How to Integrate Paypal for month charges that varies?

Question

Hi,

I would like to integrate paypal into my current servicing site. I am able to generate the details from database, and retrieve the users' charges, such that a user charges would be using this forumla:

Amount payable = no. of hrs service used within the month x $5 per hr

1. I would like to charge users based on their usage on per month basis, and automatic billing/deduction from their credit cards. Should I be using a subscribe or buy now settings for my situation?

2. As different users will have different chargeable amount, based on their usage. How should I program/code it in such a way that the payment button for a specify user is set to charge the amount that user is payable for?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You want to setup a recurring payment. You need to make an api call that handles this.

Answer 2

Anytime there is a varying amount you can't use out-of-the-box solutions from companies like Paypal because they're only designed for fixed amounts. This means you'll need to manage the payments when they are due.

I'm not as familiar with Paypal as I am Authorize.Net but it looks like you'll need to generate new buy now buttons each month and have the user make a payment that way. Doing this should be simple and automated since the time periods are fixed and only the amount is variable but it is calculable. Have a cron job create the new buy now button and the page the user to reach it. The cron job then can also send out an email to the user to let them know their payment is due and provide them with the link to that page. You can use the Paypal IPN to confirm payment and even delete the payment page to ensure the user never accidentally uses it again.