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PayPal

This guide will help you to authorize Payrails to process transactions with PayPal on your behalf and obtain the necessary Merchant ID to complete your configuration.

Prerequisites

A PayPal Business account with administrative permissions. A magic link provided by your Payrails implementation manager (see Step 1).

Step-by-step instructions

To enable Payrails to process payments, you must grant third-party permissions via a secure onboarding link and then retrieve your unique Merchant ID.

Step 1: Access the Onboarding Link (Magic Link)

Payrails will provide you with a unique "Magic Link" (Partner Referral link). This link is used to authorize Payrails to perform payment actions on your behalf.

  1. Click the link provided by your Payrails implementation manager.
  2. Log in to your PayPal Business account.
  3. Review the permissions requested by Payrails.
    • Note: This typically includes permissions for Express Checkout and Transaction Search.
  4. Click Agree and Connect to grant access.

Important Note on Scopes: Our integration includes the TRANSACTIONS_SEARCH scope to ensure accurate reporting. If your business model requires Billing Agreements, please notify your Payrails contact, as this requires specific account-level configuration on the PayPal side.

Step 2: Retrieve your PayPal Merchant ID

Once you have granted permissions and are redirected back to your platform, Payrails needs your PayPal Merchant ID (also known as Payer ID) to finalize the setup.

Option A: From your PayPal Dashboard

  1. Log into paypal.com.
  2. Go to Account Settings (profile icon in the top right).
  3. Select Business information.
  4. Locate your PayPal Merchant ID (a 13-character alphanumeric string).

Option B: Automatic Retrieval (Technical) If you are automating this flow, Payrails will fetch the ID via the merchant-integrations endpoint using the tracking ID generated in Step 1. GET /v1/customer/partners/PARTNER_ID/merchant-integrations?tracking_id=YOUR_TRACKING_ID

Step 3: Configure Payrails Environment

Provide the retrieved Merchant ID to your Payrails representative.

(Optional) Step 4: Confirm Permissions

To verify that the integration is active and all required scopes are correctly granted, Payrails can perform a status check.

  • Endpoint: /v1/customer/partners/PAYRAILS_PAYER_ID/merchant-integrations/YOUR_MERCHANT_ID
  • Result: This will return a list of active permissions (e.g., EXPRESS_CHECKOUT, REFUND, etc.) to ensure the account is ready for production traffic.

Updated 28 days ago