4

I need to implement PayPal on my web page, and I don't know which one to use, Paypal Payments Standard or Paypal Express Checkout or both. To me they seems pretty much the same.

Improve this question

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
6

PayPal Payments Standard allows users to pay by card even if they don't have a PayPal account. PayPal Express Checkout requires that users have a PayPal account or create one in order to check out. Both services are detailed on PayPal's merchant page.

You should use PayPal Express Checkout if:

  1. You already process regular card payments with a form on your website using another provider (and you're looking to add PayPal as an additional checkout method).
  2. You know that the vast majority of your visitors will have PayPal accounts.

You should use PayPal Payments Standard if:

  1. You need to be able to take card payments from people without PayPal accounts, but you don't currently offer a way to process cards on your website.
  2. If you've read this answer and still don't understand the difference, Payments Standard is probably the one to choose.

You can, of course, include both if you wish, and label the Payments Standard checkout method as 'pay with card' and the Express checkout method as 'pay with PayPal'.

Improve this answer
3
  • Thank you for your answer. I read somewhere that users can pay with credit card with Express Checkout even if they don't have a PayPal account (or they don't want to sign up): "To allow credit card payments without creation of a PayPal account set SOLUTIONTYPE to Sole in the SetExpressCheckout api call."
    – Kadar Annamaria
    Jul 13, 2011 at 11:08
  • 1
    If that's the case, the only difference is in the implementation. See this page.
    – Nick
    Jul 13, 2011 at 11:30
  • 1
    That's correct; Express Checkout can accept guest card payments when SOLUTIONTYPE is set to Sole. WPS is HTML-based and insecure unless you use the BMCreateButton API. Express Checkout is API-based and a lot more flexible (supports parallel payments, digital goods, advanced shipping callback processing, etc.)
    – Robert
    Aug 28, 2011 at 12:07

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge that you have read and understand our privacy policy and code of conduct.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.