Hello experts,
I've been working on a membership site for a client and am close to getting the payment system in place using Paypal Website Payments Pro to set up recurring subscriptions (where users can pay by credit card or Paypal account). The developer I'm working with warned me today that Paypal is having some serious problems with their recurring billing, and sent me these links:
http://www.paypaldeveloper
http://www.paypaldeveloper
My question is, how worried should I be about these problems? I've heard a lot of unsettling things about Paypal over the years and I don't want to use Paypal on the new site if the odds are good that I'll have problems with the recurrings. Would you recommend me to go ahead with Paypal or look for another payment processor?
Thanks for your advice!
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Thanks! I'm looking for an alternative that does not require a merchant account, though. I should have mentioned that in the original post. Any ideas about that? I currently have a netbilling account and a merchant account but want to stop using both due to excessive costs.
I can wait until January if Paypal will actually fix it by then...
You have several options:
ClickBank
CCBill
CCNow
Kagi
ProPay
PayByBank
The problem with the above is that their fees are fairly high esp compared to Paypal or a traditional merchant account.
When you say excessive costs? What kind of costs - I pay a reasonable rate for online transactions and have a minimal gateway and transaction fees.
Most gateways will offer recurring billing - for free to about $25.00 a month. What do you need the gateway to do - just process the recurring bill every month? If so, LinkPoint / YourPay / First Data Global Gateway or Cybersource / Authorize.net can also do that for. If you need possibly communication from the gateway to your database, you might check out the Quantum gateway
Thank you all for your comments. Sorry I was not able to comment already, as my power has been out.
I would like to consider staying with Paypal if I can be reasonably sure of two things:
1) That Paypal will release a fix for the above-mentioned issue in the first part of January or earlier.
2) That there are not any outstanding issues with Paypal in terms of processing recurrings.
We already have most of the Paypal integration code for the site in place, which is why I'm more looking to stay with Paypal than to find another processor. If I decide to not use Paypal, we'll have to integrate a completely different processor and that would take more time.
If anyone can speak to either of the two points above, I'd appreciate it. Of course nobody can speak for Paypal, but I have no experience with them and don't know how quickly they typically fix such things. cheekycj, do you have a source on what you said about them having a fix identified? And is anyone aware of any fundamental problems with using Paypal?
If so, I'll start looking into the other processors.
Thanks for your help....
>>1) That Paypal will release a fix for the above-mentioned issue in the first part of January or earlier.
No one can guarantee it. They will probably push it out to see if it works well. Extensive testing probably has been done on it and probably everything seems to be working just fine. But pushing it to the live servers is something completely different, and problems can always occur.
All gateways (and IPSPs) will have some potential problems unfortunately. Due to the holidays, no gateway will issue any fix unless it is an emergency / security issue. Most gateways will give you the code to use their API and most will break it down for you so you can easily use it.
Quantum gateway is one that seems to do a lot more than most - most gateways you send them the recurring transaction and everything is handled on the gateway. If a fail happens, an email is sent out. On Quantum, I believe that they can actually communicate with your database which helps in maintaining the membership
If you have code ready for Paypal and Paypal is on course to fix this issue in Jan - I see no reason not to stay the course. You probably already have a developer account on Paypal, I would send them an email and ask them when they expect resolution of this issue so you can go live.
Paypal support is fairly good and their code/system is actually on a separate architecture than eBay.
I would certainly feel comfortable remaining with Paypal - they have a fairly good record for being a novice in this realm.
Business Accounts
Answer for Membership
by: cheekycjPosted on 2008-12-16 at 08:40:44ID: 23185225
It looks like they have a fix identified but they can't release it due to a moratorium (a lot of ecommerce sites will not release code changes in Dec as they don't want to impact any holiday sales/traffic) - I think you should be ok as long as they fix it.
Another option is to get an Authorize.net account (via a reseller) and use them. I have used Authorize.net for over 8 years with no problems.