Which PAYPAL service is better for online transaction for website? - paypal

Question

I am working on a website where users will have to pay to use some services. So I know that PayPal is the service I can use. User can pay with debit card, credit card, PayPal account etc. I know that PayPal button can be used for it. But in my website, I want to give user an option to add amount of their choice. User can pay $5 or $50,000 or anything they want. I don't know if I can use PayPal button or not for this.
In short user will enter amount in form. After submitting the form, it will redirect user to PayPal site where they can pay the amount. In return, I wanna make sure how much they have paid, and transaction was successful or not etc from PayPal so I can store details in database and if transaction was successful, user will get the amount balance in account.
So all I want to know is which service will be better for me from PayPal?
Like PayPal button or PayPal gateway or PayPal flow gateway?

Answer 1

I've done exactly this on my site. I'll post some code for it. Basically you create an input form that's not hidden, call it amount, so they user can enter the amount, then pass it to paypal. Paypal sites say it doesnt' work, but it does.
I used low end Paypal standard, not any of their fancier interfaces. I have the user add to cart then pay for the cart. But you can do the same for buy now buttons. It doesn't matter which paypal service you use. If it can be done with the basic paypal standard, you can do it with any of them...!
You can also get from paypal after the transaction, various aspects of what the user paid for. So there's a variable available for total amount, and individual amounts, and so on.
This is the key to setting up a donation amount for the user to input:
<input type="hidden" name="button_subtype" value="services">
and of course:
<b>Amount $: (Example: nnn.nn)</b>
<input type="text" name="amount">
I'm not as familar with the variables comign back from paypal. For what you want paypal standard should work from what I've read definitely. Here are the two ways to do it, and both work with paypal standard, so will work with any paypal:
This link Contains the two that follow below and also gives a brief overview.:
https://developer.paypal.com/webapps/developer/docs/classic/paypal-payments-standard/integration-guide/wp_standard_overview/
1)
https://developer.paypal.com/webapps/developer/docs/classic/paypal-payments-standard/integration-guide/paymentdatatransfer/
2)
https://developer.paypal.com/webapps/developer/docs/classic/ipn/integration-guide/IPNIntro/
Here's a body of code for the form.
<form target="_blank" action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post">
value="https://www.yourwebsite.com/logo.jpg"> -->
<b>Amount $: (Example: nnn.nn)</b>
<input type="text" name="amount">
<input type="image" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/btn /btn_cart_SM.gif" border="0" name="submit">
<input type="hidden" name="add" value="1">
<input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_cart">
<input type="hidden" name="business" value="yours">
<input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="donation">
<input type="hidden" name="no_shipping" value="0">
<input type="hidden" name="shipping" value="0.00">
<input type="hidden" name="tax" value="0.00">
<!-- Replace value with the web page you want the customer to return to -->
<input type="hidden" name="shopping_url" value="http://www.yours">
<!-- services seems to be the trick -->
<input type="hidden" name="button_subtype" value="services">
<input type="hidden" name="country" value="US">
<input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD">
<input type="hidden" name="lc" value="US">
<input type="hidden" name="bn" value="PP-ShopCartBF:btn_paynowCC_LG.gif:NonHosted">
</form>

Answer 2

I recommended use a paypal express checkout. Here one simple (PHP) example:
// Parameters for SetExpressCheckout, which will be sent to PayPal
$padata['L_BILLINGAGREEMENTDESCRIPTION0'] = 'Product description';
$padata['L_BILLINGAGREEMENTDESCRIPTION0'] = $padata['L_BILLINGAGREEMENTDESCRIPTION0'] .
' $'.$product->price.'/month';
$padata['L_PAYMENTREQUEST_0_DESC0'] = $padata['L_BILLINGAGREEMENTDESCRIPTION0'] .
' $'.$product->price.'/month';$padata['PAYMENTREQUEST_0_NOTIFYURL'] = 'http://site_url/paypal/ipn';
$padata['PAYMENTREQUEST_0_DESC'] = $product->name;
$padata['RETURNURL'] = 'http://site_url/paypal/returnurl';
$padata['CANCELURL'] = 'http://site_url/paypal/cancelurl';
$padata['PAYMENTREQUEST_0_CURRENCYCODE'] = 'USD';
$padata['PAYMENTREQUEST_0_PAYMENTACTION'] = 'SALE';
$padata['PAYMENTREQUEST_0_ITEMAMT'] = $product->price;$padata['PAYMENTREQUEST_0_AMT'] = $product->price;$padata['L_BILLINGTYPE0'] = 'RecurringPayments';$padata['L_PAYMENTREQUEST_0_NAME0'] = $product->name;$padata['L_PAYMENTREQUEST_0_NUMBER0']= '322';$padata['L_PAYMENTREQUEST_0_QTY0'] = '1';$padata['L_PAYMENTREQUEST_0_AMT0'] = $product->price;
$paypal_data = http_build_query($padata);
$httpParsedResponseAr = $this->PPHttpPost('SetExpressCheckout', $paypal_data);
//Respond according to message we receive from Paypal
if("SUCCESS" == strtoupper($httpParsedResponseAr["ACK"]) || "SUCCESSWITHWARNING" == strtoupper($httpParsedResponseAr["ACK"])){
//Redirect user to PayPal store with Token received.
$paypalurl ='https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_express-checkout&token='.$httpParsedResponseAr["TOKEN"].'';
header('Location: '.$paypalurl);
}else{
echo 'Error : '.urldecode($httpParsedResponseAr["L_LONGMESSAGE0"]).'';
}
Page returnurl:
$hosteddata['L_BILLINGAGREEMENTDESCRIPTION0'] = 'Recurring Description';$hosteddata['L_BILLINGAGREEMENTDESCRIPTION0'] = $hosteddata['L_BILLINGAGREEMENTDESCRIPTION0'] . ' $'.$pr->price.'/month';$hosteddata['L_PAYMENTREQUEST_0_NAME0'] = $pr->name;$hosteddata['PROFILEREFERENCE'] = $GetExpressCheckoutDetails['L_PAYMENTREQUEST_0_NUMBER0'];$hosteddata['PROFILESTARTDATE'] = date('Y-m-d') . 'T' . date('H:i:s').'Z';$hosteddata['SUBSCRIBERNAME'] = $GetExpressCheckoutDetails['FIRSTNAME'] . ' ' . $GetExpressCheckoutDetails['LASTNAME'];$hosteddata['TOKEN'] = urlencode($_POST['token']);$hosteddata['DESC'] = $hosteddata['L_BILLINGAGREEMENTDESCRIPTION0'];$hosteddata['AMT'] = $pr->price;$hosteddata['BILLINGPERIOD'] = 'Month';$hosteddata['BILLINGFREQUENCY'] = '1';$hosteddata['TOTALBILLINGCYCLES'] = '12';$hosteddata['REGULARTOTALBILLINGCYCLES'] = '1';$hosteddata['VERSION'] = '74.0';$hosteddata['MAXFAILEDPAYMENTS'] = '1';$hosteddata['L_PAYMENTREQUEST_0_QTY0'] = '1';$hosteddata['L_BILLINGTYPE0'] = 'RecurringPayments';$hosteddata['L_PAYMENTREQUEST_0_ITEMCATEGORY0'] = 'Digital';$hosteddata['L_PAYMENTREQUEST_0_AMT0'] = $pr->price;$hosteddata['INITAMT'] = $pr->price;$hosteddata['L_PAYMENTREQUEST_0_NUMBER0'] = $pr->id;$hosteddata['PAYMENTREQUEST_0_NOTIFYURL'] = 'http://site_url/paypal/ipn';
$paypal_data = http_build_query($hosteddata);
$hosted_saas_response = $this->PPHttpPost('CreateRecurringPaymentsProfile', $paypal_data);
I used a separate method to post parameters to paypal
private function PPHttpPost( $methodName_, $nvpStr_ ) {
$api_username = 'yourpaypal#email.com';
$api_password = 'QWEQWEWQEQWEQEQWE';$api_signature = 'WQEQWEQWEQWEWQEQWEQWEQWEQWEQWE.cT';$api_endpoint = "https://api-3t.paypal.com/nvp";$version = '124.0';
$ch = curl_init();curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $api_endpoint); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, 1);curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, FALSE);curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, FALSE);curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
$nvpreq = "METHOD=$methodName_&VERSION=$version&PWD=$api_password&USER=$api_username&SIGNATURE=$api_signature&$nvpStr_";
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $nvpreq);$httpResponse = curl_exec($ch);
if(!$httpResponse) {
exit("$methodName_ failed: ".curl_error($ch).'('.curl_errno($ch).')');}
// Extract the response details.
$httpResponseAr = explode("&", $httpResponse);
$httpParsedResponseAr = array();
foreach ($httpResponseAr as $i => $value) {
$tmpAr = explode("=", $value);
if(sizeof($tmpAr) > 1) {
$httpParsedResponseAr[$tmpAr[0]] = $tmpAr[1];
}
}
if((0 == sizeof($httpParsedResponseAr)) || !array_key_exists('ACK', $httpParsedResponseAr)) {
exit("Invalid HTTP Response for POST request($nvpreq) to $api_endpoint.");
}
return $httpParsedResponseAr;
}