# Recurring Orders in Checkout

Understand how Recurring Orders work with Checkout.

A Recurring Order automatically creates and places future orders at regular, predefined intervals on behalf of a customer. You use the commercetools [Recurring Orders API](/api/recurring-orders-overview.md#recurring-orders) to define the schedule and configuration for these orders. Checkout, in both [Complete Checkout](/checkout/overview.md#complete-checkout-mode) and [Payment Only](/checkout/overview.md#payment-only-mode) modes, is fully integrated with this feature. When you use commercetools Recurring Orders with Checkout, Checkout automatically handles the initial payment and payment tokenization, which means your customer triggers a Recurring Order sequence by successfully paying for the first purchase via Checkout. The payment details provided during this Checkout session are secured and stored for future recurring charges.

Checkout uses [PaymentMethod](/search.md?urn=ctp:api:type:PaymentMethod) information to process Recurring Orders, and introduces [Recurring Payments](/checkout/recurring-orders-in-checkout.md#recurring-payments) and [Recurring Payment Jobs](/checkout/recurring-orders-in-checkout.md#recurring-payment-jobs) to manage future automated charges.

## User journey of a Recurring Order in Checkout

The user journey of how a Recurring Order is triggered and handled in Checkout is as follows:

1. Your customer proceeds to Checkout with a Cart that has been flagged for Recurring Orders.
2. Your customer selects their payment method and enters the payment details. This can be a new credit card, an alternative payment provider such as PayPal or Klarna, or a previously stored payment method.
3. The payment credentials are captured and securely stored during the initial transaction.
4. Upon the successful completion of this first purchase, the specific payment method is automatically linked to the recurring schedule to facilitate future automated charges.

## Requirements

- The Cart associated with the Recurring Order must have a [`recurringPaymentConfiguration`](/search.md?urn=ctp:api:type:RecurringPaymentConfiguration) configured using the [`paymentStrategy`](/search.md?urn=ctp:api:type:PaymentStrategy) `Checkout`.
- The Payment Connector you use must support Recurring Orders and have the [Stored Payment Methods](/checkout/stored-payment-methods.md) capability enabled.

## Recurring Payments

A Recurring Payment maps a [Recurring Order](/api/projects/recurring-orders.md) to the [PaymentMethod](/search.md?urn=ctp:api:type:PaymentMethod) and [Payment Connector](/checkout/connectors-and-applications.md#payment-connectors) that process its future payments. When a customer completes their initial purchase in Checkout, Checkout automatically creates and configures the `RecurringPayment` resource through a [Recurring Payment Job](/checkout/recurring-orders-in-checkout.md#recurring-payment-jobs).

The `RecurringPayment` resource stores the mapping between the Payment Method and the Payment Connector that executes future automated charges for that Recurring Order. In Checkout, a Recurring Payment can have only one Payment Method configuration linked to it at any given time, ensuring that 100% of the Recurring Order amount is allocated to a single Payment Method.

If the payment method needs to be modified for a specific Recurring Order, you can update the `RecurringPayment` using the [Checkout Recurring Payments API](/checkout/recurring-payments-api.md) and the Cart's `recurringPaymentConfiguration` using the [Carts API](/api/projects/carts.md).

## Recurring Payment Jobs

Payment Connectors use the [Recurring Payment Jobs API](/checkout/recurring-payment-jobs-api.md) to communicate information about a payment for a Recurring Order to Checkout. This allows Checkout to ensure that the corresponding Recurring Payment is created and kept up to date.

Providing this API for Payment Connectors is necessary because payment processing and payment method storage are often asynchronous. Checkout manages these operations asynchronously using Recurring Payment Jobs, keeping track of the payment process and ensuring consistency across Recurring Payments.

When a Recurring Order is created, Checkout uses the Recurring Payment Job to:

- Set the payment allocation of the Recurring Cart's recurring payment configuration to 100% of the Payment Method.
- Create the Recurring Payment that links the Recurring Order to the Payment Method and to the Connector responsible for processing its future payments.

## How to enable Recurring Orders in Checkout

To use the Recurring Order functionality with Checkout:

1. Create a Cart with recurrence information. Once a Cart is created containing [Recurring Cart](/api/recurring-orders-overview.md#recurring-carts) details, Checkout automatically becomes eligible to process the Recurring Order linked to that Cart.
2. Enable Stored Payment Methods in your Payment Connector. Checkout requires the [Stored Payment Methods](/checkout/stored-payment-methods.md) capability to be enabled in the Payment Connector you use, such as Stripe or Adyen. This is required so that Checkout can store and reuse payment details for future recurring charges.
3. Make sure your Payment Connector supports recurring orders.

## Constraints

- If a Recurring Order is triggered, gift cards are unavailable for that specific payment session. Even if a customer has a valid balance, they cannot apply a gift card to the initial payment of a Recurring Order. This disablement ensures the recurring payment method is valid for future full-amount charges.
- Split payments are not supported for Recurring Orders. The full order amount (100%) must be charged to a single payment method to ensure the same payment method can be used for future recurring charges.
- Automated reversals for Recurring Orders are supported when the original order was paid through Checkout and the same payment integration/application remains in use. Otherwise, automated reversals will not be supported.

## Related pages

- [Area overview page with navigation](/checkout.md)
- [Previous page: Stored Payment Methods](/checkout/stored-payment-methods.md)
- [Search documentation and API specs](/search.md)