How to Integrate Your Web Form with PayPal

This is a step by step tutorial on how to set up your form so that it integrates with PayPal’s payment processing service.

The PayPal connector is only available on the Professional Plan so you might want to consider upgrading your account or registering if necessary (Note: you can request a free upgrade for the duration of the beta-test.)

For more information on the PayPal connector, please refer to the feature announcement post.

Is this service right for you?
There are no definite restrictions on what the form may contain or what you may sell with it, but this service is better suited for simple situations, where:

You have a limited number of items to sell.
Items have a fixed price and a fixed or variable quantity.
Shipping & handling fees and taxes are applied to the total price.
Here are a few examples:

Selling intangible goods such as music (mp3), software, e-books, …
Charging a membership or an admission fee.
Charging a flat fee for consulting services.
Accepting donations.
Selling physical goods, to the extent that inventory is not an issue.
If you are not sure if this service is adapted to your particular needs, feel free to contact the support.

Getting Started
The first step is to design your web form with the Form Builder. You will probably include a description of what you are selling, ask some information about the buyer (but you can leave the shipping address out because PayPal can handle it for you) and maybe let the buyer specify the quantity (s)he wishes to purchase.

You will find some templates in the Form Library, under the “Order Forms” section.

Once you have saved your form, you will be taken to the “Form Display & Processing Properties” page. The option that interests us today is in section 3, “Connector Setup”. Check the “PayPal” option, set the other options on this page as desired and save. You will be taken to the “PayPal Connector” setup page.



PayPal Account Information


Enter here the email address associated to your PayPal account. If you don’t have a PayPal account yet, you should create one now (PayPal accounts are free).

If you have a PayPal Personal account, you should consider upgrading to a Premier or Business account. This allows you to accept credit card payments.

What You Are Selling


This is where you can specify the list of items that you are selling with your web form. This information will be exported to PayPal and displayed in the buyer’s shopping cart.

The quantity is the only information here that can be provided by the buyer. The drop-down menu lists all the questions that are appearing in your form. Select the one that corresponds to this item’s quantity.

Use the “add another item” link if you have more than one item to sell.

Shipping Address


If you need a shipping address, you may let PayPal collect it for you. If your form is already asking for an address you should adjust the export setting so that the buyer doesn’t have to provide it twice.



Exporting the shipping address works like the item quantity setting. For each address field, select in the drop-down list the corresponding question in your web form.

Data Encryption


By default, the data transmitted to PayPal is not encrypted. This could allow a malicious customer to modify an item price or description before paying for it. This should not be a problem as long as you are checking every order before delivering the goods.

If you have a Premier or Business account, we can use a secure certificate to encrypt the data. This prevents the risk mentioned above and opens the possibility of automating the delivery process since no manual review of the order is necessary.

To create your secure certificate, follow the instructions on screen.



Please note that the actual payment occurs on PayPal’s website and is always securely encrypted. This particular setting only affects how we transmit the content of the shopping cart to PayPal.

Your “Pay Now” Page


This is the page that instructs your buyer to proceed to PayPal to finalize your payment. You can customize the text displayed on this page.

At this stage the form has been submitted and you have received the email notification. The response report on FormAssembly.com includes a payment status.

Payment Tracking


Once the buyer completes the payment, the payment status on your response report is updated:



The payment status is updated as well if a pending payment is cleared or if you issue a refund.

That’s it! We tried to keep it simple and self-explanatory but we’re sure we can still improve this feature, so any feedback, questions, or suggestions are welcomed.