AutoPay

With AutoPay, a subscription is a single checkout call. After that, Ottu generates every billing cycle, charges the saved card, retries failed charges, emails the customer, and hosts a page where they manage their own subscription.

Building the integration? See AutoPay for developers.

Before you start

• AutoPay is API-only. There is no AutoPay screen in the dashboard. A developer makes the integration through the API.
• KNET cannot pay renewals. The limit is on the payment gateway, not on the card: KNET as a gateway cannot charge a saved card later. Customers must pay with a gateway that can.

All limits are listed in Limits.

Compare

Why choose AutoPay over building it yourself?

Ottu runs the schedule, retries, emails, and customer page. You make one checkout call.

With AutoPaySet up AutoPay

Build it yourself

Charges on a schedule

Automatic retries

Reminder and failure emails

Emails in English or Arabic

Switch emails off at creation

Hosted customer page

Customer changes their card

Customer cancels on their own

Customer pays an overdue balance

Free first period (trial)

Month-end billing dates handled

Customer sees billing history

You pick the exact charge time

In the Build it yourself column, ✗ means your team would have to build and run this. With AutoPay, Ottu runs it for you.

How it works

What happens at each stage, and what you need to do.

See it live

Want to see setup for yourself? The AutoPay live demo creates a test subscription and takes its first payment on Ottu's sandbox.

1. 1Your customer signs up

   Your customer pays the first charge, or saves a card for a free trial, and Ottu keeps the card.

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   Your part: Send them to checkout.

   Learn more →

2. 2Every billing date

   Ottu emails a reminder before the charge, then charges the saved card.

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   Your part: Nothing

   Learn more →

3. 3If a payment fails

   Ottu retries and asks your customer to pay. Ottu never cancels the subscription on its own.

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   Your part: Decide what to do if it stays Past Due.

   Learn more →

Always available

Your customer's own page

Your customer can change their card, pay a balance, or cancel.

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Your part: Optional. Send the page link at signup. Every Ottu email also includes it.

Learn more →

What your customer sees

Your customer gets two things: emails and one private page. Ottu hosts both.

The emails

Ottu sends an upcoming-charge reminder, a payment-failed notice, and a final-failure notice. You can switch each one off, but only when you create the subscription, not afterwards. Emails go out in English or Arabic, chosen when the subscription is created. Reminders go out ahead of each charge:

Billing frequency	Reminders	When
Monthly	1	About 3 days before
Yearly	3	About 31, 11, and 4 days before

Step 1 of 4

Step 1 of 4

Upcoming charge

Payment failed

Final failure

The same email in Arabic

Sent before money moves. Shows the amount, billing date, and card on file, with a link to manage the subscription.

Sent after a failed attempt while retries remain. Shows the reason, when the next retry runs, and a link to update the card.

Sent when every retry is used up. Shows the outstanding balance and links the customer straight to paying it.

Each email comes in the language chosen when the first payment was created, English or Arabic. This is the Arabic version of the final-failure email.

The final email may talk about suspended access. That describes your product. Ottu itself never suspends or cancels a subscription because a payment failed. Any decision about your customer's access to your product is yours.

The self-service page

Every subscription gets its own private page, reached through a private link. Treat it like a password: anyone holding the link can open the page. The link is in every email Ottu sends, and you can also send it yourself, for example at signup. Ottu hosts the page, keeps it in sync with the subscription, and shows it in English and Arabic.

From this page, a customer can:

• See their plan, status, and next charge date.
• Review billing history, including the next cycle, listed as Scheduled until it is charged.
• Add a card, or switch which saved card is active.
• Pay an outstanding balance.
• Cancel, or undo a pending cancellation.

What the page shows depends on the subscription's state:

Step 1 of 5

Step 1 of 5

Active

Trialing

Cancellation pending

Past due

Expired

Plan, status, next payment date, saved cards, and payment history on one page. Nothing is outstanding.

A banner counts down to the trial's end, when the saved card is charged. Canceling first means no charge at all.

Access runs to the end of the paid period, with Reactivate subscription available until then.

The page shows the overdue date and the failed card, with Pay Now to clear the balance.

Billing stopped at the end date. History stays readable and every action is gone. Continuing means a new subscription.

And these are the actions a customer can take:

Step 1 of 5

Step 1 of 5

Add a card

Confirm a cancellation

Give a reason

Undo the cancellation

Payment confirmed

A secure card form opens on the page. The new card can become active immediately, and the next charge uses it.

The dialog states when access ends and that no further charges follow.

A short reason list, clearly marked optional.

One click, no new checkout. The dialog previews the plan, amount, and next renewal date.

The balance clears and the subscription returns to Active.

A customer's cancellation waits for the end of the paid period

It never takes effect immediately. Only your team can cancel immediately, through the API. Undo is available while an active subscription's cancellation is pending.

A Past Due subscription is the exception. If a Past Due customer cancels, the subscription stays Past Due. When they pay the balance, it ends at once, with no further charge. If they never pay, it stays Past Due until your team cancels it.

Customers can hold several cards and switch the active one in a click. Switching to a new card keeps the old card, so an old card still explains what paid an earlier cycle.

Regenerating a link revokes the old one

The previous link stops working instantly, and the page shows "This link has expired". Ottu doesn't notify the customer. Links never expire on their own, so only a regeneration revokes one. Deliver the new link the same way you delivered the first, or the customer is locked out.

When a payment fails

• Four attempts by default. That is one initial charge plus three retries, about an hour apart. Your developer can set from 1 to 10 retries when they create the subscription. Ottu fixes the interval.
• The customer is emailed after each failed attempt while retries remain, so they can update their card.
• After the last attempt, the subscription moves to Past Due. The customer gets the final email with a link to pay.
• Paying the balance returns the subscription to Active.

Ottu never cancels a past-due subscription on its own

It stays Past Due until the customer pays or your team cancels it. Build your own process for subscriptions that stay past due longer than you are comfortable with.

Lifecycle and billing cycles

A subscription moves through seven states. Canceled and Expired are final.

State	What it means
Pending setup	Created and waiting for the first charge to resolve.
Trialing	The first charge was zero, so no money has moved. The first real charge comes at the next billing cycle.
Active	Billing normally. The latest cycle was paid.
Past Due	Every retry on a cycle failed. The subscription is not canceled. It waits for the balance to be paid.
Canceled	Billing has stopped. A customer's cancellation lands here at the end of the paid period. From Past Due, it lands here when the customer pays the balance, with no further charge. Your team's immediate cancel lands here at once.
Expired	Billing stopped because the subscription reached its end date.
Setup Failed	The customer never completed the first payment. Ottu doesn't retry it. Create a new subscription.

Ottu creates billing cycles one at a time. The next cycle exists only once the current one is paid. Each cycle locks its amount when it is generated, so past cycles stay a reliable record of what was charged.

Anchor days

Every subscription bills on the same day of the month, called its anchor day. The start date sets it. One anchored on the 29th, 30th, or 31st moves to the last day of a shorter month, then returns to its anchor day. Here is a subscription anchored on the 31st:

Cycle	Anchor day	Bills on	Why
January	31st	Jan 31	The anchor day exists in January.
February	31st	Feb 28 (Feb 29 in a leap year)	February has no 31st, so the charge moves to the last day of the month.
March	31st	Mar 31	March has a 31st again. The anchor day never moved.

Setting up AutoPay

Your developers call the API to create, look up, and cancel subscriptions. See Limits for what AutoPay does not do.

Before your first subscription, make sure you have:

1. AutoPay enabled for your account. Ask Ottu support to turn it on.
2. A support email. It appears on the customer's page and in the footer of every email Ottu sends.
3. A privacy policy URL. It is linked from the footer of every email Ottu sends.
4. A payment gateway that can save a card and charge it again later, in the currency you bill in. Ottu needs somewhere to save and charge the card. See Limits.
5. The three notification templates registered, in English and Arabic. Ottu support sets these up, the same way notification templates work for one-off payments.

AutoPay subscriptions have no plan catalog. The plan name is a free-text label, and the price is the amount your team passes in the checkout call that creates the subscription. The developer docs show the request shape.

Limits

• API-only. There is no AutoPay screen in the dashboard. A developer makes the integration.
• KNET cannot pay renewals. The limit is on the payment gateway, not on the card: KNET as a gateway cannot charge a saved card later. Customers must pay with a gateway that can.
• A running subscription cannot be edited. Amount, frequency, billing day, retry count, and customer email are fixed. Cancel it and create a new one.
• No pause. Cancel at the end of the paid period, then create a new subscription when the customer returns.
• Emails switch off only at creation. You cannot switch them off afterwards.
• You cannot pick the exact charge time.
• No dashboard list of subscriptions. To see which subscriptions are Past Due, your developer lists them through the API, filtered by status.

Things to know

• A Past Due subscription never cancels itself. See When a payment fails.
• A customer's cancellation waits for the end of the paid period. See The self-service page.
• A Past Due customer's cancellation waits for payment. See the note under The self-service page.
• Regenerating a link silently revokes the old one. Deliver the new link yourself. See Regenerating a link revokes the old one.
• A zero first charge starts a trial, not an active subscription. See Lifecycle.
• A cycle's amount is locked when it is generated, not read fresh at charge time. See Lifecycle and billing cycles.

FAQ

What's Next?

• AutoPay for developers: API integration and the full request/response contract.
• Notifications: configuring email, SMS, and WhatsApp templates generally.
• Payment Management: find and manage your transactions.
• Settings → API Keys: the credentials your developers need to call Ottu's API.