Setting up Recurring Payments

This is gonna be a long question, but there's no way around it.
I have a membership website for which I charge a one-time fee for a lifetime membership. I think maybe the price ($97) is scaring people away.
So what I'd like to do is offer an option to join under a recurring monthly fee($3.99). It's weird how people think, but even though they'd pay more than $97 after the 2nd year is up, a lot more people would join.
But I don't have a clue on how to get this all set up. There's so many things that it will need to do. The one-time fee was a breeze to set up.

A monthly fee will have to:
a) verify their payment.
b) using either a email addy or username, issue them a password.(CGI or PHP?)
c) automatically build a database (MySQL?).
d) have a cancellation page to remove the auto-charge and also block them from accessing the site.
e) If they don't use the 'cancel page', but instead contact the credit card company and tell them to not allow the charge, I need a way to detect this and block them from accessing the site.
f) I'd like all this to be as automated as possible.

I realize the answer here is long and complicated, but give it your best shot. Or posting any links to websites that will help me out would be much appreciated.

 

What country are you in? What electronic payment gateway (LinkPoint, Verisign's Payflow, Authorizenet.com) are you going to use? If you use Authorizenet.com - be aware that you, as the merchant, will have to sign into the terminal to activate the recurring billing.

If you are going to do it yourself, you will want to learn about CISP and make sure you are compliant. Normally this is common sense stuff but there is a checklist to follow

 

Check out www.plimus.com , they do have a recursive settings which may meet your requirements.