This page compares how payment methods differ for subscriptions (recurring billing) across billing model, frequency, trial period, and management, so you can decide quickly when choosing a payment method or designing your subscription integration.
This is not a complete list of available payment methods. Whether a payment method supports subscriptions, and its exact capabilities, depend on your merchant contract and the paymethodconfig/inquiry response. Always treat Webhook notifications or an active query as the source of truth for subscription status and each billing result.
Two billing models
Who drives renewals determines most of the differences:
- Waffo-managed — After the customer authorizes the first payment, Waffo automatically charges the payment method on each billing cycle. Cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPay, other major wallets, and Paidy fall into this category.
- Channel-managed — The payment channel drives recurring charges on its own schedule; Waffo does not trigger them. PIX and DANA (direct) fall into this category.
The billing model directly affects whether upgrade/downgrade, update, and deferred start are available (see Table B).
Billing and frequency
| Payment method | Billing model | Subscription model | Supported billing frequency | Cross-currency |
|---|
| Cards (Visa / Mastercard credit·debit) | Waffo-managed (redirect auth on first payment) | Payment-first / Service-first | Daily (every 1–365 days) / Weekly (every 1–4 weeks) / Monthly (every 1+ months, no upper limit; 3 = quarterly, 6 = semi-annual, 12 = annual, 24 = 2 years) | Supported |
| Apple Pay | Waffo-managed (redirect auth on first payment) | Payment-first / Service-first | Same as cards | Supported |
| Google Pay | Waffo-managed (redirect auth on first payment) | Payment-first / Service-first | Same as cards | Supported |
| PayPay | Waffo-managed (redirect auth on first payment) | Payment-first / Service-first | Same as cards, and a single period must not exceed 365 days | Supported |
| PIX | Channel-managed (redirect auth on first payment) | Service-first only | Weekly (every 1 week) / Monthly (every 1, 3, 6, or 12 months — i.e. monthly / quarterly / semi-annual / annual); daily not supported | Not supported |
| DANA (direct) | Channel-managed (redirect auth on first payment) | Service-first only | Weekly (every 1–4 weeks) / Monthly (every 1+ months); daily not supported; total subscription duration must not exceed 3 years | Not supported |
| Other major wallets (GCash, GrabPay, Alipay, etc.) | Waffo-managed (redirect auth on first payment) | Payment-first / Service-first | Same as cards | Supported |
| Paidy (BNPL) | Waffo-managed (redirect auth on first payment) | Payment-first / Service-first | Same as cards | Supported |
Trial and management
| Payment method | Trial period | Subscription management (upgrade/downgrade, update, deferred start) | User-initiated cancellation |
|---|
| Cards | Free (0) and paid trials supported; trial frequency may differ from the regular period | All supported | No (merchant-side only) |
| Apple Pay | Same as cards | All supported | Yes (Apple Wallet) |
| Google Pay | Same as cards | All supported | Yes (Google Pay) |
| PayPay | Same as cards | All supported | Yes (PayPay app) |
| PIX | Free and paid trials supported; trial frequency must match the regular period | Coming soon | Yes (channel side) |
| DANA (direct) | Supported; trial frequency must match the regular period | Coming soon | Yes (DANA app) |
| Other major wallets (GCash, GrabPay, Alipay, etc.) | Same as cards | All supported | Yes (wallet side) |
| Paidy (BNPL) | Same as cards | All supported | Yes (Paidy side) |
Column reference
- Billing model — Waffo-managed: Waffo charges the payment method automatically on each cycle; channel-managed: the payment channel drives recurring charges on its own mechanism.
- Subscription model — Payment-first: on a failed renewal, service is suspended and no further periods are attempted; service-first: on a failed renewal, service continues and later periods are still attempted.
- Supported billing frequency — Set via “period type + interval”; there is no standalone “yearly” type, so annual is expressed as “monthly × 12”.
- Trial period — Configure a free (0) or discounted trial; the trial amount must be less than the regular period amount.
- Subscription management — Whether you can upgrade/downgrade a plan (
change), modify the amount (update), and set a future start (deferred start) via API. “Coming soon” means the capability is being rolled out.
- User-initiated cancellation — Whether the customer can cancel from the payment method side (the cancellation is reported back to Waffo). Every payment method can be canceled from the merchant side; see the common rules below.
Common to all payment methods
- A single set of subscription APIs: create, inquiry, cancel, manage, change, update.
subscriptionManagementUrl is required when creating a subscription.- Every payment method can be canceled by calling the cancel API from the merchant side.
- Subscription refunds follow the contract’s refund rules (not allowed / full / partial).
- On a failed renewal, Waffo automatically retries: by default 2 attempts (including the first charge), once per day. Contact Waffo to adjust.
- Subscription status changes and each billing result are delivered via Webhook.
