PayPal Rest API. Why Agreement Id IS not Set

Question

I'm using PayPal REST API to create agreement. I wonder why there is no id in the response when billing agreement is created. Only execute token is present in return_url.

When payment is created an id is returned.

Request

POST https://api.sandbox.paypal.com/v1/payments/billing-agreements HTTP/1.1 Content-Type: application/json User-Agent: PayPalSDK/rest-sdk-dotnet 0.11.0 (core=1.6.0;lang=DOTNET;v=4.5;clr=4.0.30319.34014;bit=64;os=Microsoft Windows NT 6.2.9200.0) Authorization: Bearer A015NObhWZJY-ZZHdSmMvYL7GFA6A-pY7pK4zV1J8wysWJE PayPal-Request-Id: 98a56a18-2306-4301-a366-e53a5db54536 Host: api.sandbox.paypal.com Content-Length: 246 Expect: 100-continue

{"name":"plan \"PN123\" subscription","description":"plan \"PN123\" subscription with payments every 12 months.","start_date":"2015-02-06T16:58:56z","payer":{"payment_method":"paypal"},"plan":{"id":"P-2Y404528U1543832BL7HBW6A"}}

Pretty Request Json

{
  "name":"A plan \"PN123\" subscription",
  "description":"plan \"PN123\" subscription with payments every 12 months.",
  "start_date":"2015-02-06T16:58:56z",
  "payer":{
     "payment_method":"paypal"
  },
  "plan":{
     "id":"P-2Y404528U1543832BL7HBW6A"
  }
}

Response

HTTP/1.1 201 Created Server: Apache-Coyote/1.1 PROXY_SERVER_INFO: host=slcsbplatformapiserv3001.slc.paypal.com;threadId=374466 Paypal-Debug-Id: 739b28e849ee7 SERVER_INFO: paymentsplatformserv:v1.payments.billing-agreements&CalThreadId=501225&TopLevelTxnStartTime=14b5fce3a78&Host=slcsbpaymentsplatformserv3001.slc.paypal.com&pid=22725 Content-Language: * Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2015 16:52:05 GMT Content-Type: application/json Content-Length: 1174

Pretty json from response

{
  "name":"plan \"PN123\" subscription",
  "description":"plan \"PN123\" subscription with payments every 12 months.",
  "plan":{
     "id":"P-2Y404528U1543832BL7HBW6A",
     "state":"ACTIVE",
     "name":"PN123",
     "description":"plan \"PN123\" subscription",
     "type":"INFINITE",
     "payment_definitions":[
        {
           "id":"PD-8RD12495MY6350633L7HBW6I",
           "name":"Regular Payments",
           "type":"REGULAR",
           "frequency":"Month",
           "amount":{
              "currency":"USD",
              "value":"20"
           },
           "cycles":"0",
           "charge_models":[

           ],
           "frequency_interval":"12"
        }
     ],
     "merchant_preferences":{
        "setup_fee":{
           "currency":"USD",
           "value":"0"
        },
        "max_fail_attempts":"0",
        "return_url":"http://example.com/Subscription/Renew.aspx?result=ApproveAgreement",
        "cancel_url":"http://example.com/Subscription/Renew.aspx?result=CancelAgreement",
        "auto_bill_amount":"NO",
        "initial_fail_amount_action":"CONTINUE"
     }
  },
  "links":[
     {
        "href":"https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_express-checkout&token=EC-4R936998H4630535M",
        "rel":"approval_url",
        "method":"REDIRECT"
     },
     {
        "href":"https://api.sandbox.paypal.com/v1/payments/billing-agreements/EC-4R936998H4630535M/agreement-execute",
        "rel":"execute",
        "method":"POST"
     }
  ],
  "start_date":"2015-02-06T16:58:56z"
}

Answer 1

You will get the Id when the payment gets executed, on paypal as your payment type.

1. Create Billing Agreement. You will get an EC-Token, and URL
2. On Success, Execute Billing Agreement, and

You could run the samples attached with the PayPal-PHP-SDK, to try out before implementing the code yourself. Also, most of the sample code could be copy-pasted to get started easily.

Here are the screen shots from the samples: 1. Created Agreement. Use the URL pointed in dark black line 2. Executed Agreement. As you can see, it has the agreement ID.