Best Payment Gateway for Subscriptions

[Rasa]

Hi,

I am building a website with PHP for a friend of mine. Her site will basically be a blog. What she wants to do is charge a monthly subscription to access the site with the first 30 days free.

I searched and I found a lot of different services that can do this and didn't really know where to start since I have not developed anything involving ecommerce.

My basic requirements are:

- First 30 days free
- Recurring payment every 30 days
- Ability to change subscription amount without re-entering the credit card information.
- I would like to have access to the html of the page where the payment is entered, that way the design of the main site is continuous.
- Notification if a payment stops.

I am very new to this so I don't know what companies are good to work with or which gateways/merchants will do what I want.

Do you all have a favorite or one that you think would fit for me?

Thanks

 

[benc811]

Look at PayPal I have had great luck with there subscription api. It is simple to implement and gives you a lot of control over the details and management of subscriptions.


overview of paypal subscriptions

 

[kokopelli]

If it's basically a blog, why not use WordPress, instead of trying to re-invent the wheel, and get one of the free or paid plugins that can already do what your client requires. Get started here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/

Most subscription plugins use PayPal, but there are other payment gateway options available too.