Comparison to Merchant-Initiated Transactions

Recurring payments are handled with the payments API or the Recurring Billing service. The methods differ in their implementation, and each method has its own unique characteristics and use cases.

Merchant-initiated transactions (MITs) are part of the payments API. The first transaction in a recurring payment series is a customer-initiated transaction (CIT). You must store the customer's payment credentials and network transaction ID returned in the customer-initiated authorization response. The payment credentials and transaction ID must be included in subsequent merchant-initiated recurring authorization requests. Because you must handle customer credentials and transaction IDs, you must first obtain the customer's consent to store their private information.

Recurring Billing subscriptions is a service that automates the storage and handling of payment credentials in compliance with credentials-on-file (COF) best practices. The service also provides additional subscription management features. Use the Recurring Billing service when you have an agreement with a customer to bill them at a fixed amount at regular intervals that do not exceed one year\. Before you create a subscription, you must create a customer token. Subscriptions can be updated, activated, suspended, or cancelled.