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Set up future PayPal payments

Learn how to save PayPal details and charge your customers later.

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Set up future PayPal payments to save customer payment details for subscriptions, delayed charges, and streamlined future purchases. Learn how to enable and use recurring payments with PayPal through Stripe.

Enable recurring payments

Stripe automatically enables recurring payments for most users when they activate PayPal payments in the Stripe Dashboard. However, due to PayPal’s policies and regional restrictions, some users might need to enable recurring payments manually. This includes users that set up their accounts before we introduced automatic enablement. To manually enable recurring payments:

  1. Go to your Payment methods settings.

  2. Click PayPal > Enable in the Recurring payments section.

After you enable recurring payments, it appears as pending in the Dashboard. It usually takes up to five business days to get access.

When you’re granted access, recurring payments are available in your PayPal settings. In testing environments, recurring payments are enabled by default.

Use Stripe Checkout to collect PayPal payment details in advance, and determine the final amount or payment date later. Use it to:

Set up Stripe
Server-side

First, you need a Stripe account. Register now.

Use our official libraries for access to the Stripe API from your application:

Command Line
# Available as a gem
sudo gem install stripe
Gemfile
# If you use bundler, you can add this line to your Gemfile
gem 'stripe'

Create or retrieve a Customer before setup
Server-side

To reuse a PayPal payment method for future payments, it must be attached to a Customer.

You should create a Customer object when your customer creates an account on your business. Associating the ID of the Customer object with your own internal representation of a customer will enable you to retrieve and use the stored payment method details later. If your customer hasn’t created an account, you can still create a Customer object now and associate it with your internal representation of the customer’s account later.

Command Line
curl -X POST https://api.stripe.com/v1/customers \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:"

Create a Checkout Session
Client-side
Server-side

Before you can accept PayPal payments, your customer must authorize you to use their PayPal account for future payments through Stripe Checkout.

Add a checkout button to your website that calls a server-side endpoint to create a Checkout Session.

index.html
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Checkout</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <form action="/create-checkout-session" method="POST">
      <button type="submit">Checkout</button>
    </form>
  </body>
</html>

Create a Checkout Session in setup mode to collect the required information. After creating the Checkout Session, redirect your customer to the URL returned in the response.

Command Line
curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/checkout/sessions \
  -u 
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
: \
  -d "payment_method_types[]"="paypal" \
  -d mode=setup \
  -d customer=
{{CUSTOMER_ID}}
 \
  -d success_url="https://example.com/success?session_id={CHECKOUT_SESSION_ID}" \
  -d cancel_url="https://example.com/cancel"

When your customer provides their payment method details, they’re redirected to the success_url, a page on your website that informs them that their payment method was saved successfully. Make the Session ID available on your success page by including the {CHECKOUT_SESSION_ID} template variable in the success_url as in the above example.

When your customer clicks on your logo in a Checkout Session without providing their payment method details, Checkout redirects them back to your website by navigating to the cancel_url. This is usually the page on your website that the customer viewed prior to redirecting to Stripe Checkout.

Caution

Don’t rely on the redirect to the success_url alone for detecting payment initiation, as:

  • Malicious users could directly access the success_url without paying and gain access to your goods or services.
  • Customers may not always reach the success_url after a successful payment—they might close their browser tab before the redirect occurs.

Retrieve the payment method
Server-side

After a customer submits their payment details, retrieve the PaymentMethod object. A PaymentMethod stores the customer’s PayPal account information for future payments. You can retrieve the PaymentMethod synchronously using the success_url or asynchronously using webhooks.

The decision to retrieve the PaymentMethod synchronously or asynchronously depends on your tolerance for dropoff, as customers might not always reach the success_url after a successful payment (for example, it’s possible for them to close their browser tab before the redirect occurs). Using webhooks prevents your integration from experiencing this form of dropoff.

Handle checkout.session.completed webhooks, which contain a Session object. To learn more, see setting up webhooks. The following example is a checkout.session.completed response.

{
  "id": "evt_1Ep24XHssDVaQm2PpwS19Yt0",
  "object": "event",
  "api_version": "2019-03-14",
  "created": 1561420781,
  "data": {
    "object": {
      "id": "cs_test_MlZAaTXUMHjWZ7DcXjusJnDU4MxPalbtL5eYrmS2GKxqscDtpJq8QM0k",
      "object": "checkout.session",
      "billing_address_collection": null,
      "cancel_url": "https://example.com/cancel",
      "client_reference_id": null,
      "customer": null,
      "customer_email": null,
      "display_items": [],
      "mode": "setup",
      "setup_intent": "seti_1EzVO3HssDVaQm2PJjXHmLlM",
      "submit_type": null,
      "subscription": null,
      "success_url": "https://example.com/success"
    }
  },
  "livemode": false,
  "pending_webhooks": 1,
  "request": {
    "id": null,
    "idempotency_key": null
  },
  "type": "checkout.session.completed"
}

Note the value of the setup_intent key, which is the ID for the SetupIntent created with the Checkout Session. A SetupIntent is an object used to set up the customer’s PayPal account information for future payments. Retrieve the SetupIntent object with the ID.

Command Line
curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/setup_intents/seti_1EzVO3HssDVaQm2PJjXHmLlM \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:"

Handle post-setup events
Server-side

Use a method such as webhooks to confirm the billing agreement was authorized successfully by your customer, instead of relying on your customer to return to the payment status page. When a customer successfully authorizes the billing agreement, the SetupIntent emits the setup_intent.succeeded webhook event. If a customer doesn’t successfully authorize the billing agreement, the SetupIntent will emit the setup_intent.setup_failed webhook event and returns to a status of requires_payment_method. When a customer revokes the billing agreement from their PayPal account, the mandate.updated is emitted.

Test the integration

Test your PayPal integration with your test API keys by viewing the redirect page. You can test the successful payment case by authenticating the payment on the redirect page. The PaymentIntent will transition from requires_action to succeeded.

To test the case where the user fails to authenticate, use your test API keys and view the redirect page. On the redirect page, click Fail test payment. The PaymentIntent will transition from requires_action to requires_payment_method.

Use the payment method for future payments
Server-side

When you’re ready to charge your customer off-session, use the Customer and PaymentMethod IDs to create a PaymentIntent.

To find a paypal instrument to charge, list the PaymentMethods associated with your Customer.

Command Line
curl -G https://api.stripe.com/v1/payment_methods \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:" \
  -d customer={{CUSTOMER_ID}} \
  -d type=paypal

When you have the Customer and PaymentMethod IDs, create a PaymentIntent with the amount and currency of the payment. Set a few other parameters to make the off-session payment:

  • Set off_session to true to indicate that the customer is not in your checkout flow during this payment attempt. This causes the PaymentIntent to throw an error if authentication is required.
  • Set the value of the PaymentIntent’s confirm property to true, which causes confirmation to occur immediately when the PaymentIntent is created.
  • Set payment_method to the ID of the PaymentMethod and customer to the ID of the Customer.
Command Line
curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/payment_intents \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:" \
  -d amount=1099 \
  -d currency=eur \
  -d customer={{CUSTOMER_ID}} \
  -d "payment_method_types[]"=paypal \
  -d payment_method={{PAYMENT_METHOD_ID}} \
  -d off_session=true \
  -d confirm=true

User-initiated payment method cancellation
Server-side

A customer can cancel the subscription (Billing Agreement) through their PayPal account. When they do so, Stripe emits a mandate.updated webhook. All subsequent Payment Intents using the saved Payment Method will fail until you change to a Payment Method with active mandates. When payments fail for Subscriptions, the status changes to the Subscription status configured in your automatic collection settings. Notify the customer of failure and charge them with a different payment method.

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