Send a PayPal Recurring Payment Email

So you have a client that you want to pay you an amount of money on a once yearly/monthly/weekly basis?

For whatever reason, you would prefer to send a PayPal recurring payment email link direct to their inbox rather than creating a page on your website with a PayPal button on it. You’ve heard that PayPal can facilitate that sort of transaction but you’ve spent hours sifting through the PayPal help and payments sections without finding a single reference to being able to accept recurring payments via email.

Well great news for you – your journey for the info you need is at an end. Below follows my step by step guide to setting up a PayPal recurring payment email link.

Step-1:  Login to your PayPal account

Go here to login

Step-2: Click on Merchant Tools

Across the top of the main content area you will see a blue navigation menu. Click the button as illustrated in the diagram below.

Step-3: Click on the Recurring Payments option

As the diagram below illustrates when you get into this section of the website there are 3 main options: Website Payments, Email Payments and Additional Payment Option. It seems logical that because we are trying to setup an Email Payment that what we need would be in that section. Not as far as PayPal are concerned.

Nope, to create a recurring email payment on PayPal you go to the Website Payments section as illustrated in the diagram below:

Step-4: Create your button

There are a number of stages to this part of what you need to do. Don’t worry about the fact that you are creating a button for now. All will become clear in just a few minutes.

Make sure you select Subscriptions from the drop down menu.

Then complete the rest of the fields with your payment parameters. You can ignore the “Customize button” section.

Make sure to insert the correct Tax rate if you are charging VAT/GST or any tax. Also do you need to charge your client for shipping? If so make sure to add a shipping price in to the field.

Step 5: Check other parameters

There are two other sections (step 2 and 3 in the diagram below) where you can configure a number of different options. I didn’t have to change anything in those sections when I was setting up my payment link however I would recommend you look over them to see if there is anything that is relevant to your business.

Then click the “Create Button” button.

Step-6: Grab your email link

On the page that loads you’ll find two tabs one for your website button and one for the Email equivalent that PayPal has generated for you.

Click the Email tab and then copy your email link (that’s the bit of text in blue as per the diagram below:

Hey Presto! Paste that link into the body of your email message and your recurring payment administrative headache is a thing of the past!

Have you ever used PayPal for requesting payments over email? Once off or recurring, tell us about your experiences in the comments below.