Payments & Compliance.
A subscription payment system is more than a checkout form. It decides who initiates each renewal, where the reusable payment authority lives, how an off-session charge is authenticated, which events update WooCommerce, how customers replace a failed method, and who owns tax, refunds, disputes, and compliance. These guides make those responsibilities explicit before a merchant commits to a gateway or migration.Start with the gateway comparison, then use the focused Stripe, PayPal, Paddle, manual-billing, SCA, token, webhook, and tax guides to test the exact architecture. Product behavior is verified against current ArraySubs releases and provider documentation, operational limitations are visible, and legal or tax questions are clearly separated from software behavior so engineering, finance, support, and leadership can make one defensible decision together.
- Choose the renewal and Merchant-of-Record architecture first
- Test tokens, authentication, webhooks, refunds, and recovery
- Assign operational, tax, and compliance ownership explicitly
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Payments & Compliance guides
Showing 1–14 of 14 articles
Best Payment Gateways for WooCommerce Subscriptions in 2026
Choose the renewal architecture first, then compare Stripe, PayPal, Paddle, and manual billing by cart fit, recovery, operations, and responsibility.
Stripe vs PayPal vs Paddle for WooCommerce Recurring Billing
Compare three billing control planes: WooCommerce-led Stripe, buyer-approved PayPal agreements, and Paddle's Merchant-of-Record commerce stack.
Stripe Recurring Payments for WooCommerce: How They Work and What to Test
Trace a Stripe renewal from reusable payment authority through local scheduling, off-session PaymentIntent states, webhooks, recovery, and reconciliation.
PayPal Recurring Payments for WooCommerce: Agreements, Renewals, and Limits
Trace PayPal Product, Plan, Subscription, approval, sale, and webhook objects—and understand the current cart and lifecycle boundaries.
Paddle Merchant of Record for WooCommerce Subscriptions
Understand Paddle’s buyer-facing MoR responsibility, remote billing architecture, product synchronization, tax documents, lifecycle, and reconciliation limits.
Automatic vs Manual Gateway Support for Subscriptions
Separate checkout acceptance from true automatic-renewal readiness with a capability ladder, lifecycle tests, fallback safeguards, and gateway-specific schedule ownership.
SCA and 3D Secure for Subscription Renewals
Understand how authenticated setup, off-session renewal, issuer challenges, pending recovery, webhook evidence, and gateway ownership fit together.
Subscription Payment Tokens and Card Updates Explained
Understand provider-vault references, subscription-specific payment context, customer and network updates, portability limits, and renewal verification.
Subscription Webhooks: Events Every WooCommerce Store Should Monitor
Build a defensible webhook evidence chain across provider delivery, signature verification, object correlation, idempotent mutation, and reconciliation.
Sales Tax and VAT on WooCommerce Subscriptions
Build an auditable subscription-tax workflow across seller responsibility, product taxability, customer location, renewals, refunds, and gateway records.
Merchant of Record vs Payment Processor for Subscription Businesses
Map seller identity, tax, invoices, disputes, cash, data, integrations, and exit obligations before choosing a Merchant of Record or processor model.
Migrating Subscription Gateways Without Breaking Renewals
Inventory billing authority and renewal context, prove a pilot cohort, reconcile both systems, and move in bounded waves with an explicit rollback boundary.
Choosing a Subscription Gateway by Country and Business Model
Eliminate gateways that fail seller-country, product, method, recurring-authority, settlement, compliance, or integration requirements before comparing price.
Multi-Gateway Resilience for Subscription Stores
Use gateway diversity for checkout continuity and bounded migration while protecting each subscription's non-portable payment authority and renewal history.