Subscriptions and Recurring Payments Magento Extensions

Subscriptions and Recurring Payments for Magento

The Magento platform provides the ability to use subscriptions and recurring payments without any third parties, but you need a reliable extension in order to get maximum from this approach to payments. By using subscriptions and recurring payments, you enable your customers to purchase goods on your Magento website automatically on the basis of subscriptions. It makes sense to offer subscriptions and recurring payments for 2 categories of goods:

  • products that constantly run out (for example, toiletries or pet food);
  • products that come in new editions (for instance, newspapers and magazines or collectibles).

As a result, you significantly improve your user experience by eliminating the necessity to go through the buying process each time a customer wants to purchase something from the aforementioned categories.

Subscriptions and Recurring Payments Magento 2 Extensions

And from the perspective of a Magento merchant subscriptions and recurring payments may be considered as the most convenient low-cost way to accept credit card and bank account payments for repetitive purchases. Furthermore, subscriptions and recurring payments can be fully integrated with your Magento storefront in a few easy steps. And we will describe how to achieve this goal further in this post, but let’s figure out core benefits from using subscriptions and recurring payments first.

By installing a robust subscriptions and recurring payments Magento extension, you can save time and money. Such tools are often easy to implement, because they introduce flexible and automatic billing that eliminates sending invoices. They do not have up-front costs: for instance, PayPal charges the same low fee schedule for its subscriptions and recurring payments program as it uses in case of other payments. Besides, subscriptions and recurring payments Magento extensions provide the ability to sell seamlessly maintaining detailed transaction records right in the Magento admin. And of course, they improve buyer experience: the most advanced tools offer customizable buttons, secure payments, and other features that make your customers happier and turn them into returning buyers.

But how can subscriptions and recurring payments be integrated with a Magento website? The answer is quite simple: you only have to install one of the extensions described below. The default recurring functionality of the platform is covered here: Magento Recurring Profiles.

AheadWorks Subscriptions and Recurring Payments Magento Extension ($299)

Subscriptions and Recurring Payments Magento Extension

This Magento module lets you create subscription products settings and sell them on a recurring basis. As a result, you achieve the goals described above: simplify the way customers behave on your ecommerce website and dramatically improve user experience.

AheadWorks Subscriptions and Recurring Payments provides you with full control over the new payment type: it lets you define the period of each subscription, the payment size, as well as the way native Magento functionality is utilized in the process. Now, we’d like to draw your attention to the features of the module

You can choose any subscription period, and it can be even indefinite working until a customer cancels the recurring order.

As for flexible starting date, it provides the ability to start Magento recurring payments at 3 different moments of time:

  • moment of a purchase;
  • particular day of the month;
  • customer specified date.

In order to motivate your customers, you can enable a trial fee. The AheadWorks Subscriptions and Recurring Payments Magento extension lets you choose the duration of the trial period and set reduced fees. It’s even possible to allow a free trial.

Initial fee is another optional feature of the extension. It allows to set up a one time payment that represents the cost of signing up for your subscription service. It is also called a starting fee.

An iteration fee can be also charged with the help of AheadWorks Subscriptions and Recurring Payments every time an item or service is delivered.

As for payment processing, there is no need to go through a complicated payment set up, since external payment gateways are supported. The extension works with PayPal, eWay, and Authorize.Net.

There are also reliable tracking and editing options available in AheadWorks Subscriptions and Recurring Payments. The extension logs each subscription creating a list in backend, so you can easily sort and manage all available subscriptions. Furthermore, even customers can view and edit their subscriptions.

AheadWorks Subscriptions and Recurring Payments Magento Extension

The module lets you use several subscription blocks with custom names. Besides, it is possible to assign a priority value to each block defining its appearance order on the frontend page.

Another important aspect of the AheadWorks Subscriptions and Recurring Payments Magento extension is customer segmentation. Although the feature is optional, you can utilize the extension to move customers to different customer groups on the basis of particular subscriptions.

As for supported product types, they are:

  • simple,
  • downloadable,
  • configurable,
  • virtual.

Besides, there is a reliable notification system available with AheadWorks Subscriptions and Recurring Payments. The extension can inform both admins and customers about new subscriptions, subscription status changes, subscription period expiration, next payment, or new orders.

As you can see, the AheadWorks Subscriptions and Recurring Payments module not only enables the subscriptions and recurring payments functionality, but automates the process and eliminates the necessity to dive deep into a boring routine, but let’s see what other extensions offer.

Download / Buy AheadWorks Subscriptions and Recurring Payments Magento Extension

sellXed Magento Subscription Manager ($308)

Subscriptions and Recurring Payments Magento Extension

The Sellxed Subscription Manager Magento extension also allows you to sell products at regular intervals, but it offers a slightly different set of features. The module not only enables subscriptions and recurring payments functionality for both simple products and bundles, but supports ordering all possible product combinations as a subscription by providing customers with the ability to subscribe to the cart. Furthermore, Magento Subscription Manager takes care of regular orders, payment reminders, and expired credit cards. But there is one restriction: the extension only works with the payment modules provided by sellXed, so you can use it just with other company’s products.

At the same time, Magento Subscription Manager automates such processes as taking care of debiting and helps to create recurring products for almost all product types available in Magento. The extension works with simple, downloadable, configurable, and virtual products; bundles; and

shopping carts with every content. Note that customers often order the same goods, so the sellXed Subscription Manager Magento extension can essentially simplify the way they shop on your website by enabling clients to put together any kind of cart combination as a subscription. Consequently, you get a great chance to turn one time buyer into a regular customer. And as a merchant, you can turn off subscription capabilities for certain products.

As for notifications, sellXed Subscription Manager informs buyers if a credit card has expired by sending an email reminder. The message is highly customizable, so you can edit it according to your ecommerce needs.

Another important option is payment by invoice. And sellXed has already included invoicing module in the extension, so you can fully leverage this feature.

It is also necessary to mention that Magento Subscription Manager supports several approaches to shipping. Thus, it is possible to use a fixed rate for recurring orders or all costs can be correspond to shipping costs of the original order.

And from the perspective of a buyer, the extension also seems quite user-friendly, since it offers wide editing capabilities, so  your customers can easily manage their subscriptions.

The module is great due to the support of shopping cart as a subscription basis, but it has one essential limitation: Subscription Manager works only with sellXed payment extensions. Therefore, it’s up to you to decide whether it is better than the previous solution or not. But don’t rush with conclusions, because we still have a bunch of subscriptions and recurring payments Magento extensions below.

Download / Buy sellXed Subscription Manager Magento Extension

IWD Subscriptions & Recurring Payments ($299)

Subscriptions and Recurring Payments Magento Extension

The portfolio of IWD also includes a subscription and recurring payments extension for Magento, so you can choose this company to provide your customers with the ability to have their favorite products shipped to them easily and frequently. Buyers just have to subscribe to products on your Magento website. As a store owner, you can create as many subscription types and periods as needed. IWD also lets you set up subscription trial periods, and if you are wondering what product types are supported, note that the module works with simple, configurable, downloadable, and virtual products. Besides, it supports multiple payment methods, including aforementioned PayPal, Authorize.net, and eWay.

And of course, IWD Subscriptions & Recurring Payments has a reliable notification system, so you and your customers will be always informed about new subscriptions, changes in already existing subscriptions, expiration dates, new orders, and the next recurring payments.

As for subscription management, it is available for both admins and buyers. There is a special area in the Magento admin, where you can and manage all customer subscriptions. In their turn customers have a subscription history and management options within their accounts.

It seems that IWD Subscriptions & Recurring Payments has a set of features that is very similar to one available in AheadWorks Subscriptions and Recurring Payments.

Download / Buy IWD Subscriptions & Recurring Payments Magento Extension

Stripe Subscriptions ($295)

Subscriptions and Recurring Payments Magento Extension

If you are using Stripe Payment Gateway, you can easily integrate it with Magento Recurring Profiles in order to leverage full subscription potential of the ecommerce platform. It is only necessary to install the Stripe Subscriptions extension.

The module provides the ability to sell subscriptions for 5 types of products: simple, virtual, grouped, bundled, and configurable. All subscriptions can be ordered in multiple quantities. As for shipping and taxes, the Stripe Subscriptions extension supports the usage of variable costs. As a result, there is an appropriate subscription plan for each amount.

Besides, Stripe Subscriptions supports such features as trial periods and initial/setup fees mentioned above. At the same time, its native coupon functionality can be integrated into Magento’s one, so discounts can be applied to subscriptions.

As for customer experience, Stripe Subscriptions provides customers with all the necessary options, so they are free to cancel and pause/resume (can be disabled from admin) subscriptions right in their accounts. In their turn admins can create orders with subscription products (the feature is not available in case of default Magento) and manage subscriptions.

Besides, Stripe’s subscriptions and recurring payments extension provides the ability to purchase subscriptions regular products, purchase multiple subscriptions simultaneously, use subscriptions in bundled and grouped products combining them with regular products, and add custom product options to subscriptions.

It is also necessary to mention a bunch of automations that the module adds to the default Magento functionality. First of all, it recreates recurring orders with Stripe Webhooks at the end of each billing period. As a result, all initial fees and expired coupons are removed from the existing recurring orders. Note that orders can be recreated in any order status in accordance to the module’s configuration.

And there is a reliable notification system available with Stripe subscriptions that sends emails to customers with every recurring order. More features are described on the official website of the extension.

If you use Stripe Payment Gateway, Stripe Subscriptions might become the best subscriptions and recurring payments tool for your ecommerce needs.

Download / Buy Stripe Subscriptions Magento Extension

Milople Recurring & Subscription Payments ($259)

AheadWorks Subscriptions and Recurring Payments Magento Extension

Milople offers another tool for implementing advanced recurring and subscription functionality within the Magento platform. With the help of the extension, you can provide your customers with easy payment conditions for SaaS, hosting, various kinds of membership, monthly rent, magazines, newspapers, publications, courses, and any other goods and services you can sell on a subscription basis.

The module enables buyers to purchase multiple subscription products in a single cart and order along with normal products. If you don’t want to sell some specific products on a subscription basis, it is possible to disable the feature for them.

As for supported product types, they include simple, downloadable, virtual, configurable, and grouped products. All these options are already familiar, so we don’t want to ways your time talking about the same things once again.

As for unique features, they include advanced functionality related to customer groups. You can not only activate the feature for certain customer groups only, but also provide discounts to chosen groups.

Advanced admin functionality lets you change status of a subscription right in the Magento backend. It is possible to switch between Active, Suspended, Suspended by Customer, Expired, and Canceled statuses. Besides, you can manually pay failed subscription payment.

It is also necessary to mention that Milople Recurring & Subscription Payments is compatible with Authorize.net, PayPal Express, and offline payment methods.

Download / Buy Milople Recurring & Subscription Payments Magento Extension

All4coding Subscriptions and Recurring Payments ($150)

AheadWorks Subscriptions and Recurring Payments Magento Extension

With the help of this extension, you also achieve the same goal. As soon as a customer subscribes to any item, a recurring profile for the subscription product is created. Besides, all future payments are created automatically in accordance with your recurring profile settings.

Customer are free to schedule the start day of payments, at the same time the module is able to schedule orders in advance. Support payment methods of All4coding Subscriptions and Recurring Payments are:

  • PayPal Express Checkout and PayPal Pro;
  • Check / Money Order;
  • Bank Transfer Payment;
  • Zero Subtotal Checkout;
  • Purchase Order;
  • Cash On Delivery Payment.

Besides, it is necessary to mention that the extension has all recurring profiles statistics in the Magento backend. All other features are similar to the aforementioned ones, so check the extension’s official page for further details.

Download / Buy All4coding Subscriptions and Recurring Payments Magento Extension

Apptha Recurring Payments ($99)

AheadWorks Subscriptions and Recurring Payments Magento Extension

Top features of this subscriptions and recurring payments tool for Magento are:

  • Multiple Subscription. You subscribers are free to choose among four types of subscriptions: Day, Week, Month, and Year.
  • Admin Dashboard. You admins get advanced features for subscriptions management.
  • Product Types. Available product types include Simple and Virtual. Both can be sold with different subscription options.
  • Payment Gateway. Apptha Recurring Payments supports only one gateway – PayPal Express Checkout.

.As you can see, even this small description shows that the extension has some limitations in comparison to other similar tools, but it is the cheapest solution in our list.

Download / Buy Apptha Recurring Payments Magento Extension

Final Words

The Magento ecosystem offers both the most advanced and the most simple subscriptions and recurring payments extensions, so every merchant can find a solution that perfectly suits his or her business needs and budget. And since the aforementioned modules represent various segments of the same niche, we hope that you’ve easily decided which one is a perfect tool for you.