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Manage PayPal Subscriptions

Introduction

This document will guide you through the process of configuring PayPal subscription payments. The guide can be used to configure live subscription payments, or payments through the PayPal sandbox.

This guide assumes the following pre-requisites:

  • You have enabled Monetization & Billing Services in the Admin Portal.

  • PayPal is enabled as a payment provider in Admin Portal Settings.

  • You have a PayPal developer account or a PayPal business account.

For a full description of PayPal integration see PayPal Integration.

PayPal Accounts

To receive PayPal payments you will need a PayPal business account. To use the PayPal sandbox you will need a business account or a developer account. Developer accounts can be created with a PayPal business account through Account Settings.

To integrate with the PayPal sandbox, sandbox accounts must be created. For details see: https://developer.paypal.com/tools/sandbox/accounts/

Create a Subscription Plan in Monetization Service

For a full description of Monetization Service see Monetization Service.

Important
Configuration of PayPal requires some manual steps and care must be taken to ensure that configurations are correctly reflected between Monetization Service and PayPal. Some settings in PayPal cannot be changed after they have been saved. Likewise, some settings in Monetization Service cannot be changed after they have been published.
  • Click Monetization, then Subscription Plans.

  • Click NEW to create a new subscription plan.

  • Select a title for your subscription plan. e.g. "Premium" and click Proceed.

monetization paypal subscription plan details
Figure 1. Subscription plan details
  • Enter a description.

  • Add Payment Provider PayPal, but leave Product Id blank.

  • Click Payment Plans.

  • Click NEW to create a new payment plan.

  • Select a title for your payment plan. e.g. "Monthly" and click Proceed.

monetization paypal payment plan details
Figure 2. Payment plan details
  • Enter a description.

  • Add Payment Provider PayPal, but leave Plan Id blank.

  • Click Price per Country

monetization paypal price per country
Figure 3. Price per country
  • Add a price for at least one country. If you add more than one country, ensure that the Price and Currency are the same for all countries.

We’ve created the basic subscription plan structure in Monetization Service. Next we need to map the configuration to PayPal.

Configure the PayPal Business Dashboard

PayPal products and plans plans are configured in the PayPal business dashboard, or sandbox business dashboard. Login with your business account or sandbox business account and navigate to App Center, Subscriptions, Get Started. Or use a direct link:

Paypal live subscription plans URL

https://www.paypal.com/billing/plans

Paypal sandbox subscription plans URL

https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/billing/plans

  • Start by clicking Create Plan:

monetization paypal subscription plans start
  • Click Create a subscription product. Or if you have not created any products yet, the product creation page will be opened directly.

monetization paypal create product
Figure 4. Product creation page
  • Align product settings to a subscription plan in Monetization Service as shown above.

  • Leave the Product ID blank. We will let PayPal generate an appropriate unique value.

  • As we are creating a subscription to watch movies we will use Product type: Digital goods

  • Select an appropriate Industry category: e.g. Digital media, books, movies, and music

  • Click Next to save the product.

  • To create a plan, select the product that we just created and click Next.

  • Select Fixed pricing and click Next.

monetization paypal create plan 1
  • Align Plan Name and Plan description with title and description from the payment plan in Monetization Service. Click Next

monetization paypal create plan 2
  • Align billing cycles with recurrence period from the payment plan in Monetization Service.