PayPal: Recurring Payments Profile not being created in Live

Question

I am working with PayPal NVP to create a subscription-based service on my website, where I will be accepting payments via PayPal and the type of payment is going to be Recurring Payments.

I am using the following PayPal methods:

//SetExpressCheckout
    $sec_data = array(
        'USER'                           => PAYPAL_API_USERNAME,
        'PWD'                            => PAYPAL_API_PASSWORD,
        'SIGNATURE'                      => PAYPAL_API_SIGNATURE,
        'VERSION'                        => "95.0",
        'METHOD'                         => "SetExpressCheckout",
        'PAYMENTREQUEST_0_AMT'           => $total_amt,
        'RETURNURL'                      => "<url_structure>",
        'CANCELURL'                      => "<url_structure>",
        'NOSHIPPING'                     => "1",
        'SOLUTIONTYPE'                   => "Sole",
        'LOGOIMG'                        => "<url_structure>",
        'BRANDNAME'                      => "My Website",
        'PAYMENTREQUEST_0_CURRENCYCODE'  => "USD",
        'PAYMENTREQUEST_0_ITEMAMT'       => $current_plan_price,
        'PAYMENTREQUEST_0_PAYMENTACTION' => "Sale",
        'L_PAYMENTREQUEST_0_AMT0'        => $current_plan_price,
        'L_BILLINGTYPE0'                 => "RecurringPayments",
        'L_BILLINGAGREEMENTDESCRIPTION0' => "You'll be billed USD ".$total_amt.".",
        'PAYMENTREQUEST_0_DESC'          => "You'll be billed USD ".$total_amt.".",
        'PAYMENTREQUEST_0_CUSTOM'        => "Thank you for your payment!",
        'PAYMENTREQUEST_0_INVNUM'        => "INV-".$invoice_num,
        'NOTETOBUYER'                    => $current_plan_name,
        'PAYMENTREQUEST_0_PAYMENTREASON' => "None",
        'EMAIL'                          => $email,
        'LANDINGPAGE'                    => "Billing",
        'PAYMENTREQUEST_0_TAXAMT'        => $tax_amt,
        'L_PAYMENTTYPE0'                 => "InstantOnly"
    );

//GetExpressCheckoutDetails
$get_ec_data = array(
        'USER'      => PAYPAL_API_USERNAME,
        'PWD'       => PAYPAL_API_PASSWORD,
        'SIGNATURE' => PAYPAL_API_SIGNATURE,
        'TOKEN'     => $ec_token,
        'METHOD'    => "GetExpressCheckoutDetails",
        'VERSION'   => "95.0"
    );

//DoExpressCheckoutPayment
$decp_data = array(
                'USER'                          => PAYPAL_API_USERNAME,
                'PWD'                           => PAYPAL_API_PASSWORD,
                'SIGNATURE'                     => PAYPAL_API_SIGNATURE,
                'METHOD'                        => "DoExpressCheckoutPayment",
                'TOKEN'                         => $ec_token,
                'PAYERID'                       => $ec_response['PAYERID'],
                'PAYMENTREQUEST_0_AMT'          => $total_amt,
                'PAYMENTREQUEST_0_CURRENCYCODE' => "USD",
                'PAYMENTREQUEST_0_ITEMAMT'      => $total_amt,
                'VERSION'                       => "95.0"
            );

//CreateRecurringPaymentsProfile
$crpp_array = array(
                'USER'               => PAYPAL_API_USERNAME,
                'PWD'                => PAYPAL_API_PASSWORD,
                'SIGNATURE'          => PAYPAL_API_SIGNATURE,
                'VERSION'            => "95.0",
                'METHOD'             => "CreateRecurringPaymentsProfile",
                'TOKEN'              => $ec_token,
                'PROFILESTARTDATE'   => $last_payment_date,
                'DESC'               => "You'll be billed USD ".$total_amt.".",
                'BILLINGPERIOD'      => "Month",
                'BILLINGFREQUENCY'   => "12",
                'TOTALBILLINGCYCLES' => '0',
                'AMT'                => $total_amt,
                'CURRENCYCODE'       => "USD",
                'EMAIL'              => $get_cx_data['cx_email'],
                'STREET'             => "Bedford Ave",
                'CITY'               => "Brooklyn",
                'STATE'              => "New York",
                'COUNTRYCODE'        => "US",
                'ZIP'                => "11211"
            );

//GetRecurringPaymentsProfileDetails
$grppd_array = array(
                    'USER'      => PAYPAL_API_USERNAME,
                    'PWD'       => PAYPAL_API_PASSWORD,
                    'SIGNATURE' => PAYPAL_API_SIGNATURE,
                    'VERSION'   => "95.0",
                    'METHOD'    => 'GetRecurringPaymentsProfileDetails',
                    'PROFILEID' => $get_crpp_response['PROFILEID']
                );

Here are my PayPal functions:

function toPayPal($inputArray, $PayPalURL) {
        $nvp_post_data_str   = '';

        foreach($inputArray as $key => $value) {
            $nvp_post_data_str .= $key.'='.urlencode($value).'&';
        }

        $nvp_post_data_str = substr($nvp_post_data_str, 0, strlen($nvp_post_data_str) - 1);
        $ch = curl_init();
        
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $PayPalURL);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, 1);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, FALSE);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, FALSE);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $nvp_post_data_str);
        $httpResponse = curl_exec($ch);
        
        //$httpResponse;
        
        $httpResponse = explode('&', $httpResponse);
        
        for($i = 0; $i < count($httpResponse); $i++) {
            $temp_array = explode('=', $httpResponse[$i]);
            $httpResponseArray[$temp_array[0]] = urldecode($temp_array[1]);
        }
        
        return $httpResponseArray;
    }

And I am sending the nvp data to PayPal like this:

toPayPal($nvp_data, "https://api-3t." .(PAYPAL_MODE == 'TEST' ? 'sandbox.paypal' : 'paypal'). ".com/nvp");

Now the issue is that everything seems to be working on Sandbox but when it comes to Live, the Recurring Account is not being created on my main PayPal account.

Is there anything that I am missing? Also, do I need to install NVP SDK or something, I have no idea about it.

Also, in the sandbox, when I am running print_r() on the response of GetRecurringPaymentsProfileDetails the PROFILESTARTDATE and NEXTPAYMENTDATE are the same. Is that the issue?

Thank you all for taking the time.

Answer 1

Do not use the old NVP API.

A current PayPal Subscriptions integration is documented here.

To save time you can generate a button in the account's GUI:

• Sandbox: https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/billing/plans
• Live: https://www.paypal.com/billing/plans

But everything can be managed via API, see the first document and its API reference.

---

Using the client-id that subscriptions are being created under, subscribe to the webhook event PAYMENT.SALE.COMPLETED to be notified of initial subscriptions as well as all future payments on them.

If you need additional metadata for tracking, such as the user/profile a subscription corresponds to, add custom_id in the createSubscription object