Enable Subscribers to Purchase a Subscription With a Credit Card

You can enable subscribers to purchase a Subscription offer using a credit card for payment. To support this functionality, you must use the Subscribe APIs.

• Use Case Number: 2-2-02
• Completed By: Software Developer
• Estimated Completion Time: 1 day

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Basic Scenario

A new subscriber purchases a Subscription at the standard rate using a credit card for payment. The Subscription does not include a free trial period.

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Design Approach

To allow subscribers to securely enter credit card information into Subscribe, you must use Subscribe Payment Method Tokenization (PMT). For more information about using PMT, please refer to Payment Method Tokenization in the Subscribe Programming Guide. As shown in the following diagram, after the Credit Card Payment method is active in Subscribe, your storefront can reference the card and Account IDs when creating the Subscription. This attaches the new payment method to the subscriber’s Account and Subscription in Subscribe.

• Initiate Payment Method Tokenization Using Subscribe APIs

Parent topic:Basic Subscription Setup

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Initiate Payment Method Tokenization Using Subscribe APIs

• Set up an account with your payment processor of choice.
• Ensure Vindicia has been authorized as a presenter on the payment processor account.

1. Use REST PMT to tokenize the card in Subscribe. This has the effect of vaulting the card without your server ever having to save or store the PCI components of the card number (primary account number [PAN]), expiration date, or card verification number [CVN]).
2. If you have a requirement to calculate and show taxes or campaign discounts before the subscriber commits to the purchase, you must make two calls to the subscription API. It is optional to use dryrun for this purpose as described here, but is very common among merchants. The first call uses the dryrun option that serves as a quote, which causes Subscribe to calculate taxes and discounts, and return them in the call response, but does not save the subscription, and no charges are sent to the processor. Since the subscription is not saved in this case, you cannot fetch it after the dryrun call.
   • To add the dryrun option to the POST, use the following sample code: POST https://api.staging.us-west.vindicia.com/subscriptions?dryrun=1
   • The second call does not set dryrun, and creates the subscription in Subscribe and sends any resulting billing charges to the processor, which will charge the subscriber’s payment method.
3. If you are not using dryrun as described above, you can either set dryrun to 0 explicitly, or omit the option from the POST, as follows: POST https://api.staging.us-west.vindicia.com/subscriptions To initiate a dry run or create the subscription, you must include the following in the POST call at a minimum.

   Name	Value
   subscription: id	Unique ID for this subscription.
   account: id	ID for the account that this subscription will be attached to.
   account: payment_method : id	ID for the payment method which was returned from the PMT tokenization process.
   billing_plan: id	ID for the billing plan that this subscription will use.
   items	Array of product objects for each product being purchased as part of this subscription.
   items: product: id	ID for the product defined in the product catalog in Subscribe.
   policy	The policy object incorporates fraud screening and authorization directives as indicated below.
   policy:ignore_avs_policy	Indicates whether Subscribe cancels this autobill if the initial authorization shows a No Match for AVS validation. Recommended value is 0 for US and CA addresses.
   policy:ignore_cvn_policy	Indicates whether Subscribe cancels this autobill (subscription) if the initial authorization shows a No Match for CVN validation. Recommended value is 0.
   policy:immediate_auth_failure_policy	Indicates whether to create the autobill (subscription) if the initial authorization is declined by the processor.  Recommended value is doNotSaveAutoBill.
   policy:validate_for_future_payment	Indicates whether Subscribe should send an auth request to the processor if there is no immediate billing. Recommended value is 1 so that Subscribe validates when the billing plan includes a free trial period.

   Sample Code For examples of subscription related REST calls, see: Github REST examples for subscription. The following is an example of the JSON REST payload used to create the subscription: POST https://api.staging.us-west.vindicia.com/subscriptions
   
   {
      "object": "Subscription",
      "id": "rmmtest_ab_20190219_001",
      "account": {
         "object": "Account",
         "id": "rmmtest_20181204_001"
      },
      "billing_plan": {
         "object": "BillingPlan",
         "id": "monthly_noprice"
      },
      "payment_method": {
         "object": "PaymentMethod",
         "id": "pm-rmmtest_20181204_001"
      },
      "description": "dryrun Testing AB rmmtest_ab_20190219_001",
      "currency" : "USD",
      "items": [
         {
            "object": "SubscriptionItem",
            "id": "MyItemID_RMMTEST002",
            "campaign_code": "10P",
            "product": {
               "object": "Product",
               "id": "RMMTEST002"
            }
         }
      ],
      "minimum_commitment": 0,
      "policy": {
         "ignore_cvn_policy": 1,
         "ignore_avs_policy": 1,
         "min_chargeback_probability": 100,
         "immediate_auth_failure_policy": "doNotSaveAutoBill",
         "validate_for_future_payment": 0
      }
   }
   

• A proper Subscription with Account and PaymentMethod objects are created in Subscribe.
• The initial Transaction is generated if applicable, including any applicable taxation.
• Future billings are correctly predicted.
• The Account has been granted appropriate Entitlements.

Parent topic:Enable Subscribers to Purchase a Subscription With a Credit Card