How do I enable recurring payments on my website?

How do I enable recurring payments on my website?

To enable subscription payments and tokenization on your PayFast Dashboard, do the following:

  1. Log in to your PayFast account.

  2. Navigate to Settings > Developer Settings.

  3. Under Security Passphrase, add your security passphrase and click Save.

  4. Adding a security passphrase will enable subscriptions automatically for your account.

  5. Following this, you can also enable tokenization for your account by navigating to Settings > Recurring Billing.

  6. Next to Enable Tokenization, toggle the option to Enabled.

  7. Click the box that you accept the Terms and Conditions for PayFast recurring billing.

  8. Click Save.

There are a number of ways that you can accept recurring payments on your website, which are outlined below. 


Ecommerce platforms and plugins


Once you have enabled recurring payments on your PayFast account, you can set up subscriptions on your website with a plugin that supports recurring payment setup via PayFast.

You can view how to set up subscriptions on Shopify here or WooCommerce-hosted subscriptions here.

To view a list of plugins that support recurring payments on PayFast, please refer to our shopping carts page and filter by Recurring Enabled on the left-hand menu. Due to specific integration requirements, ad hoc payments (tokenization) are not available via some of these plugins.

Please note: If you are using an ecommerce system that supports recurring payments with PayFast, ensure that you are using the latest version of the PayFast plugin.

Pay Now Button


One of the easiest ways to create a subscription is to use a Pay Now button to put on your website. When your customers click this button, they are redirected to PayFast to securely enter their card information and create a recurring subscription.

On your account, navigate to ‘Generate Pay Now Button’ in your settings and simply fill in the necessary fields, ensuring that the subscription fields are populated. Click Generate Pay Now Code/Link and copy this code onto your website or email.

For instructions on how to create a subscription using a Pay Now button, read this article.  
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Please note: Pay now buttons are available for subscriptions. For Ad-hoc/tokenization card payments please see here. 

Payment Request


An easy way to create a subscription is to send a Payment Request directly to your customer’s email address via your PayFast Dashboard. Simply fill in the required fields and PayFast will send an email on your behalf to your customer. Once your customer clicks the payment button in the email, they are redirected to PayFast to securely enter their card information and create a recurring subscription.

For instructions on how to create a subscription using a Payment Request, read this article. 

Please note: Payment Requests are available for subscriptions. For Ad-hoc/tokenization card payments please see here. 

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