Spotify style account management with a subscription based website

Question

We're planning a web service based on recurring monthly payments.

The site would have similar user accounts as Netflix or Spotify. The site would have an account section were the user can manage the billing and other details.

I've looked into different payment gateway provides, but I'm still wondering how to implement the user account as a part of the main site and how to combine that to the billing system.

First some information:

• The site would first have just one monthly plan xx$/month
• Credit cards need to be accepted
• We're based in EU
• We don't want to use PayPal

The user account section would contain:

• User profile (name, email, etc.)
• Website options (features on / off)
• Subscription & billing management (edit credit card, current period, cancel, etc)

Questions:

• How to combine the basic user accounts on my site with the billing system provider?
• What information should I store in my own database?
• Should I use a 3rd party user account management software on top of a payment gateway provider?
• If so, which one would work similar to Spotify's account management?
• How to setup the first sign up flow where user enters CC information?

Thank you for the ideas!

Answer 1

This is relatively easy to do using Laravel (a php framework) and a package called cashier. This package uses a payment service called Stripe which allows you to create recurring payments. There is even a tutorial on how to do it on Laracast.