Best way to pay a users paypal account?

Question

I know the title isn't amazingly descriptive, sorry.

Basically I'm in the midst of creating a website where users can search for and buy website layouts, wordpress/joomla themes etc. Now users will be able to credit their account from paypal and use this 'site credit' to buy themes etc. Now this can be done with IPN, but for people selling themes, what's the best way to allow them to withdraw their earnings to their paypal account. Example;

1. Joe Bloggs credit ($20 goes in to the website paypal account)
2. Joe Bloggs buys a theme from John Smith for $10 (a. Joe Bloggs accounts balance = original balance - 10, b. John Smiths account balance = original balance + 10)
3. John Smith wants to withdraw the $10 he just earnt

Any help appreciated, hope I'm being clear enough, also if anyone could recommend what type of paypal account to use with this as obviously with this sort of traffic going through it I need as little to no limits as possible.

Answer 1

You are going to need a Paypal Business account to avoid any limitations on transactions.

As for paying people via paypal, I'm assuming you are going to pay the people out of the website account. If so, then you can use the PayPal Mass Pay API, which lets you pay one or more users out of the account you are using to call the API. See https://cms.paypal.com/cms_content/US/en_US/files/developer/PP_NVPAPI_DeveloperGuide.pdf, and the section on the Mass Pay API for details. There is also a SOAP interface equivalent, but the basics are:

• Provide the ID or email of the receiving account
• Provide the amount to pay them.

I'm not going to go into the NVP or paypal API authentication system, since you mention you've already sorted them paying you, but basically the same system applies.

If you want people to be able to 'withdraw', simply tell them at registration to specify a 'payment email address', and then when they want to withdraw, just have a form, the result of which runs the call to the API, and pays them.

Edit: Have just checked, and the Mass Pay API requires the Website Payments Pro, which costs $30 per month, and has a transaction fee of: 2.2% – 2.9% + $0.30 USD (these only apply to incoming transactions) - see https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/Marketing/general/PaymentSolutions-outside for info. Don't know what the cost limitations of your project are.

Answer 2

I'm working on a project that needs to do something similar, I modified the PayPal's sample code:

How to send money to paypal using php

I hope it be useful.

Answer 3

There seems to be an assumption that the funds must go through your account. Have you looked into acting as more of a storefront, where your site directs buyers to a PayPal page where they will pay the seller directly?