PayPal Standard vs PayPal Direct/Express

Hi,

What are the exact differences between PayPal Standard and PayPal Direct/Express?

What option would you advice to use?

Thanks!

I think that it all depends on the amount of interaction you want your customers to have with Paypal. I don't use and have not experimented with Paypal Direct or Paypal Express, but I believe that Paypal direct just authorizes the amount and says that the customer has enough money and charges it for you, but no other information is entered/held at Paypal. From their website:

"For each payment, Direct Payment API takes the billing address, transaction amount, credit card information, and item information as inputs. Within seconds, the API returns a confirmation that the transaction has been processed."

Paypal Express doesn't seem to be too much different than Standard... here are the steps...

1.Chooses Express Checkout by clicking the Check out with PayPal button
2.Logs into PayPal to authenticate his or her identity
3.Reviews the transaction on PayPal
4.Confirms the order and pays from your site
5.Receives an order confirmation

The only difference with Express and Standard that I can see is that the customer confirms and pays at your site in Express while they confirm and pay at Paypal with Standard.

Another thing that I'm not sure about is that in Standard you can pass the item information for each item and they can view that in Paypal, I don't know if you can do that with Express.

Also, if you don't have an SSL certificate, you might want to use Standard so your customers are assured that the payment is secure...

THANKS!

bfranklin825 wrote:

So with Express you still need the IPN to have the payment confirmed?

I ask this because the (sandbox) emails I have, says the payment is done with the Express option.




This is the email (translated by me) for the buyer:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
From:  service@paypal.nl
To:  Test1_1281883
Date:  Sep. 15, 2010 11:33:09 PDT
  
15 sep 2010 20:33:08 CEST | Transactiereferentie: 4W075239L0393314E

Dear Test User,

You paid €100,00 EUR to the sellers Test Store (Seller_1281883)

It can take a while for this transaction to show in your account.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------




This is the email (translated by me) for the seller:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
From:  Test1_1281883
To:  Seller_1281883
Date:  Sep. 15, 2010 11:33:50 PDT
Subject:   Bericht dat betaling is ontvangen
  
15 sep 2010 20:33:08 CEST | Transactiereferentie: 82660186YC656243J

Dear Test Store,

You received a payment of €100,00 EUR from Test User (Test1_1281883)
You can send the objects.
It can take a while for this transaction to show in your account.
----------------------------------------------------------------

I don't believe that you need to use IPN with express or direct. I could be wrong...