Grow or PayPlus for a recurring-revenue business: what each does when a card declines, Masav versus cards, vertical modules, and what to check before moving.
Key takeaways
- PayPlus explicitly enumerates the failure paths - invalid orders, bad card numbers, retries, card updates. That is what decides how much revenue you lose.
- Masav support alongside cards is a structural difference, not a feature. Some businesses cannot operate without it.
- Grow brings the account layer and Payout. If cash flow is the pain, that is the side that addresses it.
- PayPlus has defined vertical modules - parking, hospitality against Oracle, SAP B1 retail tills, vending machines. That decides it if you are in one of those.
If your model is recurring charging, this is not a clearing comparison - it is a collections-system comparison. PayPlus presents a standing-order system covering both cards and Masav, with handling for invalid orders, charge retries and automatic card updates. Grow presents a billing module alongside a business account and early balance access. The question is which matters more to you: managing failures, or managing the money.
What the PayPlus standing-order system actually does
The PayPlus standing-orders page lists these capabilities, and each one maps to a real leak:
| Capability presented | The problem it solves |
|---|---|
| Standing orders on cards and through Masav | Two collection rails under one interface instead of two systems |
| Handling invalid standing orders and bad card numbers | A subscriber that entered with broken data and never charges |
| Charge retries | A momentary failure - credit limit, connectivity - that should not kill a subscription |
| Automatic card updates | An expired card, the most common silent cause of subscriber churn |
| Automatic email notices on failed payments | Somebody learns about the failure without opening a report |
| A one-off charge inside a standing order | Joining fee plus monthly payment, as one interaction for the customer |
| Recurrence as frequent as daily | Models that are not monthly, including daily collection |
| Creating a standing order from the checkout page | The customer signs themselves up, with nobody keying them in |
| Connection to an external invoicing system | The invoice stays in the system that already issues documents |
| API for managing the orders | Creation and cancellation from inside your own system |
The automatic card update line is the one that returns money. A subscriber lost to card expiry is a customer who wanted to stay, and they churn without anyone deciding it.
Which businesses need Masav and not only cards?
Businesses collecting fixed amounts over long periods from an audience used to bank mandates - building committees, educational institutions, nonprofits with regular donors, professional associations. With that audience, asking for a card lowers sign-up rates, and card expiry creates churn that a bank mandate does not have.
The other side: Masav is a process, not a button. It needs an arrangement with Masav, mandate collection, charge files and handling of return files. The full differences are in Masav versus card charging, and what happens when a file is rejected is in Masav supplier payment file errors.
What Grow brings that the other side does not
- The Grow account and Grow Payout. Balance access without waiting for the settlement date. In a subscription business, where income is steady and costs are continuous, that is worth real money.
- One bundle. Clearing, account, invoices, sales pages and billing from one vendor. Fewer contracts, fewer integration points.
- Bit for business and PayBox on the checkout page, alongside Apple Pay and Google Pay. For consumer-facing businesses that moves completion rates.
What to check on this side is exactly what PayPlus spells out: what happens on failure. Ask Grow in writing about retries, about renewing an expired card, and about Masav support inside billing. This is not rhetorical - the modules look alike from outside and behave very differently when a charge fails.
Which data must stay yours, whoever the provider is
In a subscription business the asset is not the clearing - it is the subscriber list and the charge state of each one. If that information exists only at the provider, a migration or an outage there becomes a business problem. These are the fields you should hold in an exportable copy:
- An internal customer identifier, not only the one the provider assigned.
- Subscription start date, amount, frequency and currency.
- Charge history: what was collected, when, and what failed.
- The current state of each subscription: active, paused, cancelled, failing.
- The customer's consent to recurring charging - when it was given and through which channel.
- For Masav collection: the mandate itself, as a document.
The fifth line is the one that gets forgotten and surfaces at exactly the wrong moment. When a customer says they never authorised a recurring charge, the answer needs to be a dated record, not an assertion. And anyone collecting through Masav needs the mandate as a stored document, because it is the basis for the charge - how to store and retrieve it is covered in Masav direct debits versus card charging.
The real pricing question in a subscription business
In a subscription business the transaction count is high and the amount per transaction is low, which makes the pricing structure matter more than the percentage. Ask both companies three questions:
- Whether there is a fixed per-transaction fee on top of the percentage. On a small subscription, a fixed component can outweigh the percentage.
- Whether a failed charge attempt counts as a transaction and is priced.
- Whether system fees are calculated per active subscriber, per charge, or as a flat amount.
The answer to the second is the one that surprises people. A system that retries aggressively improves collection, and if every attempt is priced, it also creates a cost you did not plan.
The decision matrix
- Card subscriptions only, mid volume, no ERP. Both work. Decide on failed-charge behaviour.
- You need Masav. PayPlus presents it explicitly as part of the system. That is the deciding factor.
- Cash flow is the main pain. Grow, because of Payout - and check the terms.
- You are in parking, hospitality, SAP B1 retail or vending. PayPlus presents a defined module for each. A ready module beats an adaptation.
- You have an existing invoicing system. Ask both how the transaction reaches it. PayPlus presents a connection to external invoicing systems.
- The payment page must sit on your own domain. PayPlus presents a checkout page for your domain. Establish exactly what that includes.
Sources
Frequently asked questions
What is the first thing to test in a subscription system?
What happens when a card declines. Ask for a demo of the screen showing failed charges, who gets alerted, how many retries are configured and what happens when a card expires. A system without a clear answer here will produce quiet subscriber churn.
Can I collect by both card and Masav from one system?
PayPlus presents both rails as part of its standing-order system. That avoids running two systems, but note the rails stay operationally different: Masav needs mandates, charge files and return-file handling, while cards need tokens and expiry management.
What happens to existing subscribers if I switch provider?
That is the expensive question. The card token is held by the current provider and is usually not portable, so a move may require re-enrolling customers or an arranged transfer between providers. Do not start a migration without a written answer.
Joining fee plus monthly payment - does that need two transactions?
Not necessarily. PayPlus presents an option for a one-off charge inside a standing order, for example a joining fee together with the monthly payment. That saves the customer two checkout screens, and saves you a detached transaction to reconcile by hand later.
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About the author
Yehonatan Saadia
Freelance automation, web & MVP developer
I'm Yehonatan Saadia, a senior developer who builds business automation, custom websites, and MVPs for small and mid-sized companies across the US, Europe, and Israel. These guides come from real client work, not theory.
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