Table of Contents
PayPal Pro and Express Checkout Add-on allows you to add both PayPal Payments Pro and PayPal Express Checkout payment gateways to your membership site. Users will be able to pay without leaving your site.
| PayPal Product* | Countries where product is available |
|---|---|
| PayPal Payments Standard | All countries. Paid Member Subscriptions Free version comes with PayPal Standard built |
| PayPal Express Checkout | All countries |
* PayPal Product Availability – Check other PayPal products availability or refer to PayPal offerings worldwide and visit your country-specific site to learn which products are available in your country
* PayPal Merchant Status – Check PayPal Planned Downtime
PayPal Pro and Express Checkout is a Pro add-on, available with a Paid Member Subscriptions Pro, or Agency license only.
After purchasing a premium version of Paid Member Subscriptions, the .zip file will be available for download under your account page by clicking the version Download button.
Once downloaded, you can install the premium version as a normal WordPress plugin, by uploading the .zip file in your WordPress Admin -> Plugins -> Add New -> Upload Plugin.
Alternatively, you can install the premium version by extracting the folder found inside the archive and uploading the entire folder via FTP to your /wp-content/plugins folder found inside your WordPress install.
After the installation of the Pro, or Agency version, in order to activate The PayPal Pro and Express Checkout Add-on, go to Dashboard -> Paid Member Subscriptions -> Add-ons -> PayPal Pro and Express Checkout Add-on and click activate.
For the PayPal Pro and Express Checkout add-on to work as expected, you’ll also need to have the following:
Once the add-on is activated, navigate to Paid Member Subscriptions -> Settings -> Payments where you’ll find both PayPal Pro and PayPal Express Checkout listed among the Active Payment Gateways.
Make sure to check the payment gateways you want to use on your site. You can also setup a default payment gateway for accepting member payments.
Paid Member Subscriptions Payments Settings that we can setup:
You can setup the PayPal Pro and the PayPal Express Checkout Payment Gateway to process recurring payments on your domain. To use the Renewal feature go to Paid Member Subscriptions -> Settings -> Payments -> Renewal.
The Renewal option settings:
Starting with Paid Member Subscription v1.5.0 you can setup the Renewal feature based on Subscription Plan. The Renewal option setup inside the Subscription Plan will overwrite the Renewal option setup in the Settings page.
Starting with Paid Member Subscriptions Pro v1.0.8 you can setup Sign-up Fees for your Subscription Plans. The Sign-up Fee represents the amount that you can charge people upfront when subscribing to a Subscription Plan.
To setup the Sign-up Fee option go to Paid Member Subscriptions -> Subscription Plans -> Edit your Subscription Plan -> Setup Sign-up Fee.
Based on the example below users will need to pay $70 for the Gold plan and also the $10 Sign-up Fee. Users will pay the Sign-Up Fee only once and doesn’t take in consideration the Renewal option.
Starting with Paid Member Subscriptions Pro v1.0.8 you can setup Free Trials for your Subscription Plans. The Free Trial represents the amount of time before charging the first Recurring Payment. The Sign-up Fee applies regardless of the Free Trial.
In the case of Unlimited Plans the “Free Trial” Feature is supported only with Reference Transactions activated.
To setup the Free Trial option go to Paid Member Subscriptions -> Subscription Plans -> Edit your Subscription Plan -> Setup Free Trial.
Based on the example above users will receive a 1 Month Free Trial if they purchase the Silver Plan. After the expiration of the Subscription Plan users will be able to renew manually the plan from their Account.
If you setup the Renewal option to “Always renew automatically” the Subscription Plan will renew automatically.
When using the PayPal Express gateway for payments you can allow users to checkout without an account. With this option activated, after the user is redirected to PayPal they will be able to login or use a credit card in order to pay.
This feature needs to be enabled in your PayPal account. To activate it, go to Account Settings -> Website payments -> Website preferences and set PayPal account optional to On.
Go to Paid Member Subscriptions -> Settings -> Payment Gateways -> PayPal to enter the Email Address that is connected to your PayPal Business account.
Below you’ll need to enter your PayPal API credentials for PayPal Pro and PayPal Express Checkout. These are required in order to use any of PayPal Pro and PayPal Express Checkout features.
For more information on how to obtain your PayPal Live API Credentials see this guide.
For more information on how to obtain your PayPal Test API Credentials see this guide.
Both PayPal Pro and PayPal Express require that you enable IPN Notifications inside your PayPal Business Account. If you are using a Merchant Sandbox Account you will need to login inside the PayPal Sandbox Account to setup the IPN.
For this log into your PayPal Business Account -> hover over your Account Name and go to Account Settings -> Business Profile -> Notifications -> Instant payment notifications-> Click on the Update link.
Inside Instant Payment Notification (IPN) -> Turn On IPN and set your listener’s URL.
The Notification URL should be set to:
https://www.yourdomain.com/?pay_gate_listener=paypal_epipn
Note – Replace “www.yourdomain.com” with your actual domain name
Generate PayPal Pro and PayPal Express Checkout IPN
Add your domain in the field below, example: yourdomain.com, and click on the “Generate IPN” button. As you can see we need to use https for our domain. Use the generated IPN inside your PayPal Account.
In order for the PayPal Express gateway to work, the Encrypted website payments setting from your PayPal account needs to be turned OFF. To find this setting go to your PayPal Business Account -> Account settings -> Website payments -> Website preferences -> Encrypted website payments
In order enable Reference Transactions we need to check the Reference Transactions option inside Paid Member Subscriptions -> Settings -> Payments -> PayPal.
Check the “Reference Transactions” option only if your PayPal Business Account has the “Reference Transactions” feature enabled.
To enable the “Reference Transactions” feature inside your PayPal Business Account you will need to contact PayPal Business Support and request that they activate the feature. For more information go here.
Starting with Paid Member Subscriptions 2.2.3, a new Automatic Payment Retry option is available. By enabling this feature, when a payment made through this payment gateway fails, the plugin will attempt to take the payment again after 3 days for a maximum of 3 retries, after which the subscription will remain expired.
This option is disabled by default and it only works with Plugin Scheduled Payments done through the Stripe or PayPal Express (with Reference Transactions enabled) payment gateways.
An SSL certificate is used to establish a secure encrypted connection. PayPal IPN has been/will be updated to https for added security in accordance with PayPal’s announcement.
An SSL Certificate is mandatory in order to process payments.
You can obtain security certificates for free instead of paying for traditional SSL certificates (which cost ~ 80$+/year) and install them much easier using Let’s Encrypt. It is a free, automated and open certificate authority that issues domain-validated certificates.
More and more hosting companies (like Site Ground or Kinsta – quick tutorial) offer the ability to install let’s encrypt certificates in just a couple of clicks directly from their dashboard.
The most secure protocol for sharing information on the web today is Transport Layer Security (TLS) version 1.2. PayPal is enabling support for TLS 1.2 for all secure connections and in 2016 will start requiring its use.
You will need to verify that your environment supports TLS 1.2 and if necessary make appropriate updates. PayPal is updating its services to require TLS v1.2 for all HTTPS connections in June 30th, 2017. After that time, all TLS v1.0 and TLS v1.1 API connections will be refused.
As the Security Notice from PayPal says, please contact your hosting and tell them to update the TLS of your SSL Certificate to v1.2. Also tell them that there is an issue with SSLv3 that is preventing PayPal to work correctly. A suggestion would be to disable SSLv3 in order to see if the payments are processed correctly.
After you install your SSL Certificate on your domain please go to your website -> Login as Admin -> Access the dashboard -> Settings -> General and make sure you add https inside WordPress Address (URL) / Site Address (URL).
Also we recommend to use a free plugin like Really Simple SSL – It automatically detects your settings and configures your website to run over https.
If everything is setup correctly, including the PayPal API Credentials and the IPN, we can process our first PayPal Express Checkout payment on our website.
We will test the payments by using Paid Member Subscriptions in Test Mode. Go to Paid Member Subscriptions -> Settings -> Payments -> Check “Test Mode”. By checking this option you will be able to use Paid Member Subscriptions with test accounts from your payment processors.
Inside our Registration form we display 3 Subscription Plans: Free, Silver and Gold and the Renewal option is set to “Customer opts in for automatic renewal”.
After registration the user will need to login inside his PayPal Account.
After login the user will need to confirm the payment by clicking on the “Agree & Continue” button.
This is how the payment looks like in Paid Member Subscriptions -> Payments.
To make a recurring payment when the Renewal option is set to “Customer opts in for automatic renewal” the user will need to check the “Automatically renew subscription” checkbox.
After registration the user will need to login inside his PayPal Account.
After login the user will need to confirm the payment by clicking on the “Agree & Continue” button.
This is how the payment looks like in Paid Member Subscriptions -> Payments.
To use the “Sign-up Fee” Feature we need to go to Paid Member Subscriptions -> Subscription Plans -> Edit your Subscription Plan and to setup the amount for the Sign-up Fee. Users will pay the Sign-Up Fee only once. The Renewal feature is set to “Customer opts in for automatic renewal”
This is how the Paid Member Subscriptions Registration Form looks like after we setup the Sign-up Fee.
This is how the payment looks like in Paid Member Subscriptions -> Payments.
To use the “Free Trial” Feature we need to go to Paid Member Subscriptions -> Subscription Plans -> Edit your Subscription Plan and to setup the amount for the Free Trial. The Sign-up Fee applies regardless of the Free Trial. The Renewal feature is set to “Customer opts in for automatic renewal”.
If you setup the Renewal option to “Always renew automatically” the Subscription Plan will renew automatically.
Based on the example below users will receive a 1 Month Free Trial if they purchase the Silver Plan. After the expiration of the Subscription Plan users will be able to renew manually the plan from their Account.
This is how the Paid Member Subscriptions Registration Form looks like after we setup the Free Trial.
The Free Trial Subscription are activated immediately and begin with the Trial period. This is displayed in Paid Member Subscriptions -> Members.
Based on the example above, the actual payment will take place on 28/09/2023 when the Free Trial expires. The user can view these details inside his Account -> View Details.
Refunds are an unavoidable part of your membership business. To process a refund manually follow the steps below:
Go to Paid Member Subscriptions-> Members-> and search for the member who asked you for a refund. You can enter the account email address to locate the member. After you find the member click on the “Edit Member” button.
After clicking on “Edit Member” the following page will open, click on “View details”.
Then the payments page will open, from here you can modify the status of the payment from Completed in Refunded.
You will need to issue the refund from PayPal site, please follow the steps below in order to issue the refund:
⦁ Log in into your PayPal business account: https://www.paypal.com
⦁ Click the Activity tab at the top of the page.
⦁ Click All Transactions.
⦁ Search for the transaction you need to refund using Transaction ID from the above screenshot, click on it and then click Refund this payment.
⦁ For ‘Refund amount’, enter the amount you want to refund, (you may have the option to refund a partial amount of the payment) and click Continue.
⦁ Review your information to make sure you entered the correct refund amount and click Issue Refund.
Please check the following page for more information.
Now, we need to modify the member status. Please go to Paid Member Subscriptions -> Members-> search for the user to whom you refunded money-> click Edit Member.
Then click Edit on the Subscriptions.
Modify the status from Active in Expired and click “Save Subscriptions”.
A PayPal API operation can return multiple error and warning codes. You can view the full list here.
If you receive an 10002 PayPal Error when trying to process a payment with PayPal Pro or PayPal Express Checkout it means that your API Credentials are not setup correctly.
Check that the account that will receive payments was used to generate the API credentials. If you’re using PayPal’s Sandbox environment, you must generate API credentials from within the Sandbox business account rather than a Live account. You can read more about this here.
If you receive an 11586 PayPal Error you will need to get in touch with PayPal Business Support to request this feature to be enabled for you. Mention that you’re looking to get “Direct Payment – Recurring Payments” enabled. Read more here.
PayPal Support Email Address: payflow-support@paypal.com
Also make sure to tell PayPal to update PayPal Pro to the latest version on your account. Enabling Direct Payment – Recurring Payments may include additional PayPal fees – $30/Month.
Lets say that you setup Paid Member Subscriptions to process payments using the £ (Sterling Pound) currency. You will need to make sure that your PayPal Account uses this currency otherwise all your payments will be considered pending. This is required also for Test Merchant Accounts.
To add a currency login inside your PayPal Account -> Currencies -> Select new currency -> Select British Pound -> Add Currency.
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