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Paypal

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Josue

01 Feb, 2010 07:19 AM

When will cheddargetter work with a regular paypal account?

1. Support Staff 1 Posted by Marc Guyer on 01 Feb, 2010 02:55 PM

   

   Paypal's standard offering is incompatible. There isn't a facility for running recurring transactions against end-user paypal accounts. The new X platform may be the answer. We're currently discussing the options with the paypal business dev folks but haven't come up with a concrete solution yet. Our preliminary research has shown that significant changes to CG would be required to support the paypal X platform as it is unconventional, just as the standard paypal process is unconventional.

   The work flow for your end users will likely be a bit laborious. The X platform may allow recurring payments but it would require that the customer leave your application and "certify" you (the merchant) as one that is approved to execute recurring transactions against the paypal account. The customer may also be required to configure "amount limits" on their account to restrict your ability to execute transactions on a certain frequency and of a certain maximum amount.

   Further, the messaging requirements would increase. Right now, a payment is either approved, declined or the customer's credit card is expired. Those are the three "messages". To support paypal, additional messages (and resulting workflows) may be required, such as, individual recurring payment max reached, max sum of recurring payments reached, merchant is not certified for recursion, etc.
   

   In other words, we have plans to support paypal but don't have a solid timeline at this point. For now, you're better off with a traditional gateway. In the meantime, we will continue to work with paypal to provide a solution.

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2. 2 Posted by Jacques Crocker on 12 Apr, 2010 02:13 AM

   

   I definitely see your point with Paypal Express. However, wouldn't Paypal Website Payments Pro work? I've used this before with Active Merchant and it seems to work very similar to a standard gateway like braintree.

   I agree a merchant account is better, but the benefit of Paypal Payments pro is it so easy to get up and running. Then you could potentially move to a real merchant account later.

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3. 3 Posted by Jacques Crocker on 12 Apr, 2010 02:29 AM

   

   Hmm.. I read the thread here:
   http://support.cheddargetter.com/discussions/suggestions/21-support...

   I'm definately no expert at this (which is why I like the idea of CheddarGetter), but in a previous project (i dug up the code) here's what I did to connect to Paypal website payments pro for a payment

   ActiveMerchant::Billing::Base.gateway("paypal").new(:login => "my_paypal_token", :password => "my_paypal_key")

   I got those 2 things from paypal and it processed all the payments on my side.

   Would be very cool if I one day you could enter paypal token and paypal key for paypal payments pro on CheddarGetter and just have it work.

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4. Support Staff 4 Posted by Marc Guyer on 12 Apr, 2010 03:48 PM

   

   Yes, the integration is pretty straightforward -- that is not our hesitation. The one year limit on reference transactions is a bit of a concern but not a significant one. Annual payments aren't recommended anyway.

   Payments Pro is a traditional gateway/merchant account. You get the merchant account through PayPal. The underwriting is the same. The difference is if you are already a traditional PayPal merchant. In that case, if you have good and long history, underwriting can be easier.

   Their rates are slightly high: 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction plus $30/mo. In the end, it's a comparable service but you have to deal with a giant company.

   If you're thinking of using Website Payments Pro solely because it's easier or less expensive, I think you'll find that to be incorrect.

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5. 5 Posted by Jacques Crocker on 12 Apr, 2010 07:23 PM

   

   Ah, I see. Thanks for the clarification!

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6. Marc Guyer closed this discussion on 12 Apr, 2010 07:29 PM.