Maxio is based on our own experience running a small business. We have served companies that serve entrepreneurs and small businesses that operate on recurring, subscription-based billing models.

Over the past six years, we’ve been developing and evolving Maxio based on our experience building the recurring billing system that we needed when we started our businesses. The Maxio at your fingertips today is based on what we’ve seen that works and void of what we’ve seen that doesn’t work. And to keep up with changing times, the Maxio team is continually working on amazing future updates to promote growth for your business.

You can start using Maxio today! Get a free test account to try everything out, or to use as a “fake gateway” while you build your software. Just answer a few signup questions, and we’ll set you up with a test Maxio account, which you can use to make sure Maxio works for you before you invest in an active merchant account and payment gateway.

When it’s time to charge customers real money, you’ll need to connect Chargify to a payment gateway and merchant account. Many merchants already have these, but if you don’t, then expect it to take a few days to get set up. If you’re a U.S. merchant, get everything you need with our partner, Merchant Focus.

Maxio has an extensive support section available, as well as a 24/5 support team.

A merchant account is a type of bank account that allows businesses to accept payment by debit or credit cards. A merchant account also serves as an agreement between a retailer, a merchant bank, and a payment gateway for the settlement of credit card and/or debit transactions. A payment gateway facilitates the secure transfer of information between your website and your merchant account.

If you simply want to test Maxio with our developer plan, you do not need either of these. In order to use Maxio on a live site, you must set up a merchant account and payment gateway. Learn more about how Chargify works with multiple merchant accounts and payment gateways.

Maxio currently supports many major payment gateways and we are constantly adding new ones, so you can switch at any time. A full list of supported gateways is available on our payment gateways page.

Yep! Once you have an active subscription for a customer, you can attach one-time charges to their account. You could also set up a specially configured One-Time-Purchase Product.

Of course! With metered billing components, sellers can charge for a product on a per-usage basis. Creating metered components with Maxio is easy. Once it’s set, usage is tallied throughout the billing cycle and the charge is seamlessly integrated on the customer’s next invoice.

Yes. You can bill your customers as many times per month as you’d like.

Totally! Maxio allows you to create custom subscription plans and charge at any interval. Maxio’s subscription management tools are flexible and easy to use. Feel free to customize your billing intervals, trial periods, introductory pricing, one-time fees, and more.

Yes, you can. If you have more than one company, you may use Maxio to bill customers for all of them–and keep the accounting separate.

Online transactions can fail for several reasons. Sometimes it’s a problem with the credit card itself, other times there can be something wrong with your payment gateway settings or merchant account. If it’s a problem with the customer’s credit card, Maxio will manage the entire process automatically, sending customized emails to alert the customer of the error.

Maxio does not store any actual credit card data. Currently, we only support gateways that offer vault storage options. The cards are stored in these secure vaults, and we store a token that can be used to charge that card on your gateway. If you leave Maxio, your credit card vault data remains with your gateway provider. You will need to work with your gateway directly if you need to export that data.

If you need access to your subscription, customer, or transaction data, you can use the Maxio API or our CSV Export feature.

We publish our public uptime via the third-party service Pingdom. It’s available here.

Yes. Maxio is officially Level 1 PCI compliant, the highest level of security a business can offer.

Maxio also works with your payment gateway’s secure vault (for instance, Customer Information Manager in Authorize.net) to store your customers’ billing information in a PCI-compliant way. We work with your gateway so you don’t have to worry about managing this sensitive information.

You, the merchant, must be located in one of the countries where there’s a payment gateway provider that’s supported by Maxio Please check this list of payment gateways that connect to Maxio.

Your customers can be in any country. They just need to have a credit card that your payment gateway and merchant account accept, such as Visa or MasterCard.

Depending on the payment gateway you’ve chosen, Maxio can support different currencies. For a current list, please see our documentation on Currency Selection.

Yes! Some merchants don’t connect Maxio to any kind of website. They create a few products in Maxio and just use the Maxio signup page links in emails and social media to get their customers signed up.

Some merchants do a light integration to their website where they link from their website to the Maxio signup pages.

Other merchants integrate with their website and other software on a deeper level with the Maxio API. This allows customers to be able to see and edit Maxio data inside their own website or app.

Maxio offers an extensive support section on integrating with the Maxio API. If you’re unsure of how to integrate your site with Maxio, we have a group of implementation consultants who can assist you.

Once you’ve signed up for Maxio, you’ll be asked to log in for the first time and set up your merchant credentials. At this time, you will also define your hosted payment page URL as a subdomain of Maxio. Most companies choose their company name for simplicity, for instance, Acme.Maxio.com.