How do I enable recurring payments on my website?

How do I enable recurring payments on my website?

To enable subscription payments and tokenization on your Payfast Dashboard, do the following:

  1. Log in to your Payfast account.

  2. Navigate to Settings > Developer Settings.

  3. Under Security Passphrase, add your security passphrase and click Save.

  4. Adding a security passphrase will enable subscriptions automatically for your account.

  5. Following this, you can also enable tokenization for your account by navigating to Settings > Recurring Billing.

  6. Next to Enable Tokenization, toggle the option to Enabled.

  7. Click the box that you accept the Terms and Conditions for Payfast recurring billing.

  8. Click Save.

There are a number of ways that you can accept recurring payments on your website, which are outlined below. 


Ecommerce platforms and plugins


Once you have enabled recurring payments on your Payfast account, you can set up subscriptions on your website with a plugin that supports recurring payment setup via Payfast.

You can view how to set up subscriptions on Shopify or WooCommerce.

To view a list of plugins that support recurring payments on Payfast, please refer to our shopping carts page and filter by Recurring Enabled on the left-hand menu. Due to specific integration requirements, ad hoc payments (tokenization) are not available via some of these plugins.

Please note: If you are using an ecommerce system that supports recurring payments with Payfast, ensure that you are using the latest version of the Payfast plugin.

Pay Now Button


One of the easiest ways to create a subscription is to use a Pay Now button to put on your website. When your customers click this button, they are redirected to Payfast to securely enter their card information and create a recurring subscription.

On your account, navigate to ‘Generate Pay Now Button’ in your settings and simply fill in the necessary fields, ensuring that the subscription fields are populated. Click Generate Pay Now Code/Link and copy this code onto your website or email.

Find instructions on how to create a subscription using a Pay Now button.  
​
Please note: Pay now buttons are available for subscriptions.

Payment Request


An easy way to create a subscription is to send a Payment Request directly to your customer’s email address via your Payfast Dashboard. Simply fill in the required fields and Payfast will send an email on your behalf to your customer. Once your customer clicks the payment button in the email, they are redirected to PayFast to securely enter their card information and create a recurring subscription.

Find instructions on how to create a subscription using a Payment Request. 

Please note: Payment Requests are available for subscriptions.


    • Related Articles

    • How do I enable subscription payments with WooCommerce?

      Payfast works with the 3rd party WooCommerce Subscriptions plugin to allow you to receive recurring payments. Please note that WooCommerce charges $199 annually for their Subscriptions plugin. Using this setup, your customer enters their card details ...

    • How do I enable Split Payments?

      To enable Split Payments, action is required by both the primary account and the secondary split account. The first step is for the primary account holder to enable Split Payments via their Payfast Dashboard. To enable Split Payments, do the ...

    • How do I enable subscription payments with Shopify?

      To set up subscriptions on Shopify, you will need to install the PayFast Subscriptions App for Shopify from your PayFast Dashboard. Following this, you will need to set up your products on your Shopify store to create subscriptions on PayFast by ...

    • How do I enable the MoreTyme widget on my website?

      Once you have activated MoreTyme as a payment method on your PayFast Dashboard, you can create a personalised MoreTyme widget to display on your product web pages. The widget informs your customers how much they need to pay upfront and for the next ...

    • How can I test recurring functionality?

      You will be able to test recurring payments with the Sandbox facility. For more information on how you can test using the Sandbox please refer to our developer's documentation.