We want to offer a online service that uses a credit system.
Initially we want to offer x amount of credits as a free trial. To activate this trial the user agrees to a subscription via PayPal (but does not pay anything at that time)
1) Is it possible to set up using Preapproval API, if not is there a better suited API
2) Can it be setup through PayPal so that the user does not need an existing PayPal account or to create a new one. If there is a way to do this other than preapproval API please let me know as well.
3) We want the billing to be automatic when the user credits run out. Therefore there is no set time, e.g 1 month, when each user is charged. Is this possible?
Any help would be very much appreciated, thanks
You have a few different options:
Reference Transactions (no cost requires approval from PayPal)
Enhanced Recurring Billing/Automatic Payments (cannot be used with a Pro or Advanced Accounts) Has a cost associated with it ($19.99 monthly)
Recurring Billing with PayPal Payments Pro Payflow or PayPal Payments Advanced. Has a cost associated with it ($10.00 monthly in addition to the cost of the Payflow/Advanced account)
Here are the details from the three different options:
Reference Transactions, which does require that you call into PayPal Customer Support and that your account is approved for this feature.
Reference transactions does allow for guest checkout billing.
From the PayPal Documentation, Recurring payments using reference transactions enable you to handle payments for varying amounts of money on a varying schedule.
Reference Transaction Guide
Enhanced Recurring Billing/Automatic Billing
If you do not plan to uses PayPal Payments Pro or Advanced at any time you can get setup with Enhanced Recurring Billing/ Automatic Billing
Automatic Billing Guide
From the PayPal Documentation:
You can create Automatic Billing buttons for your website by using a tool on the PayPal website. If you're a power user, you can write the HTML code for PayPal hosted Automatic Billing buttons yourself.
With Automatic Billing buttons, buyers agree to pay you automatically when you bill them, up to a limit that they choose. You set the parameters for the limits they choose. Automatic billing allows Guest Checkout, so you can bill a credit card.
PayPal Payments Pro Payflow/Advanced
For PayPal Payments Pro Payflow/Advanced you can setup Recurring Billing as well. Payflow Pro allows you to process credit cards directly. Here is the information on Recurring Billing through Payflow:
Payflow Recurring Billing
Related
I am trying to implement paypal pro (our software should work for an italian account) for recurring payments.
I cannot use "express checkout" beacuse a subscription can vary more than the 15% limitation in 180 days and we don't have a trial period.
I have downloaded samples from paypal for .net, created a sandbox account from the developer dashboard but when i test it, i give an error message "DPRP is disabled for this merchant".
Later i have read that recurring payments are enabled for "direct payments" but they are enabled only in US, UK, Canada and New Zealand.
In Paypal Pro for Italy documentation i have not found any information for Recurring Payments.
How can I create a recurring payment in Paypal without "express checkout" then?
With an Italian PayPal account you're not going to be able to use Payments Pro.
What you could do, though, is use Express Checkout with Billing Agreements / Reference Transactions instead of setting up a recurring payments profile. This way you won't have the 15% limitation.
You would include the billing agreement parameters in your SetExpressCheckout request, and then that would setup the billing agreement so that you can run future calls to DoReferenceTransaction to process some amount in the future using the billing agreement.
This way the process happens without additional approval, no redirect required, etc. You just make the DoReferenceTransaction call and the money is moved immediately. Reference transactions can be any amount, so you would have no limitation there.
The only difference with this method is that you'll need to create a CRON job on your server that loops through all your due accounts each day to run the reference transaction for each one. So you're basically building your own recurring system instead of using PayPal's.
If you happen to be working with PHP this PayPal PHP SDK will make all of the API calls very quick and easy for you.
Currently I am working with several non-profits (who receive recurring donations normally monthly) to migrate away from their current gateways to Paypal.
Is there any way to import their currently donor's payment information into Paypal?
If not which would you recommend to help migrate their donors over?
1) Setup a special section of their website and as donor's to re-subscribe?
or
2) Send out Invoices for their current recurring amount (if its possible to email a subscription)?
thanks,
This depends on what type of system you are currently using, and specifically what type of service you are going to use from PayPal. Are you going to be using PayPal's Recurring Payments, Enhanced Recurring Payments, Subscriptions or Payflow's Recurring Billing? If you have all of the contributor's information, such as credit card info, name, address and etc and you are going to be using PayPal's Recurring Payments or Payflow's Recurring Billing you could use the API's to create the profiles on your PayPal or Payflow account without having to have the contributor do anything on their end. If you are going to be using PayPal's Enhanced Recurring Payments or Subscriptions, then you would need the buyer to re sign up for a recurring donation. You can could use either option that you mentioned above. You would be able to do either through PayPal.
I am building a project that might be a bit complicated and I have to use paypal for this.
There are many users in the app and they can be receivers, payers or both. The receivers/sellers provide certain services and the payers have to pay their sellers monthly. So if the user agrees to pay, the paypal will charge him monthly and automatically. The users need to register as paypal member and get authorized from paypal beforehand so I can use their emails for the transactions in the app.
I am thinking of using paypal express checkout with recurring apis, but I am not sure if it is the right decision and no clue if it is working. Any suggestions? thanks.
You could use either Express Checkout, Subscriptions w/ Website Payments Standard, or Enhanced Recurring Payments w/ Website Payments Standard. Either one of these would allow you to set up recurring payments. Enhanced Recurring Payments is the only one that would have a monthly charge associated with it. Express Checkout and Subscriptions w/ Website Payments Standard would not have a monthly charge. However, Enhanced Recurring Payments allows the buyer to sign up for a subscription without having to have a PayPal account, and they can just use their credit card. Express Checkout and Subscriptions w/ Website Payments Standard require the buyer to have a PayPal account. They can still be billed via credit card, but they have to have the credit card attached to their PayPal account. The subscription would bill the PayPal account, and the PayPal account would pull the funds from the credit card on the account.
With a PayPal account, your users can receive or send funds based on the country these accounts are located in.
We are a UK-based marketplace site that wants to never force buyers to sign up for paypal. We allow users to set up customized stores through our site, and our second requirement is that these users be able to become sellers with only a basic paypal account. When a buyer makes a purchase, we are the primary receiver, taking 15% and passing on the entire paypal fees to the secondary receiver (user), as well as all the remainder of the transaction. My question is: What's the best solution paypal offers for this? It seems that chained payments would be, but if I understand correctly the Website Payments Pro system is the only one that guarantees that buyers outside the UK wouldn't need a paypal account. Is there a way to take the money in ourselves with Website Payments Pro and use the API so it transfers the 85% (minus the fees) to the user's paypal account?
It depends on what approach you want to take.
I would prefer Chained Payments as it allows guest checkout (credit card payments outside a PayPal account) with certain restrictions and will easily allow the user to receive the funds and automatically forwards the 15% cut to your account. This removes the need to collect funds outside of the payment flow. This means no invoicing or no lost dues!
Website Payments Pro only offers credit card payments however you would also need to offer Express Checkout for PayPal payments as well. You also have the flexibility of hosting the order form so you control what the users see. The downside is you'd have to collect funds from the user outside the payments. Such as monthly invoicing, billing agreements or manual processing.
Here is the criteria we use to allow guest checkout. Please keep in mind these are due to rules and regulations, not PayPal's choosing.
The credit card has a lifetime limit of 10 purchases outside a PayPal account
The user's email address must not be attached to an existing PayPal account
I don't have a direct answer for you but hopefully this helps make your decision.
My business is setting up online billing using PayPal and Google checkout. I'm looking for the best way to charge a recurring monthly service fee for my website. My site is subscription based and I charge X amount of dollars per month. I want to bill the customer's credit card each month for that monthly fee. The subscriber to the site knows that it is an ongoing monthly service charge when they sign up.
I'm looking for the quickest, easiest, best, most reliable way to charge this recurring fee.
I'd prefer to have the monthly fee just show up on their monthly credit card statement like it does on mine for many services I use like Slicehost.
NOTE: Google checkout now DOES support recurring payments -- they just implemented it!
Google Checkout doesn't currently support recurring billing, but it is on their Feature Suggestions page.
PayPal supports Recurring Payments either manually or through their API.
I'd highly recommend using PayPal's API, as it's straightforward, well documented, and you can easily test everything out on your non-production sites by using PayPal's Developer Site.
Goole Checkout now supports "Recurring charges and subscriptions" in beta mode
There's more info at Google's site