Is there a web interface within paypal to create billing plans - paypal

So Im reading through the documentation on
https://developer.paypal.com/docs/integration/direct/create-billing-plan/
If I understand correctly we create one plan and then the agreement per user. Meaning the plan is not a per user kind of thing.
If the plan is not a per user kind of thing, Is there a paypal page from within paypal where I can actually create the plan? Seems strange that I can only create plans programmatically, unless of course plans are directly associated to the user.

There's no web inteface within PayPal to create a plan.
You can do this only by REST API inteface.
The recurring payment should be created following below steps.
Step 1: Create a plan from here
Step 2: Update a plan(Active a Plan) from here
Step 3: Create an agreement under a plan from here
Step 4: Get the response of Step3, get the "links" property, redirect the buyer to the "href" of "links"
Step 5: After buy agree the payment on Step4, excute the agreement from here
Please also refer to the links below regarding billing plan and billing agreement.
Billing Plan
Billing Agreement

Yes. Try visiting https://sandbox.paypal.com/billing/plans if you are testing and using the GUI you can create both products and plans.

Related

Some questions about billing plans & agreements REST API

I have some questions about subscription functionality using REST API. We have implemented recurring payments using "Express Checkout NVP/SOAP Integration" but for us it isn't optimal, because:
Webhooks easier and more usable then IPN messages;
We can't force customers to pay from PayPal balance.
That's why I want to rewrite it with REST API. I think the flow will be like:
User press button and we make the first request to get auth token;
Create billing plan;
Activate billing plan;
Create billing agreement;
Because of we're using PayPal payments here we redirect the customer to approve payment;
Execute billing agreement.
My questions are:
Is this flow correct?
To redirect customer for approving payment we need to make four requests to PayPal API servers, is it normal?
Should I create and activate a billing plan for every customer or I can use one plan for all customers?
If so can I create the plan in the merchant's profile page or I can do it only programmatically?
Let me see if I can answer your questions and provide some samples.
Yes, that flow is correct for the first request. If you already have a plan that you'd like to subscribe people to created, you can skip those billing plan steps. More on that below.
For the REST APIs, yes that's the normal flow for PayPal. Think of the plan as setting up the architecture of the payment that you'd like to offer (such as a subscription plan for a service). You set this up once and then can subscribe many people to that same subscription plan using a billing agreement.
If the details of the plan are the same for each person, then create one plan and then use a billing agreement for each person to subscribe them all to that same plan.
I haven't seen an integration of this with the profile system, but it's an interesting idea. For the time being, as far as I know you'll need to do this programmatically.
I've also created some new quickstart guides on the site that should help through creating the billing plan and agreements:
Billing plans: https://developer.paypal.com/docs/api/quickstart/create-billing-plan/
Billing agreements: https://developer.paypal.com/docs/api/quickstart/create-billing-agreement/
I have a more practical example of this billing plan / agreement integration in a Slack bot payment sample, if that helps: https://developer.paypal.com/docs/api/service-integrations/slack-bot/subscribe/

PayPal REST API billing plans & agreements (subscriptions)

I want to use the PayPal REST API to offer subscriptions on my website. According to the documentation a billing plan is required in order to create a billing agreement with a user.
While the documentation explains how to create billing plans/agreements, I still have a few questions which the documentation does not answer:
Is a billing plan used for multiple billing agreements? For example, you create a billing plan for each service on your website and let users subscribe to this.
Does each billing agreement need a new billing plan? (in contrast to the previous question)
If I delete a billing plan, does this also remove all dependent billing agreements?
Pretty late answer but I am facing the same problem right now and found this link. The article is from 2014 but still can be useful because explains a little bit of what you are asking about. Reading it I think that billing plan can be used for multiple agreements. You just need to create the plan and then use the ID for agreements.
Anyway, I suggest you to use sandbox mode to test all features.
Also, if you found another answer which explains the mechanism better, please post it here.
Hope I could help.

Payment and billing plan in one transaction

This is my first time using the PayPal API so go easy on me.
The case I am trying to handle is as follows:
My customers can purchase software licenses that can either be one time payments, or yearly payments.
They can multiple products to the cart, and each product can have either one of the pricing plans mentioned above.
If I understand correctly, "payments" in the API handle one time transactions, and "billing plans" are used for recurring payments.
Is it possible to processes both in one call to the API? If not, is there a different way to achieve this?
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! TIA!
Not one API call, but you can do it in one checkout flow with multiple API calls.
For PayPal wallet payments (logging in to PayPal and paying) I would recommend using Express Checkout w/ Recurring Payments.
With that you would be using SetExpressCheckout, GetExpressCheckoutDetails, and then either DoExpressCheckoutPayment, CreateRecurringPaymentsProfile, or a combination of both of those depending on the products in the card and whether they need one-time payment or recurring.
The CRPP call will allow you to setup a recurring profile and include an "initial payment" which would be charged when the profile is created. This could be used as the one time payment if you want, and then you wouldn't need the DECP call.
Alternatively, you could use DECP to process the one time payment and then follow that up with CRPP to create the profile. There are advantages and disadvantages to the different methods depending on your business needs.
For setting up profiles with direct credit cards you'll need PayPal Payments Pro. In this case you would either use the same CRPP call mentioned above, but it would be used by itself and include the credit card details. Or, depending on the version of Pro they put you on, which depends on the version of PayPal account you have, you might end up using PayFlow instead.
If you're working with PHP this PayPal PHP SDK will make all of those API calls very quick and easy for you.
I know that's a pretty broad answer, but that's because it's a pretty broad question. :)

PayPal Express Checkout with a mix of one time purchase and recurring payments through the REST API

I am using the PayPal REST API and would like to create a transaction that includes a combination of recurring and one-time payments in a single transaction.
According to the documentation for the NVP integration, it seems such a transaction is possible. However, I'm not sure how to accomplish the same using the REST API. I have searched the REST API documentation as well as the .NET SDK examples and cannot find an example of a transaction that uses a mix of recurring and one-time payments.
Our use case: We process transactions for downloadable software - most of the products are one-time purchases, but some of the products (such as anti-virus products) have a recurring billing component associated with them. As such, we need to process a single transaction where one of the items is a regular purchase, and the other is a part of a recurring plan. We plan to process these transactions using the "PayPal" payment method (i.e. not direct credit card). Specifically, we'll be using Express Checkout.
Any guidance would be much appreciated. Thank you!
Based on what you're doing about, here's what I think your best course of action might be:
When you have a user checking out that may have some multi-month subscriptions, and some single time subscriptions, you set up a new billing plan with each item to be purchased. For the subscriptions, you set up an entry that is set to multiple months, and for a single payment you set a single month payment (see https://developer.paypal.com/docs/integration/direct/create-billing-plan/ for an example of multiple entries).
Next, you need to execute that plan for the user via a billing agreement (https://developer.paypal.com/docs/integration/direct/create-billing-agreement/). Within the billing agreement you can set the start date to execute immediately, which should complete the checkout process for both billing orders right then.
Let me know if that works out for your scenario.

Regular payment in Paypal using billing plans

I would like to ask you about regular payment in paypal using billing plans. I use the PHP library from paypal (REST API) to create billing plans and agreement for users but I have some problems:
I have two plans: STANDARD and PRO. What when the user buys a standard plan and after some time will be want to switch to another? What with the old subscription? I don't see the option to cancel subscription via REST API. Should I create a personal billing plan for every user and in this case update this changes?
My plans include some additional parameters like: ,,How many people can use one account" - and this parameter influences on the final price. I don't know what I should do to get regular payments with flexible parameters.
Should I create a billing plan for every user and then create an agreement for this personal billing plan? What if user paid for 12 months and after 9 months will want to change some parameters - then I should upgrade price in the billing price (for stability in the next billing cycle) and to get this difference in plan costs I should create the normal payment by http://paypal.github.io/PayPal-PHP-SDK/sample/doc/payments/CreatePaymentUsingPayPal.html?
Cheers!