Variable cost subscription payment provider UK

Question

Hi all,

I am looking for a payment provider that uses an API and supports variable cost subscriptions that I can integrate into my Rails application. We are currently using the Active Merchant plugin for Rails and PayPal as our provider but their recurring billing procedure is apparently flaky. I'm thinking that there may be a provider of some kind of credit card storage facility (so we don't have to handle that ourselves) that we can call upon and therefore bill on a recurring basis (like monthly).

Does anyone have any experience with any UK providers?

Thanks in advance!

Gav

Update:

Mr. Matt asked where we found PayPal to be a bit flaky. Specifically:

1) As we understand it, PayPal can only handle fixed payments of X pounds each month, so we can't bill say £30 on one month, then £35 on another. (Our product has a flat-rate plus commission.)

2) As we understand it, PayPal expects a fixed term of X months. We would like to offer the ability for a customer to come and go with a minimum of 1 month subscription.

3) Also, PayPal does not handle partial refunds. If a customer gets half way through their fifth month with us and chooses to terminate their account, we cannot refund the remainder of the month.

Answer 1

If you can get a merchant account then give Protx (SagePay) a try. I think it already integrates with AM.

How is the PayPal repeat billing being flakey for you? I've used if for a few years, and it's worked just fine (so far).

EDIT

WorldPay might be worth looking at, considering your needs WRT repeat billing and refunds. Their system covers all of the points you outlined above.

Answer 2

just throwing this out not sure if it helps but i read their customer support sucks

http://code.google.com/apis/checkout/developer/index.html

Answer 3

If this is for what I think it might be SAAS kit might be worth a look

http://railskits.com/saas/

Answer 4

What we're doing (for a physical product that is shipped) is using Authorize.NET's CIM (customer information manager). This stores the customers information securely (we dont store CC #s) and then we can bill them at any time for any amount.

Depending upon your situation this is either good or bad - but its an option that especially works well for us since we're shipping a product (the successful payment triggers shipping).

One disadvantage against Paypal is how to handle expired credit cards. The Paypal transaction would continue indefinitely I think but CIM will fail once a CC has expired.