This article is a reference companion to the product page monobank recurring payments for Shopify: comparisons, extra selection criteria and answers to the rarer questions that did not fit on the page itself.
in depth — monobank recurring billing and subscriptions on Shopify
How do I connect monobank recurring payments to Shopify?
Connecting monobank recurring payments to Shopify through TradeMinister takes 7–14 business days. The integration runs on the official monobank Acquiring API (monobank.ua/api-docs/acquiring) with tokenization and recurring endpoints. You will need: a business account for a sole proprietor or LLC at monobank, a signed recurring merchant agreement with the bank (arranged through the monobank business dashboard), and a live Shopify store on Basic or above. The integration uses the Shopify Selling Plans API for subscription products, plus a custom Liquid template for checkout and the subscriber portal.
How does tokenization keep recurring payments secure?
On the first subscription payment the customer is taken to a secure monobank form, passes 3-D Secure, and the first amount is charged. At the same time monobank stores a card token on its own servers and returns a meaningless identifier string to the store. The store never receives or stores card details, which delivers PCI DSS Level 1 compliance automatically. For subsequent charges the store passes only the token to monobank through the Acquiring API, and the bank charges the amount automatically without the customer’s involvement (initiationKind: client). If the store’s database were ever breached, the tokens would be useless to an attacker: they work only inside monobank’s system and only for that specific merchant.
Which payment schedules are supported for subscriptions?
All the standard Shopify Selling Plans schedules are supported: daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly, every two months, quarterly, twice a year and annually. Custom schedules are also supported through cron syntax — charging on the 1st and 15th of each month, every first Monday, every business day and so on. Each subscription product gets its own schedule and price. Trials are supported: a free trial of up to N days, a nominal trial (₴1), or progressive pricing (₴500 for the first month, then ₴1,000 a month). A customer can hold several active subscriptions at once, each with its own schedule and token.
How much does connecting monobank recurring payments to Shopify cost?
The one-time cost is ₴60,000. It is higher than ordinary acquiring because of the infrastructure involved: a custom integration with the Selling Plans API, a subscriber portal with pause / cancel / change card, an admin panel with MRR and churn analytics, retry logic for failed charges, lifecycle email notifications, and negotiating the recurring merchant agreement with monobank. After launch the merchant pays only the standard monobank fee of 1.3% on each successful charge — no recurring surcharge and no subscription for the infrastructure. TradeMinister takes no cut of transactions. Optional maintenance from year two is ₴3,600 a year (updates when the monobank API changes).
Which business models suit recurring payments on Shopify?
SaaS services billed monthly for access; subscription boxes (beauty, food, craft, book clubs); paid membership clubs; fitness studios and sports clubs on membership billing; media and education platforms with paid content; consumables bought regularly (pet food, vitamins, cosmetics, coffee, tea, household chemicals); donation platforms with regular giving; digital services and licences. The test for a good fit: a product or service the customer uses regularly and is happy to pay for automatically. It is not suited to one-off large purchases — for those, use ordinary plata by mono acquiring or monobank instalments.
What happens when a subscription charge fails, and how is churn handled?
The integration includes automatic retry logic: on the first failure (insufficient funds, a blocked card, exceeded limits) it makes three further attempts within 72 hours — after 6, 24 and 72 hours. The customer receives an email asking them to top up the card or change it in the portal. If all three attempts fail, the subscription is paused automatically, the token is kept, and the customer can resume with one click or by changing the card. The store’s admin panel shows churn rate (cancellations over a period), an upcoming failed charges forecast (based on customers’ payment history) and cohort retention. That makes it possible to work on churn risk proactively — for instance by offering a discount to customers with failed charges, or sending personalised win-back campaigns.
Frequently asked questions: scenarios and integrations
what is the fee on recurring payments?
The standard monobank fee of 1.3% on Ukrainian cards. There is no extra charge for recurring, and no subscription fee for the billing infrastructure — it is part of ordinary monobank acquiring. TradeMinister takes no cut of transactions either: the ₴60,000 is a one-time setup fee, after which the store pays only monobank’s 1.3% on each charge. Maintenance from year two is optional at ₴3,600 a year, covering updates when the monobank API changes.
how long does setup take?
7–14 business days. The main wait is agreeing the recurring merchant agreement with monobank (5–10 business days). In parallel, TradeMinister builds and installs the integration in Shopify: configuring the Selling Plans API, custom Liquid templates for checkout and the subscriber portal, the Acquiring API integration, retry logic, email notifications and the admin panel. Once the agreement is in place we test with real subscriptions on monobank test cards, then go live.
can it work with an existing Shopify Subscriptions setup?
Yes — the integration is built on the Shopify Selling Plans API, Shopify’s standard subscription mechanism. If your store already uses Shopify Subscriptions with another provider, active subscriptions can be migrated (tokens are transferred through a re-authorisation email to customers). If you use a third-party subscription app (ReCharge, Appstle, PayWhirl), it can be replaced with the native monobank integration to cut fees and gain control over the logic.