Requirements for New Paypal Pro Accounts

Recently bought s2member pro and setup a PayPal Pro account so that I could use Proforms.

I’m not sure if I signed up for the right PayPal service, because I can’t find the PayFlow API username/password information anywhere.

I know that I do have Pro because the “My Business Setup” page (https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/customerprofileweb?cmd=_accountsetup-ppbasics) says so.

Your payment solution: PayPal Payments Pro

My understanding was that all newly created PayPal Pro accounts used the PayFlow API for recurring payments. Should I have signed up for a PayFlow Pro account instead of a PayPal Pro account?

Hi Ian.

I’ll email Jason asking him, I’m still not familiar enough with PayFlow myself.

Thanks,

Looks like this person on Stack Overflow had a similar question — not about s2member, but about the different flavors of Paypal Pro accounts

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10747564/paypal-pro-payflow-edition-api-questions/10747680#10747680

Perhaps, I don’t have the recurring billing feature turned on?

Anyway, I’m hoping that whatever it is, it’s just a switch that Paypal needs to flip, and not another 2-3 day application process.

Yeah, I hope it’s a simple thing. :)

Hey Cristian,

Any word back on this? We’re all anxious to launch site. This is the last remaining issue to be dealt with.

No, haven’t heard back from Jason yet. I’ll email him again. He’s been checking his email less lately, since he’s deep in coding mode and quite busy, but he should be checking any time now.

Hi there. Thanks for the heads up on this request for support.

Newer PayPal Pro accounts come with the Payflow Edition. Meaning, you will have both a PayPal Pro account, and also a Payflow API Username/Password. If you have a new PayPal Pro account, you should have the ability to generate your Payflow API Credentials, from your PayPal Profile page.

See: Your PayPal Account -> Profile -> API Access (or Request API Credentials) -> Payflow® API Access

In newer PayPal Pro accounts, the Payflow API is required to utilize PayPal’s Recurring Billing Service. In all other PayPal Pro accounts (i.e. older and/or existing PayPal Pro accounts), the Recurring Billing service is tied directly to the standardized PayPal Pro API, while in newer PayPal Pro accounts, it requires the Payflow API. I know, weird!

To simplify this as best we can, from our end of things…

With s2Member Pro Forms, you will ONLY need the Payflow API, if you have a PayPal Pro account sold to you by PayPal, under the Payflow edition … and even then, ONLY if you intend to charge customers on a Recurring basis, or implement something else that requires the use of PayPal’s Recurring Billing service, such as initial/trial periods.

To clarify further… when you generate an s2Member Pro Form, you will choose the type of billing that needs to occur. If you choose ANY of the items in the drop-down menu, which are marked “(Subscriptions)”, you will need PayPal’s Recurring Billing service. If your PayPal Pro account was sold to you by PayPal, under the Payflow edition, s2Member will need your Payflow API Credentials so it can speak with your edition of PayPal’s Recurring Billing service. This is only time s2Member Pro needs the Payflow API (i.e. to speak the Recurring Billing language that exists in newer PayPal Pro accounts, which are sold under the Payflow edition).

In Summary…

Here’s a checklist you might follow:
1. Make sure that you have a PayPal Pro account before attempting to integrate s2Member Pro Forms.
2. If you intend to use any of the billing types marked (“Subscriptions”), please contact PayPal to have the Recurring Billing service added to your account.
3. If your PayPal Pro account was sold to you by PayPal, under the Payflow edition, please make sure that you give s2Member your Payflow API Credentials. See: Your PayPal Account -> Profile -> API Access (or Request API Credentials) -> Payflow® API Access

Once your Payflow API Credentials are obtained, please enter them here.
s2Member -> PayPal Options -> Payflow Account Details

Other Notes…

PayPal’s current Sandbox does NOT allow test transactions through the Payflow API. That is, the PayPal Sandbox does NOT support test transactions implemented by the Payflow API, and therefore, you will need to run any test transactions in live mode, with low dollar amounts.

Coming Soon…

Work is still underway for the next major release of s2Member Pro, to help simplify all of this just a bit further, as best we can. Additional services offered by PayPal are currently being integrated with s2Member Pro, and further details will made available on our website as we work to catch up with the large list of PayPal’s latest changes/improvements.

I hope that in this next update the PayPal buttons are working as expected again, the last version (May 17) killed these buttons, see my message about this. (I am a bit worried because I did not receive any reaction to that!)

Thanks … I suspect that the part that I am missing is having “Recurring Billing” on the account.

I’ll contact PayPal.

Boudewijn,

The PayPal buttons are not broken. The problem you’re experiencing is related to the PayPal account that you’re testing with, not s2Member. The account has not been fully set up. Please see my response here.

OK, on Payflow/Recurring Billing, trying to figure this out….

So I just got Paypal Payments Pro. I want to use the integrated/embedded signup form and have folks signup for a monthly subscription. So I assume this is by definition, recurring payments, if we want them to pay once and forget until they want to cancel ;-).

So I think, based on above, I need to use Payflow API. I looked everywhere for
See: Your PayPal Account -> Profile -> API Access (or Request API Credentials) -> Payflow® API Access
but could not find. I called Paypal and they said, it ain’t there but at an entirely different login, in fact they said to use your Paypal PRO login, not regular Paypal, at below url to access Payflow stuff. But anyways the API stuff really seems to be your Paypal Pro login/username anyway.

When I did login to this though, it shows Paypal recurring billing as another paid service?! So do I need Paypal Pro plus Paypal recurring billing or does s2member negate the need for this product? There’s a big $249 setup fee, ouch!

Am I missing something? Can I do signup once, monthly billing without all this complication with Paypal services?

https://manager.paypal.com/home.do
https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_payflow-recurring-billing-pricing-outside

Payflow Pro
Our fully customizable service lets your customers complete transactions on your website more securely. $249.00 $59.95 $0.10 / transaction after first 1000 transactions

Value Added Services

Recurring Billing Service $39.95 $29.95 1

Fraud Protection Services
Advanced Fraud Protection $0.00 $49.95 $0.10 / transaction
Buyer Authentication
$0.00 $9.95 $0.10 / transaction 2

Basic Fraud Protection $29.95 $19.95 $0.05 / transaction
Buyer Authentication
$0.00 $9.95 $0.10 / transaction

PayPal is a bit confusing with all its services, and they keep changing them, I’m sorry the interface you had was different. :/

s2Member integrates with PayPal Pro’s PayFlow Edition, not PayFlow Pro, it’d be good that you confirm this with PayPal’s support rep.

Here’s something Jason told me recently:

One CAN have a Payflow account only, which does NOT include any of the PayPal Pro API functionality, but s2Member is NOT currently compatible with these accounts. A site owner must have a PayPal Pro account, so that s2Member has access to the PayPal Pro API. s2Member is compatible with PayPal Pro accounts operating with the Payflow edition, but not with Payflow-only accounts.

I hope that helps.

Are you sure then I don’t need to pay for this Payflow Pro service? The rep I spoke to said that is the only way for me to accept recurring payments via Paypal.

I am testing with just the Payflow API. When I checkout with my form I get this error:
“Error. Please contact Support for assistance.”
and when I enter the coupon code it also errors. Should I open a new thread?

Update: posted here http://www.s2member.com/forums/topic/localhost-testing-errors-ssl/

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by  Jim Climy.

I think that in PayPal Pro (PayFlow Edition) you have to enable the recurring payments service, but it should be from the PayPal Pro account.

Jim,

I also didn’t find the API credentials where specified. I ended up creating a new user within PayPal Manager and choosing API_FULL_TRANSACTIONS as the Role.

Still not working for me though …. all I get on my s2member Proform (and in the log) is Error #1. User authentication failed.”

I plan to call Paypal tonight to verify exactly what type of an account I have.

I created a PayPal Sandbox Account and it does have everything laid out just like s2member docs say it should. So I suspect that I somehow got setup with separate PayPal Pro and PayFlow accounts. No bueno.

The problem with the interface is that PayPal seems to be slowly rolling out a new interface, which some users have, but others not.

Jason has the interface that he described in the s2Member admin pages, he doesn’t have an account to see another interface. I have another interface in my PayPal account, which may or not be the one you have, but I don’t have PayPal Pro to check this anyway.

You’ll need to browse your interface, following the entries that make more sense to have the fields you’re looking for, or contact PayPal support asking them for the correct path. You can tell them the path s2Member points to and ask what the new path would be for it.

Payflow AIP credentials is what you use to log into manager.paypal.com.

So based on what you are saying if you have paypal Pro with the new Payflow:

Username: user, or your merchant login if you haven’t set up any secondary users in manager.paypal.com.
Password: same as you log into manager.paypal.com
API Partner: PayPal
Vendor: your merchant login (this would be the 2nd time if you haven’t set up any secondary users in manager.paypal.com)

I had to get that tidbit from Paypal customer service.. lol

That should allow the transactions to start being sent, however, you can see here that there are still some bugs with the payflow system integration on s2member…

Setting up Recurring billing is easy. In manager.paypal.com just click the “buy” link under Recurring billing in the bottom middle of the screen. It should take you through everything. you will see it listed and say Live in the box in the lower right that lists your services. Once it says live, it should be working.

Hope that helps,
Dave

Jim, do you have the s2member paypal loggin turned on?

If so, go to this location: wp-content/plugins/s2member-logs/paypal-payflow-api.log

That should list the actual issue you are having in the transaction data.

Hope that helps you hunt it down.

Dave

Dave, thanks a lot. I already emailed Jason about the bugs you reported in the other thread.

Since you seem to have the interface that’s not explained in the s2 instructions, would you mind making a quick screen recording to show how to enable recurring payments in PayPal Pro (PayFlow Editiion)? Only if it’s not too much to ask, of course. http://www.screenr.com/

Thanks! :)

Hey,

It’s late, so the quality probably isn’t that good… lol!

I thought I would just do this while I’m thinking about it. Let me know if you want something different or need something else explained or shown.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0jOq2MRTVQ

Dave

Raam,

The account was setup completely since I had it working before and did not change that.
The point was that after the update the framework was somehow not activated.
After activation everything was up and running again.

Awesome Dave! That was great.

It’s gonna help users with the PayPal interface to actiave the recurring payments.

Thanks so much. :)

So Dave, you bought recurring billing (you said click “buy”)? It’s like almost $300 up front after setup fees? I thought Payflow Pro was not necessary?

I think my issue is just that I was trying to dev local, so need to get this on a live server to test.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by  Jim Climy.

Oh weird, now when I go to buy recurring billing, the setup fee is only ~$40 with ~$30 monthly fee.

http://postimage.org/gallery/9wzcjv6s/

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by  Jim Climy.

yeah it’s only $30 per month with the $40 set-up if you are doing it through the paypal pro version of payflow.

See, Payflow is an option that people can purchase (and pay a lot more for) if they have a merchant account outside of Paypal.

But it’s cheaper if you are already paying for the paypal pro service.

Dave