Subscriptions and recurring payments

The customer signs up and authorises future charges; the provider stores a mandate or a saved payment method and charges it on schedule. A billing system (Stripe Billing, Razorpay Subscriptions, Cashfree Subscriptions or Chargebee) tracks plans, trials, upgrades, proration and invoices, and uses webhooks to tell your app when a renewal succeeds or fails, so access can be switched on or off.

India adds rules. Under RBI's e-mandate framework, the customer registers a mandate once with an extra authentication step; each later debit up to ₹15,000 (₹1 lakh for insurance, mutual funds and credit card bills) then runs automatically, after a notice at least 24 hours before, and the customer can cancel at any time. Cards and UPI Autopay follow these rules; eNACH mandates debit bank accounts directly.

Renewals fail for ordinary reasons (expired cards, low balances), so billing tools retry on a schedule and send reminders, a process called dunning. Apps that sell digital content inside an Android or iOS app usually have to use Google Play or App Store billing instead, under the stores' rules.