Integration Guides

UPI AutoPay Integration for Subscriptions and EMIs

How UPI AutoPay mandates work, the limits, pre-debit notifications and retry rules, and how to integrate recurring payments through a payment aggregator or bank.

Purushottam Kumar Suman

Founder & CEO, Drema AI

September 28, 20268 min read

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UPI AutoPay lets a customer approve a recurring payment once, with their UPI PIN, and have later debits happen automatically. For subscriptions, SIPs, insurance premiums and EMIs it has become the default in India because nearly every customer already has a UPI app and no card is needed.

How a mandate works

A mandate is an instruction stored with the customer's bank through their UPI app.

CreationThe customer approves the mandate in their UPI app by entering the UPI PIN, through a collect request, intent link or QR code

ParametersMaximum amount, frequency, start and end dates, and whether the amount is fixed or variable up to the maximum

FrequenciesOne-time, daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, yearly or as presented

Pre-debit notificationThe customer is notified at least 24 hours before each debit

ExecutionThe merchant's provider presents the debit on the due date

ControlThe customer can pause, modify or revoke the mandate in their UPI app at any time

Limits

Recurring debits up to ₹15,000 execute without the customer entering a PIN each time. For mutual fund subscriptions, insurance premiums and credit card bill payments, the limit without additional authentication is ₹1 lakh. Above these amounts, each debit needs the customer to authorise with their PIN. Limits are set by RBI and NPCI and have been raised over time, so confirm the current figures.

₹15,000

Per debit without PIN, general limit

₹1 lakh

For mutual funds, insurance and credit card bills

24 hours

Pre-debit notification

Integration options

Merchants do not connect to NPCI directly.

Payment aggregator subscriptions APIThe usual route: create a plan and subscription, the aggregator handles mandate creation, notifications and debits

Bank or PSP integrationFor large billers such as lenders and insurers, direct with a sponsor bank

Compared with eNACHeNACH supports higher amounts and suits long-tenor loans, but registration is slower; many lenders offer both

The API flow

The pattern is similar across providers.

Your subscription state must follow the webhooks. A customer can cancel in their UPI app without ever opening yours.

1. Create customer and planAmount, interval and count

2. Create subscription or mandateReturns a link, intent URL or QR for the customer

3. Customer authorisesIn their UPI app; you receive a webhook when the mandate is active

4. Pre-debit notificationSent by the provider or triggered by your call, at least 24 hours before

5. DebitExecuted on schedule or by your charge call for variable amounts

6. WebhooksSuccess, failure, pause, revoke and expiry events

Failures and retries

Debits fail for ordinary reasons: insufficient balance, bank downtime or a paused mandate. NPCI has tightened rules on how and when AutoPay debits are presented, limiting the number of retry attempts for each debit and steering executions away from peak hours. Build your own grace period and communication: tell the customer a payment failed, when you will retry and how to pay manually.

Retry schedule within NPCI limitsGrace period before suspensionManual pay linkFailure reason mappingDunning messagesMandate status sync

Product design advice

Set the mandate's maximum amount with room for price changes and taxes, but not so high that customers hesitate. For variable billing, tell customers the amount in the pre-debit message. Offer a clear cancel option inside your product; hiding it only moves cancellations to the UPI app and adds complaints. NPCI has also enabled customers to view and port mandates across UPI apps, so do not assume the mandate stays with the app it was created in.

Sources · last reviewed October 1, 2026

This article explains what to build, not legal advice. Rules change; confirm against the current official text before relying on it.

Written by

Purushottam Kumar Suman

Founder & CEO, Drema AI

Founder and CEO of Drema AI. Builds AI systems, SaaS platforms and industry software — and writes about what actually survives production.

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