PayPal Checkout Subscriptions

[alinford]

How does the system offer clients the subscription option during checkout when ordering a recurring product?

Does it automatically setup the subscription, and then they have to opt out, or what?

[alinford]

The question I am trying to answer is for domains, is there an option to select to not autorenew or setup a Paypal subscription?

[WHMCS John]

Hi @alinford,

A subscription will be created when ordering recurring products/services, domains and addons. Or when paying a renewal invoice on or before the due date for such recurring services.

There isn't a one-time payment option for recurring items in the PayPal module, but the "PayPal Basic" module does have a "Force One Time" option for this.

[slim]

I have just disabled the PayPal module from my order forms - The subscription model is horrible. 

An example of how it all falls to pieces...

Customer has a hosting account - lets say its $10.00 per month. They have setup a recurring paypal subscription when they ordered.

I put the price up to $12.00.

PayPal keeps paying $10.00

Customer is short $2 every invoice. They have no idea why or how to fix it.

I need to cancel the sub, then explain to them that they need to pay the invoice - but paying the remaining $2 - what happens? is another sub automatically created for this amount? 

YUK.

 

[yggdrasil]

9 hours ago, slim said:

I have just disabled the PayPal module from my order forms - The subscription model is horrible. 

An example of how it all falls to pieces...

Customer has a hosting account - lets say its $10.00 per month. They have setup a recurring paypal subscription when they ordered.

I put the price up to $12.00.

PayPal keeps paying $10.00

Customer is short $2 every invoice. They have no idea why or how to fix it.

I need to cancel the sub, then explain to them that they need to pay the invoice - but paying the remaining $2 - what happens? is another sub automatically created for this amount? 

YUK.

 

That is how PayPal works for fixed subscriptions. So yes, if you keep changing prices, or if you plan to bill people different amounts every month, or they upgrade, or add addons and the price changes. Then this will not work for you.

While I have no idea if PayPal allows to change subscription prices from their API (I don't think it allows that) WHMCS certainly does not change a PayPal subscription amount once its created. It can either create a new one and cancel one but not change the amount in one that was created already.

The way other companies do it is they use PayPal billing agreements instead, which allows you to charge a specific amount from a PayPal's account, but I don't think WHMCS uses that. And that option is also very limited since most international PayPal accounts or most PayPal accounts that only use them with credits (with no linked bank or card) cannot use that option at all which means if you are forcing them to a PayPal agreement on payment, they will just not be able to pay with PayPal, as opposed to subscriptions which is more basic. Actually, if you force a subscription on PayPal payments, you are also limiting users as that option is also not available for some PayPal accounts.

To resume, this is actually a limitation on how PayPal works and not WHMCS. WHMCS is limited to the options PayPal offers for billing and developers' integrations. If you are constantly changing pricing on products do not offer the option for people to subscribe with PayPal. Just use the option that forces them to make a payment manually every month.

As for what happens in your example? WHMCS is at least smart enough to detect a PayPal payment from an account. So if your invoice was $12, and the subscription was $10, WHMCS will apply $10 to that invoice and it will remain unpaid for the remaining $2. If the invoice was already paid by the user, and the subscription comes in, WHMCS will just credit the $10 as credits to the account since there is no open invoice which is nice since you are not missing those payments.

Edited July 26, 2022 by yggdrasil

[slim]

True, but wouldn’t it be a good idea to give us the option to NOT use the subscription feature - considering it really doesn’t work well for hosting.

id like to use the integration with out it - leaving it upto the client to make the payment.

this option doesn’t exist in the ‘new improved’ integration.

[yggdrasil]

9 minutes ago, slim said:

True, but wouldn’t it be a good idea to give us the option to NOT use the subscription feature - considering it really doesn’t work well for hosting.

id like to use the integration with out it - leaving it upto the client to make the payment.

this option doesn’t exist in the ‘new improved’ integration.

You already have that option. Unless they removed this in a newer version. My WHMCS PayPal configuration had an option called "Force Subscriptions".

With this option turned off. Your customers will be able to pay with PayPal without a subscription which is probably what you want if your pricing can change from one month to the other.

Edited July 26, 2022 by yggdrasil

[alinford]

If the client cancels the service inside WHMCS, does WHMCS automatically cancel the PayPal subscription?

If the client disables automatic billing, does WHMCS automatically pause the PayPal subscription?

I do not see a configuration option for "Force Subscriptions" is WHMCS

Edited July 26, 2022 by alinford

[yggdrasil]

2 hours ago, alinford said:

If the client cancels the service inside WHMCS, does WHMCS automatically cancel the PayPal subscription?

If the client disables automatic billing, does WHMCS automatically pause the PayPal subscription?

I do not see a configuration option for "Force Subscriptions" is WHMCS

Yes, WHMCS has an option to cancel PayPal subscriptions automatically if you can cancel the product.

No, the subscription is not paused in PayPal if they disable automatic billing in WHMCS.

The option Force Subscriptions is inside the payment gateway configuration for PayPal in the WHMCS when you configure PayPal for the first time.

[Remitur]

15 hours ago, yggdrasil said:

Yes, WHMCS has an option to cancel PayPal subscriptions automatically if you can cancel the product.

Where is it hidden?
(BTW: it should be hidden in a VERY GOOD way...)

20 hours ago, slim said:

True, but wouldn’t it be a good idea to give us the option to NOT use the subscription feature -

It's possible: 
Setup -> Payments -> Payment gateways -> Manage existing gateways

Uder "PayPal Basic" you can find this checkbox:

Force One Time Payments

Never show the subscription payment button

 

[slim]

The advice is that the PayPal Basic gateway is essentially EOL'd.. We are using the newer integration - and as far as im aware, it has no way for us to disable the scription feature.

Also, according to the documentation for PayPal Basic:

"The system will offer clients the subscription option if they are ordering a recurring product on a monthly or annual billing cycle. The modules configuration does not offer an option to force only one-time payments."

 

Edited July 28, 2022 by slim

[Remitur]

3 hours ago, slim said:

Also, according to the documentation for PayPal Basic:

"The system will offer clients the subscription option if they are ordering a recurring product on a monthly or annual billing cycle. The modules configuration does not offer an option to force only one-time payments."

Where do you find this?

In Whmcs's official doc ( https://docs.whmcs.com/PayPal_Basic ) you can read a different story:

Quote

For Force One Time Payments, check to only allow clients to make one-time payments (subscriptions disabled). For recurring services they will be required to login and pay each invoice.
For Force Subscriptions, check to only allow clients to make subscription payments when applicable (one-time payments disabled). This means future payments will be sent automatically without the need for manual intervention.

And AFAIK Paypal Basic is not EOL (and the only alternative is the buggy and sh*tty "PayPal Checkout" )

[yggdrasil]

13 hours ago, slim said:

The advice is that the PayPal Basic gateway is essentially EOL'd.. We are using the newer integration - and as far as im aware, it has no way for us to disable the scription feature.

Also, according to the documentation for PayPal Basic:

"The system will offer clients the subscription option if they are ordering a recurring product on a monthly or annual billing cycle. The modules configuration does not offer an option to force only one-time payments."

 

I don't think that is correct. PayPal basic is not EOL and its widely used and probably the most used option at this time. The new PayPal checkout is very new.

Edited July 28, 2022 by yggdrasil

[DennisHermannsen]

16 hours ago, slim said:

"The system will offer clients the subscription option if they are ordering a recurring product on a monthly or annual billing cycle. The modules configuration does not offer an option to force only one-time payments."

You're quoting the documentation for the PayPal Checkout module, not the PayPal Basic module.
Both modules are still supported by WHMCS.

PayPal Basic allows to force one-time payments. PayPal Checkout doesn't.

[slim]

Ah, my appology - I somehow landed on the newer documentation.

The Basic Module uses fairly old integration - and relies on IPN's and generally I dont want to use it. I will just disable paypal and go with Credit Cards. PayPal Subscriptions are not worth the pain. If the newer module gets the ability to disable the subscription feature I would consider it.