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Comment by patio11 | Hacker News Reader

The developer experience for Paypal integrations leaves... much to be desired. I don't know how to convey the magnitude of the difference without forcing you to implement code against a Paypal API.

Maybe, for a taste of it: Paypal ships API documentation as X00 page PDF files. Their Payflow Pro product, being relatively simple, requires only 176 pages.

Or, in terms of design decisions, consider all the fun of writing software which implements a case statement that maps error code 100 to "Invalid transaction returned from host (Processor), in the case where the processor is Global Payments East or Central." to, well, whatever the heck you're supposed to do when that happens.

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Thanks Patrick, really enjoy your blog. Um this doesn't look so bad tho.

https://developer.paypal.com/docs/api/#create-a-payment

https://github.com/paypal/PayPal-node-SDK/blob/master/sample...

EDIT

I've been googling and heard such bad things about PayPal but it looks fine. Am i crazy?!

Note that you can't use their REST APIs with the product whose pricing you want.

Aha! There it is. Thanks!

Very true.

I found a particular customer using it very smartly - to configure multiple gateways via system like ours (ChargeBee) - and splitting his payments across his Authorize.Net, PayPal Payflow & Stripe accounts.

The biggest fear you have with PayPal is getting access to support & being shutdown when there is sudden activity & also risk of "high risk" profile customers purchasing it. One way to mitigate risk is to route all address verified transactions via PayPal (by getting country info upfront before card entry).

He also does it very neatly by spreading transactions across gateways during peak sales. When he does promotions & is expecting volumes he makes Stripe as default & onboards customers.

I need to speak with the customer to learn & implement these as features on our product. :)

One exciting thing I found was that if you buy (say) a wordpress plugin from the US that integrates with a particular PayPal api/membership level, PayPal will helpfully give that same API or membership level a different name in the UK and slightly tweak the permissions, but not document it anywhere.

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