Migrating Existing Subscribers to 4Geeks Payments

Migrating your subscriber base to a new payment platform is a critical process that requires precision to ensure revenue continuity. 4Geeks Payments is designed to make this transition seamless, helping you consolidate your billing, reduce involuntary churn through smart retries, and offer a better customer experience with a dedicated self-service portal.

This guide outlines the most effective strategies for moving your existing recurring customers to 4Geeks Payments without interrupting their service.

Prerequisites

• A verified 4Geeks Payments account (Production mode enabled).
• A list of your current customers (Name, Email) and their active plans.
• Your subscription plans already created in the 4Geeks Console (Sales > Recurring Plans).

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Migration Strategies

There are three primary ways to migrate subscribers. Choose the one that best fits your technical resources and business size.

Method 1: The "Fresh Start" (Recommended for accuracy)

This method involves inviting active customers to re-subscribe via a secure link. While it requires customer action, it is often the healthiest move for your business because it updates expired cards, verifies contact info, and ensures Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) compliance.

1. Create Your Plans: Ensure your plans in 4Geeks match your old plans (price, interval, currency).
2. Generate Invites:
   • Go to Sales > Recurring Plans in the 4Geeks Console.
   • Select the plan you want to migrate users to.
   • Click Add Subscriber.
   • Enter the customer's email.
3. Send the Invitation: 4Geeks will send an official, secure email to your customer containing a link to active their new subscription.
4. Cancel Old Subscriptions: Once a customer confirms their new subscription in 4Geeks, cancel their profile in your previous provider to avoid double billing.

Method 2: Programmatic Migration (For Developers)

If you have a large user base and developer resources, you can automate the process using the 4Geeks Payments API.

1. Retrieve Plan ID: In the Console, open your plan details to find its unique API endpoint/ID.
2. Script the Migration: Write a script to loop through your database of customers.
3. Create Subscriptions: Send a POST request for each customer to the plan's unique URL.
   • Required Data: You must include the customer's name and email in the request body.
4. Handle Payment Details: Since you cannot transfer raw credit card data via API (due to PCI compliance), the API will initiate a "Pending" subscription. You can then trigger an email asking the user to simply update their payment method in the Customer Portal.

Method 3: Token Migration (Enterprise Only)

If you have thousands of subscribers and active credit card tokens with a PCI-compliant provider (like Stripe or PayPal), you may be able to transfer the payment data directly without asking users to re-enter it.

• Contact Support: This process requires a secure, backend-to-backend handoff between payment processors. Please contact the 4Geeks Enterprise Support team to initiate a secure data import request.

How to Manage the Transition

Once your subscribers are migrated, 4Geeks provides tools to manage the ongoing relationship effortlessly.

• Self-Service Portal: Your migrated customers will automatically get access to a Customer Portal. Here, they can update their own credit cards, view invoice history, and manage their subscription status without contacting support.
• Automated Retries: If a migrated customer's payment fails (e.g., due to an expired card), 4Geeks Payments automatically attempts smart retries to recover the revenue before canceling the subscription.

Common Use Cases

• Scenario 1: Moving from Manual Invoicing to Automated Billing
  • Situation: A digital agency currently sends PDF invoices to 50 clients monthly and tracks bank transfers manually.
  • Solution: The agency creates a "Monthly Retainer" plan in 4Geeks Payments. They use Method 1 to email a secure subscription link to all 50 clients. Clients enter their corporate card once, and 4Geeks automates the billing and receipt generation forever after.
• Scenario 2: Consolidating Regional Payment Providers
  • Situation: A SaaS company uses different providers for US and Latin American customers but wants a unified dashboard.
  • Solution: They use Method 2 (API) to create customer profiles for all users in 4Geeks Payments. They then direct all users to the 4Geeks Customer Portal to add their preferred local payment method (card, wallet, etc.), leveraging 4Geeks' global processing capabilities.

Troubleshooting

• Issue 1: Customer decline during re-subscription.
  • Solution: Ensure your plan currency matches the customer's card currency where possible to avoid bank rejections. 4Geeks Payments supports multiple currencies and smart routing to minimize "soft declines".
• Issue 2: Duplicate billing.
  • Solution: The migration period is delicate. Ensure you explicitly cancel the user's subscription in your old system immediately after you receive the "New Subscription Created" webhook or email notification from 4Geeks.
• Issue 3: Missing customer data.
  • Solution: If using the API, ensure your payload strictly follows the requirement of including valid first_name, last_name, and email. Missing fields will result in a 400 Bad Request error.

FAQs