This is out of date information, they introduced auto renew for OVH and Kimsufi sometime toward the end of last year. Both my machines use it.

If they have now introduced it, that's great. I was never offered it; perhaps it varies by region (us/fr/ie). I suggest making sure that you get automatic renewal before signing up for any services. (And then be sure that your credit card doesn't expire!)

They send you an email when you have: 30 days, 2 weeks, 1 week, and 3 days left. Plenty of reminders for me.

Personally, I don't want a sequence of emails; I want automatic billing.

Maybe someone from Stripe can persuade OVH that PayPal is not the best way to process payments (please?)

I'm paying with PayPal automatically ... I get an invoice and a few days later they charge my card through PayPal.

The system could definitely do with an overhaul though the wording in some places was very confusing.

While paypal is not the best, it does have automatic payment support, so...

Paypal is pretty great for most people outside America where credit cards are, luckily, not the norm.

Whaat? I've had nothing but bad experiences with PayPal, and to top it off, the only actual payment method with them seems to be credit card anyways. Also, typically when using credit or debit card with European merchants, there's extra security in the form of OTP list provided by the issuer, checked during the transaction process. I understand this is not (always?) mandatory and the merchant may be storing CC numbers irresponsibly, but the direction seems to be right. What are the possible upsides of PayPal?

I've been funding my Paypal account through bank transfers for as long as I can remember now. It is not linked directly to my debit card/bank account. This makes it impossible for any credit card fraud to happen, or for me to lose any money if any of my online accounts are breached.

It also does not depend on me having a credit card. Which I do not, because I do not require one and having one would add a fee to my account.

The best solution is iDeal, but sadly that is a national thing.

As someone outside America, I disagree; virtual credit cards, offered by our banks, are much better than Paypal.

I'm not aware of my bank offering this. I am in the Netherlands.

I'm not from NL, but I've heard VISA offers the service: https://www.3vcard.nl/

It's funny to think of cards being perceived as an American thing; I always saw the U.S. as relatively cash-oriented compared to other places. In Scandinavia you don't even buy a €3 coffee or €5 kebab without pulling out your card (the same is true in South Korea, and increasingly in Japan).

Parent said credit cards; Scandinavia mostly uses debit, AFAIK, and they usually can't be used online.

At least here (Denmark) using cards online is common. The typical card that nearly everyone has is a Dankort/Visa cobranded card, which works as a Dankort when run by Danish merchants, and a Visa when run by foreign merchants, and can be charged online in either mode. I gather something similar is common in Sweden.

Debit cards are common, credit cards not so much.

I got stung real bad by ovh when they advertised kimsufi servers they didn't have, then failed to communicate timescales, eventually delivering about 2 months late. That box wasn't for anything important, but it made me not trust thier other services.

They stopped taking standing orders in the UK which means, like you, I now have to login and pay every month.