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I need to integrate a subscription solution to my rails application. Paypal seems to be the best option (for non US Merchants).

I need to have

  1. Ability to accommodate monthly and annual billing
  2. Ability to suspend, cancel accounts etc
  3. Deal with out-of-date card details or failed payment

just as mentioned here: Recurring billing with Rails - what are my options?

I've come across various Paypal solutions like:

** Express Checkout ** Website Payments Standard

and various implementation options like ActiveMerchant, paypal_recurring gem

Just wanted to know

[A] - which Paypal option is the best one for subscription based billing with conditions 1-3 above and below additional condition:

  • for non US merchants

[B] - what are the best implementation options as in ActiveMerchant, or the paypal_recurring gem?

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random
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1 Answers1

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I would recommend going with Express Checkout and Recurring Payments. Specifically, you'll be using SetExpressCheckout, GetExpressCheckoutDetails (optional), DoExpressCheckoutPayment (optional), and CreateRecurringPaymentsProfile depending on exactly what you're doing with your application.

SEC will return a token that you'll use to redirect the user to PayPal as well as in following API calls.

GECD is used to obtain buyer details (ie. shipping address, address status, payer status, etc.) from PayPal now that the user has signed in and agreed to continue.

DECP would allow you to finalize a one-time payment that includes shipping and tax info, item details etc.

CRPP allows you to setup the recurring profile including one-time initial payment, trial amounts, regular amounts and periods, etc.

Then behind that you can use the UpdateRecurringPaymentsProfile API to manage the profiles programatically.

Drew Angell
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  • Thanks - that is what I figured out till now. I see detailed instructions here: https://developer.paypal.com/webapps/developer/docs/classic/express-checkout/integration-guide/ECGettingStarted/ Just wanted to know if buyers can pay for subscriptions even if they don’t have a PayPal account? Came across another plan here: https://merchant.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=merchant/erp_overview – random Aug 27 '13 at 10:15
  • And I see that I can create sandbox test accounts for specific countries only. I assume that it is just a limitation in test environment and it does not limit buyers from other countries to make payments in live environments. – random Aug 27 '13 at 10:18
  • Without Payments Pro you can't take credit cards directly for subscriptions. Your users will need a PayPal account. – Drew Angell Aug 27 '13 at 14:45