In addition to API-based subscription management, PayFast supports recurring payments through the following mechanisms:

Pay Now Button

Recurring payments can be configured when generating a Pay Now button via the Merchant Dashboard.

This option is suitable for:

See the Pay Now Button documentation for configuration steps.

Payment Request

Recurring billing can be enabled when creating a Payment Request from the PayFast dashboard.

This is suitable for:

Many supported ecommerce plugins allow recurring payments to be configured directly within the platform.

Supported platforms may include:

Recurring billing settings are typically managed within the plugin configuration.

When enabling recurring payments via non-API methods:

Subscription logic may be managed by the dashboard or plugin.
API endpoints can still be used for subscription maintenance (pause, cancel, fetch).
Signature rules differ between form-based and API-based requests.

Refer to the Signature Generation section for details.