Subby is a Subscription OS powered by a subscription engine. It helps businesses create plans, enrol subscribers, schedule renewals, recover failed charges and manage the complete subscription lifecycle without building that operating layer themselves.
Subby is not a payment engine, payment gateway or payment processor. Supported payment rails move the money. Subby coordinates the subscription, mandate, renewal schedule, recovery workflow, subscriber communication and lifecycle events around each charge.
It is built for SaaS products, ERPs, marketplaces and service businesses that already have customers and want to run subscriptions inside their own product.
What you can build
With a single integration, your product can:
- Sell recurring plans on daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or per-delivery cycles, with trials, pausing and proration.
- Start subscriptions through embedded or hosted checkout without payment details touching your servers.
- Recover failed payments with automatic retries and multi-channel reminders (we call each reminder a nudge).
- Automate delinquency by pausing service, restricting access or holding deliveries when retries run out.
- Stay in sync with signed webhook events for every change in a subscription's life.
- Track your own usage of the API and nudges in real time.
How it fits together
Your backend ──HTTPS + API key──▶ api.mysubbyapp.com/v1
▲ │
│ ├─ runs subscription schedules
│ ├─ coordinates charges and recovery
└──────── signed webhooks ◀─────────┘ and escalates when unpaid
- Your backend calls the Subby API with a secret key.
- Customers enter payment details on a hosted checkout page.
- The subscription engine runs the renewal cycle through the supported payment rail.
- Subby sends webhook events to your endpoint, and your system reacts: grant access, pause access, send a receipt.
Two environments
Every account gets a sandbox and a live environment. They are completely separate: different base URLs, different keys, different data.
| Sandbox | Live | |
|---|---|---|
| Base URL | https://sandbox-api.mysubbyapp.com/v1 |
https://api.mysubbyapp.com/v1 |
| Key prefix | sk_test_ |
sk_live_ |
| Real money moves | Never | Yes |
| Nudges delivered to phones | Never (visible in the nudge outbox) | Yes |
| Counts toward your bill | Never | Write requests and nudges |
| Access | Instant on sign-up | After live access approval |
Read Environments & sandbox for details.
How pricing works for API usage
- Read requests (
GET) are never metered. Fetch, list and poll as much as your rate limit allows. - Write requests (
POST,PATCH,DELETE) are metered against a monthly allowance that comes with your plan. - Going over is billed, not blocked. Extra write requests cost ₦0.1 per 1,000.
See API usage & metering for exactly what counts.
Frequently asked questions
What is Subby?
Subby is a Subscription OS powered by a subscription engine. It operates plans, subscribers, renewals, recovery and lifecycle events for recurring businesses.
Is Subby a payment engine?
No. Payment rails collect charges. Subby is the operating system for the subscription around those charges.
Where to go next
- Quickstart — Create your first subscription in sandbox in about 10 minutes.
- Authentication — API keys, restricted keys and key safety.
- @mysubbyapp/checkout — Embed checkout with the JavaScript SDK.
- WordPress plugin — Add checkout with a shortcode.
- Shopify app — Enable Subby on selected Shopify products.
- Testing in sandbox — Test payment methods, test clocks and simulated events.
- API reference — Every endpoint, parameter and response.