PayPal account required?

Hi, I’ve got S2Member (free version) installed on a test site right now and was running a check on purchasing a membership; did not realize that I would run into the roadblock of a PayPal account being REQUIRED to purchase a subscription to the site. Is there any way around this? Did I miss a setting? Does the Pro version of S2Member circumvent this? I had thought that this would work as a typical PayPal button; allowing you to check out via PayPal without a PayPal account. Apparently subscriptions are handled differently? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated — we were close to going live, but at this point I will need to backtrack and find a different membership option that interacts with PayPal without requiring the user to have a PayPal account if I can’t find a solution.

As far as I am aware (and I hope someone will correct me if I am wrong) this is because the version of PayPal you’re using.

PayPal is very confusing, as over the years they have renamed, launched and edited many of their services, but if you’re using PayPal Standard, the only method of doing subscriptions or purchases, is with a PayPal Account.

However, there are two other methods:

PayPal Express Checkout (Free*)

PayPal Express Checkout allows users to make payments without the need for a PayPal account. Users (or clients) are able to make payments for whatever services you offer, including one-off payments, or even subscriptions with their Debit / Credit Cards or PayPal account.

The main limitation here is that you’ll be sending your customers off your website, although you didn’t raise that as a concern, I assume that isn’t an issue for you.

PayPal Pro (£20 a Month*) – Requires S2Member Pro

PayPal Pro lets you accept payments in the exact same fashion as above, but you’re able to take these payments on your website instead. Research has shown time and again that people are more likely to spend if they don’t need to leave your website to make the payment.

However, in order to accept PayPal Pro Payments on your website, you’ll also need a Dedicated SSL Certificate on your Domain, and to protect the pages you use to accept payment.

SSL Certificates can be cheap, but some hosting providers do not allow you to have one on shared hosting, and you might need a VPS / Dedicated Hosting Package. Check with your host to see about SSL Certificates.

*All PayPal Versions take a small transaction fee, dependant on the amount in your account. See your localised PayPal Website for more details.

Please Note; PayPal has a very confusing set of services. Triple check what you’re using, and what you plan to upgrade to, and ensure you’re on the right localised version.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by  Alec Weekes.

Hi Alec,
Thank you for your quick reply! We’re using PayPal Payments Standard (business) — it’s a non-profit group so we don’t want to pay the upgrade to Pro — and PayPal Payments Standard (at least in the U.S.) does allow checkout without a PayPal account for every type of button EXCEPT subscriptions. So the question is whether, on the S2Member side, there is any setting that allows these “subscriptions” to be treated as something else… or whether there is any other way, via programming rather than changing our PayPal account type… to get around this. Thanks again!

Have you looked into PayPal Express Checkout? I’m not certain if it is available in the United States, but here in the U.K. we have three PayPal services available to us. You can see them here, for reference: https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/home-merchant

So the question is whether, on the S2Member side, there is any setting that allows these “subscriptions” to be treated as something else… or whether there is any other way, via programming rather than changing our PayPal account type… to get around this.

Not as far as I am aware. The issue is that s2Member is reading your PayPal Account information (That you’ve provided) and acknowledging the services that PayPal provides with that. It would be impossible for s2Member to force Credit / Debit Card Payments unless your PayPal account did also.

Update: I’ve found something that might also be of help to you.

PayPal Services Comparison: http://www.s2member.com/kb/paypal-services-a-quick-comparison/

Research your options within there, and look into PayPal. I know for example, that the UK based Premium Services is actually free, despite the article claiming it costs a monthly fee.

I hope you find what you’re looking for!