How to Use a Simple PayPal Payment Button to Accept Membership Payment

Most people use the WP eStore plugin to create payment buttons for membership as it has a range of benefits but you can use a plain PayPal payment button (“Buy Now”, “Subscribe” etc) to accept payment for your premium members too.

Buy Now Type Button or Subscription Type Button?

Difference between “Buy Now” and “Subscription” type buttons for membership payment

Video Tutorial

Setup Preparation

To use a plain PayPal button with WP eMember you need two pieces of information:

The URL of the IPN handling script
The ID of the membership level that you are creating this payment button for

The WP eMember comes with a IPN handling script. It’s stored in the “ipn” directory inside the “wp-eMember” directory. The URL of this file should be something similar to the following (you will have to change “your-domain-name” to your actual domain name):

http://www.your-domain-name.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-eMember/ipn/eMember_handle_paypal_ipn.php

The ID of the membership level (e.g. 4) can be found in the “Membership Level” menu of the WP eMember plugin.

Once you have these two pieces of information ready then put the following in a notepad and save it:
notify_url=http://www.your-domain-name.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-eMember/ipn/eMember_handle_paypal_ipn.php
custom=subsc_ref=4

Specifying the “Advanced Variables” in the PayPal button

When you create your button on PayPal from the “Merchant Services” menu, you will be able to specify some advanced variables in “Step 3″.

Specify advanced variables

Check the add advanced variables checkbox
Copy and Paste the text from the notepad saved earlier into the textarea.

Now, you can copy the button code and paste it in your “Membership Payment” page. When someone makes a payment using this button it will automatically create a membership for the membership level that is specified in the button.

8 Comments »

Buddy Hannon said:

I don’t see where this option is.
Can I get a hint?

# 3 June 2010 at 5:47 pm

admin (author) said:

by “this option” are you referring to the “PayPal advanced variables”?

# 4 June 2010 at 12:19 am

Buddy Hannon said:

OH, I see, that’s something that I do on paypal, not in the plugin options. Oops!

# 4 June 2010 at 5:57 am

WordPress eMember - Easy to Use WordPress Membership Plugin | Tips and Tricks said:

[...] Can be easily integrated with a plain PayPal button. Read more here. [...]

# 23 June 2010 at 12:11 am

augusto said:

is this plugin compatible with paypal pro?

# 5 August 2010 at 9:26 am

Ivy said:

Hi, The eMember is not pre integrated with PayPal Pro at this time. You would need to do the integration for this or hire a developer. You would need a good amount of PHP knowledge for this. We do plan on adding PayPal Pro to the eStore in the near feature so the eMember would be able to do this via the eStore. The ETA for this feature is unknown at this time as our to do list is always changing.

# 5 August 2010 at 6:42 pm

Jenn said:

Another question has come up….

I’m thinking about installing buddy press on my site. I just wanted to check that the page containing buddy press can be made a member only page like the page with the digital content? Also, I assume that they wouldn’t have to sign in again to access buddy press once they’ve logged in as a member?

Thanks again for your help.

# 5 October 2010 at 1:23 pm

admin (author) said:

If you are using the WordPress user integration feature of eMember then all your members should have one account throughout your site. When they log into one system they will be logged into all the other systems too.

# 6 October 2010 at 12:05 am