Question

Can someone explain the difference between the two? From what I have read, subscription is the one where you grab the HTML button from PayPal, whereas recurring is done via the API.

Is that it or is there more to it?

If so, how do subscription customers cancel their subscription?

^{(And, why does PayPal make it so developers have to trawl forums for answers?!)}

Answer 1

PayPal’s different type of recurring transactions:

Subscription

A subscription is created via a Website Payments Standard Subscribe button.
Before 2009, the subscription profile ID started with S-XXXXXXXX. You are not able to manage these subscriptions via any API calls.
After 2009 the subscription profile ID starts with I-XXXXXX. You are able to cancel these subscriptions via the ManageRecurringPaymentsProfileStatus API call.

Recurring Payments Profile

A recurring payments profile is created through the CreateRecurringPaymentsProfile API, and is accessible for both Express Checkout users, as well as those using Direct Recurring Payments as part of their Website Payments Pro Product.

If you use CreateRecurringPaymentsProfile via Express Checkout, you’ll need prior authorization from the buyer, typically obtained by passing BILLINGTYPE=RecurringPayments in your initial SetExpressCheckout API call.

If you’re using Direct Recurring Payments, you’ll be able to directly pass in the credit card details into the CreateRecurringPaymentsProfile API call.

Recurring Billing
Available for Payflow Pro / Website Payments Pro Payflow Edition customers. This works similar to Direct Recurring Payments, except it’s done through the Payflow API.

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In all cases, a ‘profile’ is created, and PayPal is the one doing the actual billing on the schedule that you provided. You don’t need to make any further API calls for the subscription / recurring payments profile / recurring billing profile to be processed.