Recurring payments are payments initiated repeatedly according to a schedule or ongoing commercial arrangement, such as a subscription, membership, or installment plan.
Stablecoin recurring payments are more complex in self-custodial systems than card-on-file payments because a wallet normally requires authorization for asset transfers. Implementations can use repeated manual approval, preauthorized smart-contract allowances, account abstraction, custodial mandates, or service-provider orchestration. A robust design also needs rules for revocation, failed payments, insufficient balances, amount changes, and consumer consent.
Recurring describes the repeated schedule of payments. Subscription billing is the broader commercial process that calculates charges, manages plans, and triggers those payments.
Recurring payment design determines whether stablecoins can support ongoing commercial relationships without requiring a completely manual transaction each billing cycle.
A user can authorize a service to collect a fixed stablecoin amount monthly until the authorization is revoked.