Subscription & Recurring Billing

Recurring agreement registration

When a subscription is created, Absterco registers a recurring agreement with Mastercard on the merchant's behalf using the acquirer Agreement API. This agreement gives Mastercard and the issuing bank visibility that future charges are pre-authorised recurring payments, not surprise transactions.

The agreement specifies a maximum billing amount per cycle. This maximum is set to the grossed-up charged amount plus a 20% buffer (configurable in settings) to account for FX rate movements between billing cycles.

If a recurring charge would exceed the registered agreement maximum, Mastercard rejects it. Merchants should notify Absterco if they anticipate a significant price increase so the agreement can be updated.

Billing anchor & month-end handling

For monthly subscriptions, an anchor_day between 1 and 28 bills on that exact day every month. Any anchor greater than 28 (e.g. 29, 30, 31) is normalised at creation time to the last day of the month. This guarantees every cycle charges on a real calendar date — for example a subscription anchored on the 31st will bill on Feb 28 (or 29 in leap years), Apr 30, and May 31.

We do not silently skip short months, and we do not roll charges forward into the next month. This keeps customers on a predictable monthly cadence and avoids surprise double-charges in longer months.

Failed billing and retry behaviour

If a recurring billing attempt fails (insufficient funds, card expired, etc.), the system records the failure and increments the consecutive failure count on the subscription.

Retries are not automatic. The merchant is responsible for deciding how to handle failed billings — they can trigger a retry via the API, update the customer's payment method, or cancel the subscription.

Merchants should not retry DECLINED_DO_NOT_CONTACT results — the issuer has explicitly requested no further attempts on that card.

Cancellation

When a subscription is cancelled, Absterco cancels the Mastercard recurring agreement. No further recurring charges can be made against that agreement ID.

Cancellation does not trigger a refund of any previously billed amounts. Refunds must be requested separately.