Set up Subscriptions for your business
This page is for the person who runs the business's Von Payments dashboard. Each step names the screen to use. Your developer then follows the Integration guide.
1. Get Subscriptions switched on
Von Payments switches Subscriptions on for each business. Ask Von Payments support. Your business needs:
- a merchant account and Vora, our payment routing;
- a customer support contact. We cannot switch Subscriptions on until one is saved. Your customers see it on their subscription page, and replies to our emails go to it.
| Field | Rule |
|---|---|
| Support email | Required. Stored in lower case. |
| Support phone | Optional. Stored in international format. |
| Support website | Optional. Your own https address: not an IP address, and not a Von Payments address. |
Once Subscriptions is on, Subscriptions appears in your dashboard menu. A team admin can change the contact in Subscriptions › Settings › Customer support contact. Until a support email is saved, replies from your customers go to Von Payments support.
2. Create a product
A product is what the customer subscribes to: a price and a schedule. Go to Subscriptions › Products › Add product (team admins only).
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Name | Up to 120 characters. |
| Store product number | Your own reference, for example your store's product or variant id. Up to 128 letters, digits and . _ - : / #. Your developer can use it in place of the product's id. |
| Currency | One currency per product. Defaults to USD. |
| Renewal price | What each renewal charges. |
| Renews every | 1 to 365 days, 1 to 52 weeks, or 1 to 12 months. For a yearly plan, choose 12 months. |
The product gets an id that starts with vsprod_. Give your developer the id or the store product number.
Changing a product later. A new schedule or a higher price applies to new sign-ups only: existing subscribers keep what they signed up with. A lower price can apply to existing subscribers too, from their next charge.
3. Set your retry days
When a renewal is declined, we try it again on the retry days after the bill date. After the last retry, the subscription moves to Failed. The default is 3, 5 and 7 days after the bill date.
To change them, go to Subscriptions › Settings › Retry rules (team admins only). Each retry is a whole number of days after the bill date, each later than the one before. You can also choose No retries: a declined renewal then moves to Failed at once.
Under Stop immediately on these declines, you can add decline reasons that stop the retries. You cannot remove the ones Von Payments sets. When the card network says not to try a card again, it is not tried again, whatever this page says.
4. Choose how renewals are routed (optional)
With no setup, renewals are charged the usual way, through your normal Vora routing. To route a product's renewals differently, go to Subscriptions › Settings › Renewal routing › Add a routing setup, then choose the setup on the product's page.
A routing setup can:
- add labels to each renewal, for example
program: continuity, that your Vora routing rules match; - start each renewal with the processor that took the customer's first payment.
Each product uses one setup or none. A setup applies to new sign-ups only: existing subscribers keep the routing they signed up with.
A new routing setup works once Von Payments switches it on. Until then, sign-ups for that product are taken as usual, and its renewals wait On hold.
5. Customer emails
We email your customers from subscriptions@vonpay.com, under your business name, with your support email as the reply address. In Subscriptions › Settings › Customer emails, you can switch off the receipt we send after each renewal. The sign-up and cancel confirmations always go.
6. Add the Manage button to your website (optional)
Your customers can manage their subscription from a Manage my subscription button on your website. Subscriptions › Settings › Manage button shows how to add it. To send customers back to your site from their page, add your site under Subscriptions › Settings › Your websites.
7. Test in your sandbox
Test everything in a test sandbox before you go live. Go to Developer tools › Overview and find Add a test sandbox. Your test API keys are in the sandbox, under Developer tools › API keys.
In the sandbox, Subscriptions runs in test mode. Create a test product there: its id starts with vsprod_test_, and the subscriptions it starts with test keys start with vsub_test_.
8. Go live
- Create the product in your live business, if you only created it in the sandbox.
- Give your developer the live product's id (
vsprod_live_…) or its store product number. - Your developer switches the checkout to your live keys and selects the five
subscription.*events on the live webhook endpoint.
After that, every customer who signs up at your checkout gets a subscription, and you find them under Subscriptions in your dashboard.