Recurring payments in Zimbabwe: what charges automatically and what cannot
A card token or a PayPal subscription can be charged every period with nobody present, but mobile wallets such as EcoCash, OneMoney, InnBucks and O'mari cannot be debited unattended, so a WavePay subscription on a wallet sends the customer a fresh payment prompt each period and access follows what they pay.
Updated · by T3raTech · Free: 25 payments per 30 days, $0; Basic: 250 payments per 30 days for $9/month; Pro: 2,500 payments per 30 days for $29/month
Two collection modes
automatic charges a saved instrument: a Paynow card token (Visa, Mastercard or ZimSwitch) or a PayPal subscription. invoice_and_remind raises a normal checkout each period, pushes the wallet prompt or sends a link, and extends access when it is paid. It is the only mode that works on every local rail.
Why wallets are different
Paynow documents tokens for cards only. A wallet payment needs the customer's PIN every time, so no service can charge it silently. WavePay does not pretend otherwise: it asks each period.
Paynow card tokens need Paynow's approval
A merchant may only tokenise cards once Paynow has enabled it for the integration. If a subscription asks for automatic collection and no token comes back, it falls back to invoice_and_remind and records why, instead of failing.
Failed payments
A failed charge is retried the next day, then two days later. Three failures make the subscription past due, and a week after the first failed attempt it ends. A card whose token has expired is replaced by a payment request, and the customer is told.
Cancelling
POST /v2/internal/subscriptions/cancel ends it now, or with atPeriodEnd true keeps access to the end of the paid period. A PayPal subscription is also cancelled at PayPal.
Idempotent
Creating a subscription needs an Idempotency-Key, and every renewal is keyed by its period and attempt, so a repeated billing run can never charge a period twice.