For additional flexibility with real-time, recurring, and card-on-file transactions, Merchants have the ability to securely save their customers' card payment and/or eCheck data by creating a token. By tokenizing a customer's payment method, Merchants can schedule future card-on-file charges and create recurring payment plans.
Tokens save the payment method while fully protecting the cardholder’s sensitive data, simplifying your PCI compliance requirements. Tokens do not expire.
How to Tokenize a Cardholder’s Payment Method
There are two ways in which a cardholder’s payment data can be saved for CoF & recurring billing transactions:
Creating a Customer in the Payrix Portal
Merchants have the ability to tokenize a cardholder’s payment method data directly in the Portal via the Customers section on the Dashboard menu. When creating a Customer, the Merchant will be prompted to enter the cardholder’s personal information, including name, address, and email address.
Saving address information on a Customer is not technically required to create a token. However, it is strongly recommended that it be saved to the record to increase successful recurring and card-on-file transactions with the token.
Once a Customer is created, the Merchant can attach a saved payment method (token) to that Customer for future CoF or recurring billing.
For our full step-by-step instructions for creating a Customer & attaching a tokenized payment method, please visit our Portal User Guide.
Tokenizing a Payment Method Via the API
A customer’s payment method can also be saved (tokenized) via the Payrix API. This is done by sending a POST request to the /tokens endpoint. Within the BODY of the request, you will include the customer’s information (name, address etc.), as well as the payment method (card/account number, exp. date etc.) that you would like to tokenize.
Technically, the customer’s address is not required when creating a token. However, we strongly recommend including it to prevent future payments from being blocked/declined due to AVS mismatch.
Please visit our API Reference for optional fields & additional information.
Location | Syntax |
|---|---|
URL | [POST]https://api.payrix.com/tokens |
HEADER | Content-Type:application/json
APIKEY:{{private_api_key}}
|
BODY | {
"customer":{
"first":"John",
"last":"Smith",
"email":"john@example.com",
"address1":"123 Main Street",
"city":"New York",
"state":"NY",
"zip":"12345",
},
"payment":{
"number":"4242424242424242",
"cvv":"123"
},
"expiration":"0120"
}
|
Creating a Token Simultaneously As You Submit a Transaction in the API
You also have the ability to tokenize a customer’s payment method simultaneously as you submit a transaction via the API. To do this, you will need to include the customer’s personal information within the BODY of your POST request to the /txns endpoint.
Please note, the syntax for creating a token simultaneously as you submit a transaction differs slightly for card payments and eCheck payments (as shown in the sample code below).
Location | Syntax |
|---|---|
URL | [POST]https://api.payrix.com/txns |
HEADER | Content-Type:application/json
APIKEY:{{private_api_key}}
|
BODY (for card payments) | {
"merchant": "t1_mer_59efbf4e69b27a4760b885d",
"type": "1",
"origin": "2",
"token": {
"payment": {
"number": "4242424242424242",
"cvv": "123",
"expiration": "1020"
},
"customer": {
"first": "John",
"last": "Smith",
"email":"john@example.com",
"address1":"123 Main Street",
"city":"New York",
"state":"NY",
"zip":"12345",
}
},
"total": "10000"
}
|
BODY (for eCheck payments) | {
"merchant": "t1_mer_59efbf4e69b27a4760b885d",
"type": "7",
"origin": "2",
"token": {
"payment": {
"method": "8",
"number": "123456789",
"routing": "123456789"
},
"customer": {
"first": "First",
"last": "Last",
"email":"john@example.com",
"address1":"123 Main Street",
"city":"New York",
"state":"NY",
"zip":"12345",
}
},
"total": "10000"
}
|
Recurring Payments
One of the key features of Tokenizing a payment method is the ability for Merchants to use it to schedule recurring payments. This solution gives a Merchant the ability to charge their customer’s tokenized payment method in their desired amount and at their desired frequency. For example, Merchants can utilize recurring payments to charge their customers a monthly fee or for billing on a subscription-based business model.
Recurring payments can be set up directly in the Portal, by creating a recurring payment plan & subscribing your desired customer/s to that plan.
Setting Up Recurring Payments
You can find step-by-step instructions for setting up recurring payment plans & subscriptions here.
Setting up recurring payments within Payrix consists of three components:
Creating a Customer
In order to set up recurring payments, you must first save the cardholder’s personal & payment information by creating a customer (with a token). You can read more about creating a customer here.
Recurring Payment Plans
A plan dictates the amount and how often a recurring payment will be charged. Plans are not unique to a specific customer, rather multiple customers can be added to the same plan, and each will be charged the same amount at the intervals dictated in the plan.
Subscriptions
Once a plan dictating the recurring payment amount & frequency is created, customers can be added to the plan via subscriptions. Therefore, customers can be added or removed from a recurring payment plan without any changes being made to the actual plan. Simply adjust a customer’s subscription to make any changes.
To summarize, a plan determines the amount & frequency of a recurring payment, and customers can be added to a plan via a subscription.