Paypal subscriptions / recurring payments - paypal

Question

I am trying to set up multiple recurring payment for my website but when I post to Paypal only the last item is displayed on paypal payment screen. All other items are ignored.
Here is the code that I am using
String url;
url = "https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?";
url += "cmd=_xclick-subscriptions";
url += "&business=" + ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["paypalemail"].ToString();
url += "&src=1";
url += "&sra=1";
if (!chargedListings && chkListingModules.Checked)
{
url += "&item_name=Listing Module";
url += "&a3=" + listingCharges;
url += "&p3=1";
url += "&t3=M";
url += "&item_number=1";
i++;
}
if (!chargedDB && chkDB.Checked)
{
sendToPaypal = true;
url += "&item_name=Database";
url += "&a3=" + emailCharges;
url += "&p3=1";
url += "&t3=M";
url += "&item_number=2";
i++;
}
Not really sure what I am doing wrong here. I have looked through the paypal documentation but so far havent found anything useful.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance

Answer 1

You cannot itemize subscriptions on PayPal with PayPal Payments Standard. Here is what PayPal says about the item_name parameter (found here):
Description of item being sold. If you are collecting aggregate payments, the value can be a summary of all items purchased, a tracking number, or a generic term such as "subscription."
The item_name parameter is meant only to be used once per transaction. So the reason it only takes the last item is because you are passing multiple instances of the same parameter in your URL (passing &item_name=Listing Module followed by &item_name=Database). If you want to make a single subscription for all these products, you will want to figure the price of everything and assign that to a3 and make an item_name that covers both. If you want each of these items to have different subscription terms, then you would need to generate different subscriptions for each.