Pro forms without Paypal pro for subscription

Hi there

My client has not been authorised for paypal pro, but still needs me to use pro forms because she wants to use coupon codes. I have found your info about editing the pro form shortcode accept_via_paypal and it works 100% fine, but only for one-off payments, not for subscriptions. Unfortunately I need it to work for subscriptions. By “not working” for subscriptions, I mean that it goes to paypal express checkout OK, but will only allow you to pay by credit card if you create a paypal account during the process. What I need is what it does for one-off payments, which is to allow you to pay by credit card as a paypal guest.

Reading around, I discovered that the paypal express checkout “paypal account optional” only works for one-off payments, but paypal have “website payments premium services” which allows it to work for subscriptions. We have activated these premium services, but it is still not working.

Have you any ideas?
Thanks
Charlotte

I have tried just creating a standard subscription button in paypal and pasting that code onto a wordpress page. It works fine, and if I click on it I am taken to paypal and given the choice of either entering paypal username/password to pay, or paying by credit card or debit card.

This is the standard code:

Hi Maria,

It looks like your message got cut off… could you please post the rest of it?

Also, could you please confirm that you’re running the latest version of s2Member (v120622)?

sorry about that .. I am using s2member version 120517

here is the paypal button that works fine: I have removed the form tags and greater than signs as they were stopping the text displaying for you

action=”https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr” method=”post”>
input type=”hidden” name=”cmd” value=”_s-xclick”>
input type=”hidden” name=”hosted_button_id” value=”6W4S6FLLHHBD2″>
input type=”image” src=”https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_GB/i/btn/btn_subscribe_LG.gif” border=”0″ name=”submit” alt=”PayPal — The safer, easier way to pay online.”>
img alt=”” border=”0″ src=”https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_GB/i/scr/pixel.gif” width=”1″ height=”1″>

and fyi here is the s2member shortcode to the one that isn’t working properly:

[s2Member-Pro-PayPal-Form level="1" ccaps="" desc="£0.10 GBP / 3 months subscription" ps="paypal" lc="" cc="GBP" dg="0" ns="1" custom="www.wordebite.com" ta="0" tp="0" tt="D" ra="0.10" rp="3" rt="M" rr="1" rrt="" rra="2" accept="paypal,visa,mastercard,amex,discover,maestro,solo" accept_via_paypal="paypal,visa,mastercard,amex,discover,maestro,solo" coupon="" accept_coupons="1" default_country_code="" captcha="0" /]

Maria, the Express Checkout integration was improved in version 120608. http://www.s2member.com/changelog/#s2-changes-v120608

(s2Member Pro) PayPal® Express Checkout. This release enables “PayPal Account Optional” for PayPal® Express Checkout, via s2Member Pro Forms. In other words, this release makes the PayPal® Express Checkout option through Pro Forms, behave more like a standard PayPal® Button; where a customer is not always required to have a PayPal® account during checkout. This functionality is enabled automatically, there’s nothing you need to change in your s2Member® integration. However, we do suggest that you turn “PayPal Account Optional” (on) inside your PayPal® account. Please see this thread for further details.

Update your s2Member installation to the latest release, 120622, and try again, please. :)

I have upgraded to 120622 and am still having the same problem. Note that “Paypal optional” IS turned on in my paypal a/c.

So, all I have done is generated a pro form for level 1 access, for a quarterly subscription. It goes to paypal and I am given 2 choices .. either to pay using a paypal account, or to create a paypal account and pay with credit card. I want it to give me the choice of paying by credit card as a paypal guest, ie as it behaves for one-off payments.

Here is my shortcode (I re-generated it when I had upgraded s2member)

[s2Member-Pro-PayPal-Form level="1" ccaps="" desc="$0.10 GBP / Quarterly ( recurring charge, for ongoing access )" ps="paypal" lc="" cc="GBP" dg="0" ns="1" custom="www.wordebite.com" ta="0" tp="0" tt="D" ra="0.10" rp="3" rt="M" rr="1" rrt="" rra="2" accept="paypal,visa,mastercard,amex,discover,maestro,solo" accept_via_paypal="paypal,visa,mastercard,amex,discover,maestro,solo" coupon="" accept_coupons="1" default_country_code="" captcha="0" /]

I see, it’s a subscription, not a buy-now. I’m sorry I missed that the first time I replied…

I’m afraid that the free PayPal services will always require the user to have a PayPal account to start a subscription. This is true for PayPal Standard buttons, too. Buy-now transactions are the ones that won’t require it.

By the way, in the shortcode you need to change the [hilite mono]accept[/hilite] attribute to just “paypal” if you won’t get payments on your site with PayPal Pro. [hilite code]accept="paypal"[/hilite]

I hope that helps.

yes, thanks you are right about accept=”paypal”.

But no .. I read what you said about paypal buy-now/subscriptions .. that’s why we are now signed up to their premium services.. which means it should work, as in this link:
https://www.paypal-business.co.uk/premiumservices/index.htm

It works fine with standard buttons for subscriptions (that was the code I pasted above in reply ) .. so it ought to be possible to make it work with pro-forms as well?

Thanks for the heads up on this request for support.

@ Maria Barrett

Starting with s2Member Pro v120608:
http://www.s2member.com/changelog/#s2-changes-v120608
It became possible for customers to checkout through PayPal Express Checkout, with ONLY a credit card, so long as the purchase does NOT include a trial period, or any recurring charges. In other words, it works with “Buy Now” purchases only.

“Premium Services” in the UK, referred to as “Enhanced Recurring Payments” in the USA; is an add-on for PayPal Standard accounts, and does NOT work with Express Checkout in my experience. It only enhances Standard PayPal Button functionality, it does not enhance Express Checkout.

I would suggest that you contact PayPal to confirm this, as their rules are slightly different in UK. It would be good for you to hear this from PayPal directly. In the mean time, if you want to accept credit cards for recurring payments, you will need a PayPal Pro account, with Recurring Billing service enabled. This works together with s2Member Pro Forms, to maximize functionality/flexibility.

Hi there, thanks for relying so quicky.

I am sorry to appear stupid, but I am really confused. I am sure that my paypal a/c side of things is OK, because I have got it working for subscriptions using your S2member paypal buttons: see this page… these are subscriptions
http://www.wordebite.com/members/?page_id=58

The problem is, this is not enough for my client, because she wants to use coupon codes.. and I don’t think I can use coupon codes with buttons.. so for that reason, I am having to use pro-forms. Surely if it works with buttons, it should work with pro-forms?

(it occurs to me, that I suppose I could write some php which made the user enter their coupon code, and if it was valid, take them to another button with the discount .. but I would prefer to use the s2member functionality if it can be done as it would make for much easier maintenance and also I am not certain I could make it unhackable.)

Thanks

Surely if it works with buttons, it should work with pro-forms?

Not necessarily. They are two different PayPal services: Standard and Express Checkout. If you paid an upgrade for Standard, it doesn’t necessarily include Express Checkout. You should contact PayPal to see if they can include it or tell you what to do in order to accept recurring payments without PayPal account in Express Checkout.

(it occurs to me, that I suppose I could write some php which made the user enter their coupon code, and if it was valid, take them to another button with the discount .. but I would prefer to use the s2member functionality if it can be done as it would make for much easier maintenance and also I am not certain I could make it unhackable.)

Right, that could be customized too, but I can understand you’d prefer the built-in functionality.