date. Make sure your terms say what happens if an instalment fails.
Setting up subscription payments on your website
There are two broad routes.
Use the gateway’s own subscription product
Razorpay and Cashfree both offer subscription products, and other Indian gateways offer recurring options too. You create plans in the gateway dashboard, and the gateway hosts the sign-up and handles the mandate, the debits and the reminders. Your website links to it or embeds it. This route is quick and works even with a simple site. The downside is that your website does not always know who is paid up unless you connect the two.
Run subscriptions inside your store
On WooCommerce, the official WooCommerce Subscriptions extension turns products into subscriptions with renewal orders, customer account pages and renewal emails. For it to charge automatically, your gateway’s WooCommerce plugin must support automatic renewals with that extension. Not every gateway plugin does, and support can differ between payment methods within one gateway. Check the plugin’s documentation, or ask the gateway, before you build anything.
The WooCommerce documentation on WooCommerce Subscriptions explains how renewals and failed payments are handled on the store side.
What to put on the sign-up page
Recurring payments live or die on trust. On the page where people subscribe, say plainly:
- How much they will be charged, and how often.
- The date of the first charge and of each renewal.
- That they will receive a notice from their bank before each debit.
- How to cancel, both through you and through their bank or UPI app.
- What happens to their access or deliveries if a payment fails.
- For variable mandates, what the maximum amount means and why it is set there.
Put the same information in the confirmation email. A customer who knows what is coming is far less likely to dispute a charge with their bank. If disputes do happen, our guide to handling a chargeback covers what to send.
When a renewal fails
Failed renewals are normal. Cards expire, balances run low, customers cancel the mandate in their app and forget to tell you, and some banks decline a debit for their own reasons. Plan for it from the start:
- Know what your gateway does automatically. Some retry a failed debit on a schedule, some do not. Check its documentation.
- Tell the customer quickly and kindly. A short message saying the payment did not go through, with a link to pay or update their mandate.
- Decide on a grace period. How long will you keep delivering before pausing? Write it in your terms.
- Offer a one-off payment link as a fallback, so a customer can pay this month while they sort out the mandate. Our post comparing payment links and gateway checkout explains how links work.
- Keep a list of customers whose mandates were cancelled, so you can contact them rather than assume they left.
Changing prices, plans and payment methods later
A subscription is not set once and forgotten. Sooner or later you will want to raise a price, add a plan, or let a customer move from a card to UPI AutoPay. Each of these touches the mandate.
Raising a price
If the new amount is still within what the mandate allows, the gateway may be able to charge it. If it is above the mandate’s limit, the customer usually has to approve a new mandate. Either way, tell customers well before the change and explain why. A surprise higher debit is the quickest route to a cancelled mandate.
Switching plans
Upgrades and downgrades often mean cancelling one subscription and starting another. Check how your gateway or WooCommerce Subscriptions handles the part of the month already paid for, and write the rule in your terms.
Changing payment method
When a card expires or a customer wants to move to UPI, they set up a fresh mandate. Give them a simple page or link to do this, rather than asking them to sign up again from scratch.
Pausing
Some businesses, such as tiffin services or classes, have holidays or seasonal breaks. Find out whether your gateway lets you pause a subscription without cancelling the mandate, so customers do not have to start over afterwards.
A simpler start for small businesses
If you have a few dozen members and no website store, you do not need a full subscription system on day one. Many small businesses begin by sending a payment link each month, then move to a gateway’s subscription product once they are tired of chasing. Moving to automated renewals inside a store comes later, when the numbers justify the setup and testing.
Whichever route you take, test it with your own card and UPI app before inviting customers: sign up, let a renewal run, cancel the mandate from the app, and see what your system does.
Choosing the gateway for subscription payments
Indian gateways really do differ on recurring payments: which mandate types they offer, how their WooCommerce plugin handles renewals, and what their dashboards show you about failures. Our main guide to the best payment gateway for small business covers the wider decision, and recurring needs are a good reason to ask detailed questions before signing up.
If you already run WooCommerce and want subscriptions wired to your gateway and tested end to end, our WooCommerce support team can check whether your plugin supports it and set it up. Automating the money is the easy part. Telling customers clearly what they agreed to is what keeps them subscribed.
Next in this series: Payment Link vs Payment Gateway: Which Do You Need?
