If you sell packages that renew, read this one properly. It is the difference between recurring income and a customer who cannot subscribe.
The rule
Of the thirty methods we support, twelve can carry a subscription and eighteen cannot.
The plugin labels every method on the Payment methods tab, so you never have to remember which is which. Look for the word Subscriptions or One-time next to it.
The twelve that can
iDEAL Bancontact KBC / CBC Belfius Pay Button EPS Cartes Bancaires PostePay BACS Direct Debit Credit and debit card PayPal Apple Pay SEPA Direct Debit
The eighteen that cannot
Google Pay, TWINT, BLIK, Przelewy24, Bizum, MB Way, Multibanco, Satispay, MyBank, BANCOMAT Pay, Pay by Bank, MobilePay, Swish, Vipps, Bank Transfer, Gift Cards, Meal and Eco Vouchers, and paysafecard.
These are perfectly good methods. They just cannot set up a recurring mandate, which is a limitation of the method itself and not of our plugin.
What goes wrong if you get it wrong
Your customer arrives at the checkout for a monthly package. The only method you switched on is Google Pay. They cannot subscribe, because Google Pay cannot do subscriptions.
Depending on the situation they either see no payment option at all, or they pay once and never renew.
Neither of those is a good day, and you will probably not find out until much later.
So: if any of your packages renew, make sure at least one Subscriptions method is switched on. For a Dutch audience, iDEAL alone solves this.
How a subscription actually works
This is worth understanding, because it explains the next section.
When your customer subscribes and pays the first time with iDEAL, two things happen. They pay you, and they give permission for future payments to be collected from their account. That permission is called a mandate.
Every renewal after that is collected by SEPA Direct Debit, using that mandate. Not by iDEAL. iDEAL only set it up.
The setting everyone forgets
Because renewals are collected by direct debit, SEPA Direct Debit has to be switched on in your Mollie account, even if you never show it at your checkout.
Go to your Mollie dashboard, then Settings, then Payment methods, and switch on SEPA Direct Debit.
If you skip this, your first payments will work beautifully and your renewals will silently never happen. You will find out a month later, when the money does not arrive.
This is the single most common cause of “my subscriptions are not renewing”, and it takes ten seconds to prevent.
Mixing one-time and recurring
You can offer both, and it works well.
Set each package to one-time or subscription in the Mollie Settings block on the package itself. A cheap one-off listing package can sit happily next to a monthly agency subscription.
Just remember that a customer buying the subscription package needs a subscription-capable method, so keep at least one switched on.