PayPal Express Checkout is not supported by some resellers and is not offered in some countries. For more information, contact your reseller. PayPal Express Checkout does not support the full PayPal feature-set, including $0 authorizations. PayPal transactions are not subject to AFDS fraud filters, except the IP blacklist filter.

To use PayPal Checkout Express, first sign up for the following PayPal accounts:

• A Business or Premier PayPal account. A Business or Premier account enables you to become a merchant for whom PayPal collects money from buyers for goods or services. PayPal manages these transactions and charges you a small fee and a percentage of the amount collected from the buyer for each transaction.
• A PayPal sandbox account with two test accounts. The PayPal sandbox provides an environment that simulates PayPal in which you execute your Express Checkout integration without actually exchanging money. One of your test accounts represents you as the merchant; the other test account represents a buyer. Your testing is not restricted to just two accounts; however, you must have a sandbox account to create test accounts and perform actual testing.
  
  Please visit the PayPal Sandbox Testing Guide to sign up for a PayPal sandbox account.

Once you have both the PayPal Business/Premier account, and the PayPal sandbox account, log into the Merchant Interface:

• Developers should log into their Sandbox account;
• Merchants should log into their Production account.

After logging in to the Merchant Interface, click Account > Digital Payment Solutions, then click the Sign Up link for PayPal. You will be redirected to the PayPal site, which will guide you through the process of linking your PayPal sandbox account to your Authorize.net Payment Gateway. On the PayPal page, you'll be prompted to enter the credentials for a PayPal sandbox account (which will be different than the credentials for your Business/Premier PayPal account). Please ensure you have already setup credentials for the PayPal sandbox account including setting a password on that account if necessary.

Important: As the Sandbox does not permit settlement of PayPal transactions, you will not be able to test refunds.

Button Placement

Customers choose PayPal because they are familiar with the checkout experience and trust the security that PayPal offers. Placing the PayPal button early in the checkout flow will ensure increased sales lift, because customers will know early on that PayPal is a payment option. Note that the customer only initiates PayPal Express Checkout when they choose PayPal as a payment option. When they choose to "check out with PayPal," they are routed directly to PayPal.

For more information on Express Checkout best practices, click here.

Transaction Types

The transaction flow for PayPal Express Checkout for Authorize.net is different than a payment card transaction flow. The initial request to authorize a transaction notifies PayPal that an authorization has been initiated. Information that can be used to continue the authorization must be returned from PayPal.

PayPal Express Checkout for Authorize.net uses the following transaction types. Click the transaction type to see the reference guide entry for it.

Authorization Only

An Authorization Only request notifies PayPal that an authorization has been initiated but does not complete the authorization. It returns a secure URL with a token appended to it. The purpose of this token is to identify the transaction when the customer is redirected to PayPal.

Get Details

A Get Details transaction returns customer's PayPal Payer ID, email address, and shipping information. Get Details can be called at any time and is most useful after the customer has approved the payment at PayPal.

Authorization Only, Continued

This request, if successful, actually authorizes the transaction but does not capture it. You can also include an optional amount object, which enables you to update the amount that you submitted in the original request.

Prior Authorization Capture

This transaction type is used to capture an Authorization Only, Continued transaction that was successfully authorized through the payment gateway.

Void

This transaction type can be used to cancel an authorization that has not yet been captured. Void can be used only in the following sequence: Authorization Only, Authorization Only Continued, Void.

Authorization and Capture

This type of transaction is the most common and is the default payment gateway transaction type. Like the Authorization Only request, it notifies PayPal that an Authorization and Capture transaction has been initiated, but does not complete the request. It also returns a secure URL with a token appended to it. The purpose of this token is to identify the transaction when the customer is redirected to PayPal.

Authorization and Capture, Continued

This request actually authorizes and captures the transaction. You can also include an optional amount object, which enables you to update the amount that you submitted in the original request.

Refund

This transaction type is used to refund a customer for a transaction that was originally processed and successfully settled through the payment gateway. Refunds do not occur until after your transactions have been settled on our system, which happens after the cutoff time.