Recurring payments without "Subscriptions" API?

[AlbertMN]

Hey there.

We're currently using Stripe, but would like to support PayPal as well. One thing we like about Stripe though, is that the user can enter their card info, and then we can charge whenever necessary (our system handles subscription payments, and if the user wants to upgrade their plan halfway through the month, we calculate the difference and charge that).

We'd like to keep it this way, and be in charge of when we charge the customer, not having to create subscription "plans" in PayPal, or have PayPal handle the automatic charging (we'd like to charge via. an API request) - is this possible? The closest I came to finding this in the API documentation, is "vaulted cards", but we'd still prefer not handling the user's credit card, still want the user to "attach" their PayPal account to our platform.

Are we out of luck here, and just have to do with the "Subscriptions" method?

[wdmarine]

I made the same journey you are on, however, in the opposite direction. I have been using the PayPal API to make reoccurring variable charges for the last 12 years. Like you, I have a billing system that handles everything and so I use PayPal just to make the payment. In fact, I had no idea until recently that PayPal can manage the subscription and do the billing automatically.

So yes, PayPal API can give you exactly what you want.

I went from using PayPal to adding Stripe as a billing option in September after PayPal jacked up our fees by 65%. It's so high because our transactions are small. After googling about Stripe, I stumbled into the whole Stripe manages the subscription and auto bills approach, but thought there was no alternative. After a few weeks of development, which involved a lot of coding to keep my and Stripe's systems in synch, I saw I was being charge by Stripe to manage the subscription, etc., which I didn't want! It turned out well, however, because it led me to discover I could use Stripe the way I wanted, after all, as you do.

Good luck!

[AlbertMN]

Thanks for your response! Glad to know it's possible. We might just be blind or ignorant here, but which API did you use for this? What endpoints allow for this? @wdmarine 

[wdmarine]

Ack! I am glad I stumbled upon your question as I had no idea that the PayPal Merchant SDK I have been using has been deprecated! I had just migrated my billing system to it in 2019 when the previous PayPal API I had been using since 2011 began failing intermittently.

Since discovering this and doing further investigation, like you, I am so far seeing that recurring payments can only be done through PayPal's new subscription API where they manage everything. This is extremely concerning as my self developed billing system has been managing the recurring billing of our subscribers for the last 12 years.

It's hard to imagine PayPal would simply pull the rug out from under this approach, however, I didn't imagine they would increase the fees we pay by 65% either...

I have written to their Merchant Support folks asking about this. I will post here what I find out.