The subscription market in Brazil currently moves around R$1 billion per year, but it has the potential to grow exponentially when compared to other global markets. With the arrival of Automatic Pix, the industry is expecting a boom in recurring payments. Launched on June 16, 2025, this innovation promises to revolutionize recurring payments and drive growth across the sector.
For users, Automatic Pix offers a practical, transparent, and secure option—delivering a superior experience for recurring payments.
For merchants, the solution offers a less bureaucratic and lower-cost alternative compared to recurring credit card transactions. However, businesses must be technically prepared to take full advantage of this technology. In addition to obtaining customer consent for recurring Pix debits, the entire billing process must be automated. That’s where PagStream®—PagBrasil’s intelligent subscription management platform—stands out, providing a complete solution to scale your subscription business.
What Is Automatic Pix and Why Is It a Game Changer?
Automatic Pix is a technology that enables recurring Pix payments to be made automatically. It works similarly to direct debit, but without requiring businesses to have agreements with banks. Developed within the robust infrastructure of the Central Bank’s Instant Payment System (SPI), it follows the same high-security standards already established by Pix. In addition, it offers instant, secure transactions with 24/7 availability.
With Automatic Pix, businesses can offer recurring payments via Pix for subscription-based products and services, monthly fees, utility bills, streaming services, and other recurring models—without requiring any action from the user for each billing cycle.
Every recurring charge only takes place with the payer’s prior consent, authenticated through a banking app or digital wallet. The parameters of this consent are what set Automatic Pix apart from other methods, such as traditional direct debit or recurring credit card payments. When authorizing a recurring payment, the user sets clear parameters, such as:
- Maximum amount per transaction
- Frequency (weekly, monthly, etc.)
- Due date
- Authorization validity period
- Recipient
- Whether the use of an overdraft/credit line is allowed
- Which account will be debited
This information is stored by the payer’s bank, ensuring security and transparency. Any attempt to charge outside the defined parameters is automatically rejected, giving consumers greater control than with traditional direct debit or credit cards, where such restrictions are not enforced automatically.
In addition, before each charge, the customer is notified by the bank and can manage, suspend, or cancel the transaction directly through their banking app up until the day before it is processed—reinforcing the payer’s autonomy.
For merchants, the main benefits include greater operational efficiency and lower transaction costs compared to credit cards, easier adoption of the recurring billing model, and access to a broader audience—including 60 million Brazilians who don’t have a credit card.
To put costs into perspective, in 2023, the total amount paid in interchange fees—charged by issuing banks to process credit, debit, and prepaid card transactions—surpassed R$70 billion, placing a significant burden on Brazilian businesses. It’s worth noting that this figure doesn’t include acquirer and advance payment fees, which are often even higher than the discount rates charged by card operators.
In this context, Pix emerges as a much more cost-effective alternative. While a credit card transaction can cost up to 14 times more than a Pix transaction, the instant payment system offers a real opportunity to cut costs and ease the financial pressure on businesses.
In addition, Automatic Pix is designed to lower the barriers to entry for businesses of all sizes, creating a more balanced market and expanding options for consumers. As a standardized feature built into the Pix ecosystem, it eliminates the need for complex bank agreements or third-party intermediaries like acquirers—helping to democratize access and strengthen competition.
In practice, this means that any business—including small companies and individual entrepreneurs—can offer recurring payments with lower costs and high efficiency, as long as they use a solution that’s compatible with the Automatic Pix system.
Automatic Pix: Consent vs. Billing Automation
It’s important to understand that Automatic Pix, by itself, ensures customer consent for recurring payments—but it doesn’t automate the entire billing process for the merchant. Once the customer gives their authorization, the merchant still needs a system in place to:
- Schedule and send charges automatically.
- Manage retry attempts in case of insufficient funds (Automatic Pix allows up to three attempts on different days within a seven-day period).
- Reconcile received payments.
- Communicate with subscribers about status updates, renewals, and more.
Building this infrastructure from scratch requires a significant investment of time and resources. That’s where specialized platforms like PagStream® come in. Our ready-to-use solution removes the technical complexity of managing Automatic Pix payments and enables end-to-end subscription management—including consent collection, scheduled billing, and smart retry handling.
PagStream®: The Link Between Merchants and Automatic Pix Automation
PagStream® emerges as the ultimate solution for merchants who want to make the most of Automatic Pix—without any development effort. The platform not only integrates with Automatic Pix, but also provides a complete subscription management solution, transforming the billing experience and simplifying operations for merchants.
Below, you’ll learn the difference between integrating Automatic Pix into your e-commerce via API or through PagStream®.
The Difference Between Integrating Automatic Pix via API and Using PagStream®
When it comes to integrating Automatic Pix, merchants have two main options:
API Integration (in-house development): In this scenario, the merchant connects directly to the Automatic Pix API and builds an internal system to manage consents, schedule charges, handle retries, and reconcile payments. This approach requires strong technical expertise and ongoing investment in maintenance and updates.
Integration via PagStream®: In this case, the merchant relies on a complete service that handles user consent collection as well as the management and automation of future charges. PagBrasil’s intelligent subscription management platform is already integrated with Automatic Pix, allowing merchants to set up their subscription plans while PagStream® takes care of consent collection, scheduled billing, and smart retry management.
Merchants can connect to PagStream® via API, payment link, or plugins for popular e-commerce platforms like VTEX, Shopify, and Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This means less development time and more focus on growing your business.
The Advantages of PagStream® in the Age of Automatic Pix
With Automatic Pix fully integrated, PagStream® expands its value proposition by offering merchants a complete solution to grow their recurring sales. PagStream® includes features such as:
- Plan flexibility: Merchants can create plans with different models—fixed or variable amounts, pay-per-use, one-time charges, or subscriptions in cycles (monthly, quarterly, yearly, etc.). With PagStream®, it’s also possible to combine one-time purchases with recurring charges in the same order.
- Promotions engine: Boost your sales with a powerful promotions engine that lets you create personalized offers to attract and retain customers. You can set specific conditions for when a promotion should be applied.
- Automatic charge retries: PagStream® handles retry attempts in cases of insufficient funds, increasing the chances of successful payment. As established by the Central Bank, Automatic Pix allows up to three retries within a seven-day period, always for the originally agreed amount. When giving consent, the customer can also choose whether to allow the use of a personal credit line, such as an overdraft, if their balance is insufficient.
- Exclusive subscriber area: Empower your customers with a dedicated space where they can manage their subscriptions on their own—add or swap products, change quantities, update their payment method, view billing history, or pause their subscription without needing to contact support. This improves the customer experience and reduces the demand on your service team. It’s worth noting that recurring payments made through Automatic Pix give consumers the convenience of managing their subscriptions directly through their banking app.
- Specialized technical support: Your business gets dedicated assistance from a specialist.
Companies like Care®, Coffee++, Nerd ao Cubo, Liquidz, Tea Shop, and Moka Clube have already seen results with PagStream®, benefiting from fast integration, the freedom to customize plans, and detailed operational control.
With the added power of Automatic Pix, PagStream® is solidifying its place as the go-to tool for scaling recurring revenue businesses in Brazil.
The Future of Payments is Now
Automatic Pix, together with platforms like PagStream®, is redefining the landscape of recurring payments in Brazil. By simplifying the consumer experience and automating subscription management for merchants, this combination has the potential to drive growth in the subscription market—bringing more efficiency, security, and broader access to recurring purchases for everyone involved. Stay ahead of the curve and optimize your subscription management.
Talk to our specialists and boost your recurring sales with Automatic Pix and PagStream®.