Recurring billing is the machinery behind a recurring payment: who stores the customer’s payment method, who decides when to charge it, and what happens when the charge fails. Malaysian gateways split into three setups, and the one you pick decides how much work you do and how much you pay.
Three ways to run recurring billing
1. Built-in recurring billing (no code). The gateway’s dashboard lets you create a plan and share a sign-up link. The gateway stores the card, runs the schedule and sends receipts. HitPay works this way, with recurring billing bundled into the same account as checkout, invoicing and POS.
2. A subscription API. You create customers and plans through the API and the gateway runs the billing cycle for you. Stripe Billing is the best-known example: it handles subscriptions and metered usage. Xendit and Curlec also offer subscription products.
3. A charge API plus saved tokens. The gateway stores a card token, and your own system decides when to charge it. You get full control and full responsibility: scheduling, retries and dunning emails are your code.
Most SMEs are best served by option 1 or 2. Option 3 is for teams that already run their own billing logic.
The part that breaks: failed charges
Cards expire, get replaced after fraud, or hit their limit. A recurring setup that only handles the happy path will quietly lose customers. The essentials, as covered in the recurring payments glossary entry:
- Retries on a schedule, not just one attempt.
- Card-update flows so the customer can fix an expired card in a click.
- Clear cancellation so a customer who leaves is not charged again.
- Webhooks so your system knows when a charge succeeds or fails and can grant or pause access.
Subscription APIs usually cover the first three. With a bare charge API, budget developer time for all four.
What recurring billing costs
Your per-charge cost is normally the gateway’s card rate, but watch for subscription add-ons. Xendit charges MYR1.50 per active subscription per month on top of the card rate. HitPay adds 0.2% when you use its software tools, recurring billing among them. Stripe has no setup or monthly fee, but its Malaysian card rate is on the higher side and payouts run T+7.
The live table below compares these three from the verified dataset. Run your own monthly plan price through the fee calculator, then see every option ranked on the recurring gateways list or, if you are building software, the SaaS gateways list. For a wider side-by-side, read recurring payment gateways in Malaysia compared.
