What is the best way to charge subscription costs?

I've developting a SaaS product and would like to charge my users a subscription charge, I'm considering a model with a monthly fee and a annual discount - but now my question is this. How do I charge the customers? Do I charge them for the period and then block access until they have paid again, or is it posible to have a automatic renewal solution set up?

I think I remember tuts+ doing auto renewals once, is that sort of thing legal?

auto renewals is not illegal. it's the same as Godaddy domain. they set the auto renewal to default (I use godaddy). If the customer want to have a manual renewal to there almost expire domain, they will have to change the setting to manual renew.

for yours, it would be better when the customer subscribes your service, there should be a an option for auto renewal service.

good luck

It is legal but the user has to check a box saying they agree to it (or hidden in terms and conditions) or be notified.

But as long as you tell the user a few weeks before they are going to get charged it should be fine.

It is not illegal to have an auto renewal and from experience I have found that it is best to make sure your cutover receives an email every time they are charged their membership or subscription fee. This keeps a good customer relationship.

There are companies out there that will automatically charge your customer's credit card when needed, send emails to your customers when they are being charged to tell them why, and much more. This will streamline your business and give you more time to focus on your business. For the subscription business that I run, we use Chargify to take care of this.