With credit cards the card issuer gives the card holder credit that can be draw down on.  So when a recurring payment hits the authorized card the acquirer receives the funds with that nights batch and the card holder has to pay with in the card terms.  With bitcoin you'd probably have to generate and email your clients a new bitcoin address with each payment in advance of the cut off date then monitor that address for timely payment.

Good point. That why gym's and other dues/subscriptions business with mandatory bank or credit card payments are so lucrative.  There model plan for something like 85% of users to only use the facilities 20% of the time, yet the the contracted revenue stream continues.  However with bitcoin you would have to remind the user to pay each month and if they were no longer using the service they just stop paying the monthly fee.

I am not sure how this would work. BTC is considered CASH.

A lot of things work with bitcoin that don't work with cash. This appears to be a thing that works with neither, but it's not because they are identical.

Correct.  But you as the wallet owner control and choose to send those payments each month.  Currently credit card and bank based recurring payments are withdrawn  from your credit/bank account for you.  There is a big difference in terms of bitcoin being a business model and/or a reliable revenue stream for this type of payment.

What are your ideas on currency of denomination? Price in dollars and the user can never be sure they have enough coin to cover up to X time in their recurring-payment-supporting wallet. Price in BTC might be good for you short term, but people will be pissed when they realize their 2BTC monthly payment that just went out is now worth $300 or something.

I think this would be the way to do it.
Perhaps the URI request from the subscription website has details of the recurring details (0.1 BTC by 09:00 UTC on the first Monday of the month for 12 months).
It then appears in your wallet as a repeating payment and there is a list of "Upcoming payments" with the details of your future payments. You could have these sorted by date with the amount so you know what is coming up.

When it becomes due (or nearly due) the wallet software asks you to authorise/ sign it with your password and sends it out to the bitcoin network.

That's why you can check "Adjustable-rate:" ( Adjust amount based on average bitcoin price in USD. ) When using WalletBit for your Subscription needs.

https://walletbit.com/docs/subscriptions

This will make sure you always get the $ value for your product regardless of the fluctuation of BC, based on value at the time the customer subscribed

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Kris

It is called prepaid.  

The reality is consumers like it.   In the US the prepaid segment of cellphones is growing 3x as fast as post-paid (recurring bills).  In a couple years the post-paid segment will likely flatline and at some point prepaid will be the majority of plans.  Prepaid cellphone plans now cover everything up to and including the top of the line smartphones and 4G computer/hostspot type devices.  Sure post-paid with overages, hidden charges, unintended payments, etc are GREAT for the merchant but consumers will go where they find the best value.   "Why you no come back?  I want to rape you with hidden fees and unwanted payments" 

http://www.bitmit.net/en/user/TangibleCrypto

As more products become prepaid more consumers will expect/demand it.  There is almost no product/service which can't be prepaid.  Someone will open the first prepaid gym.  It is only a matter of time.  Pay $x for 20 workouts.  The smart merchant analyzes his consumer behavior.  If you know the average consumer quits before using 30 workouts then you can significantly "discount" the units the consumer will never use.

i.e.
$10 for 1 workout
$50 for 20 workouts
$70 for 50 workouts (w/ a BEST VALUE icon)

Change can be scary but if you are offering a clunky recurring billing payment and your competitors are offering a prepaid card you are going to lose.
At best any workaround could be described as clunky.  The fatal flaw will be the lack of universal support.  Are you only going to accept payments from customers using wallets that support it?  Bitcoin market is already small can you afford to make it smaller?

Bitcoin is revolutionary so it requires some out of the box thinking.  There isn't always a direct equivalent but they are alternatives.    One idea I just thought of would be to setup your service/site where when the user logs in it informs him of how many days/units he has left.  Some smart programming could recommend users personalized "one day only sales" to get them to re-up before the last minute.  To continue the gym example, if the user just finished a great workout, that night send him an email offer about discounted price (limited time only of course).