Setting up a subscription
A PayPal subscription can consist of none, 1 or 2 trial periods, followed by a regular billing cycle. Trial periods operate when the subscription is controlled by PayPal. Manually created users do not have the concept of trial periods.
Subscriptions may be defined for a fixed number of installments. So you could have, for example,
a $10.00 subscription for 12 months, after which the subscription will be automatically cancelled.
This membership management system implemets all the following PayPal features.
Regular billing cycle
Required Field. Enter your regular subscription rate. Billing cycles can be entered as
a number of days, weeks, months, or years.
Recurring basis
Select 'Yes' if you would like your subscribers to be billed on a recurring basis. This means
that after the regular billing cycle that you previously entered is complete, your customers'
subscriptions will be automatically renewed unless a customer manually cancels his
subscription. If you select 'No', your customers' subscriptions and payments will end after
the first cycle is completed.
Recurring times (installments)
Enter in the number of installments for payments at your regular rates. This means that once
a customer has made the specified
number of payments at your regular rate, his subscription will be completed. If left empty your
customers' subscriptions will continue unless it is cancelled manually or by payment
failure.
Re attempt on failure
Click the 'Yes' radio button if you would like PayPal to automatically reattempts failed
payments. Payments will be re attempted three days after the failure date. After a second
failure, PayPal will try once more five days later. A third failure will lead to an automatic
cancellation of the subscription.
If you select 'No', failed payments will result in the automatic cancellation of the
subscription.
Allowable values for payment time periods
Day = 24 hours. Acceptable values 1 - 90
Week = 7 days. Acceptable values 1 - 52
Month = 1 calendar month (same day of the month). Acceptable values 1 - 24
Year = 1 calendar year (same day of the year) Acceptable values 1 - 5
Trial 1 and trial 2
These are optional and the entries are the same as described above for the normal
installments. Entering 0.00 as the cost will give free subscription for the
trial period.