PayPal
Supported PayPal payment systems
PayPal includes several different payment systems. SubscriptionBridge currently supports the following PayPal-powered recurring payment systems:
PayPal Website Payments Pro (
sign-up)
-
The Payflow Pro Recurring Billing Service is not yet supported.
Features
Geographic Limitations
Express Checkout
The recurring payment functionality is available wherever Express Checkout is available. Express Checkout is available in most countries.
Website Payments Pro
PayPal Website Payments Pro is only available in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada at this time.
Note for UK merchants
UK merchants: if you have been using Website Payments Pro in the UK for some time, you might be using an older version of it (i.e. the UK Payflow system). Contact PayPal and ask them if you are on the Pro 2.0 platform. If so, ask that your account be upgraded to the Pro 3.0 platform as the Pro 2.0 payment platform is not compatible with SubscriptionBridge.
Cost of the service
This information is current as of January, 2011. If you find that any of this information is incorrect, please let us know.
Express Checkout: Using Express Checkout as a stand-alone product with Recurring Payment is free of monthly charges.
No additional costs and fees for using the recurring payment functionality in Express Checkout
Normal Express Checkout transaction fees apply to each Recurring Payments transaction, as there is no additional transaction fee.
-
Website Payments Pro: There is an additional $30 monthly fee for Recurring Payments used with Website Payments Pro.
The regular $30/month fee for WPP applies.
An additional $30/month fee is charged for Recurring Payments
So the total for WPP becomes $60/month in monthly fees.
Normal WPP transaction fees apply to each Recurring Payment transaction, as there is no additional transaction fee.
Make sure to sign up for the additional service when you activate your Website Payments Pro account (as shown below) or add the Recurring Billing service to your existing account.
Setting Up Website Payments Pro
Follow the steps in this tutorial on the PayPal Web site to get started with a PayPal Website Payments Pro account.
When the page says “NOTE: You will need to configure APIs for post-checkout operations (e.g. capture and refund) from your web store.”, don’t worry. SubscriptionBridge has already been setup to take advantage of the PayPal APIs to connect with PayPal.
When it says “
Copy and paste the API username, password, and signature into your web store’s payment configuration page.” return to SubscriptionBridge and follow these steps:
From the SubscriptionBridge main menu select the store that you are working with, then select Edit Store > Payment Gateway
Enter the
API credentials in the corresponding fields and click on
Edit to save your entries
See the section below on how to obtain the
API credentials
Configuring PayPal Settings
This applies to both Website Payments Pro and Express Checkout.
Obtaining your API credentials
When creating a new Store in SubscriptionBridge, you will need to enter your PayPal API credentials to use PayPal Express Checkout or Website Payments Pro as the payment method. Follow these instructions to obtain the API credentials:
Configuring Instant Payment Notification
Log into your PayPal account
Select “Profile > Selling Preferences > Instant Payment Notification Preferences”
If you don't see this link, click on the text link to See the classic profile version, which is the one shown in the screen shot below.
Select “Choose IPN Settings”
Enter the “
Notification URL” as:
https://www.subscriptionbridge.com/PostBack/PayPalSilentProcessor.asp
Check the radio button to “Receive IPN messages”
Click “Save”
Testing SubscriptionBridge with PayPal
Troubleshooting
Here you will find a list of error messages and other issues that you might run into, and what to do about them.
If you receive this message when checking out on the SubscriptionBridge shopping cart, the reason is typically that you have entered incorrect credentials when you configured your store in SubscriptionBridge.
Log into the SubscriptionBridge Merchant Center
Select the store you want to work with
Select Edit Store > Payment Gateway
Re-enter the
API credentials in the corresponding fields and click on
Edit to save your entries.
Close all browser windows (all of them)
Restart your browser and try checking out again through the SubscriptionBridge shopping cart. The error should be gone if correct credentials were entered (make sure you closed all browser windows and restarted the browser, otherwise you are working with “cached” data and you will not see any changes).
Other Notes
Automatic retries on declined payments
When a recurring payment is declined, PayPal automatically retries to charge the account 3 times, 5 days apart.
If the outstanding balance is paid before a payment is retried, no retries occur.
If the outstanding balance is not paid by the customer, but the transaction goes through successfully on a retry, SubscriptionBridge automatically updates the subscription, which becomes current. Notifications are sent out at that time.