PayPal is a popular payment gateway that allows your customers to make a payment without providing credit card information.

How to integrate PayPal with Kartra

You will need a PayPal Business account to complete this guide. Visit https://www.paypal.com/ to create an account.

Tip: Keep both Kartra and PayPal open while you work through these steps. You will need to go back and forth between them to finish the setup.

Connect Kartra and PayPal

In Kartra:

  1. Go to Integrations
  2. Use the drop-down menu in the top right to filter by Payment integrations or search for PayPal.
  3. Click the three dots on any PayPal tile and select + Create integration

    Create a new PayPal integration and click to connect
    • A green checkmark on the integration tile means at least one integration is already active for the service. You can create multiple integrations for the same service, but each PayPal account can only be added once.
  4. In the new payment gateway window, click Connect PayPal. A new window opens on the PayPal website, where you can authorize the connection.

    Grant permission to connect Kartra and PayPal
  5. Click Grant Permission to authorize the connection between Kartra and PayPal. All permissions are required to complete the integration.
  6. You will be redirected back to Kartra. When a connection has been authorized, the payment gateway configuration window displays a PDT token field. Go to PayPal to get this token.

Turn on payment data transfer in PayPal

The final steps to complete the integration are done in PayPal. In Website payment preferences, turn on Auto return for website payments and Payment data transfer.

Website payment settings in PayPal

In PayPal:

  1. Go to Account Settings and select Website payments in the left menu
  2. Click Update next to Website preferences 
  3. Under “Auto return for website payments,” turn Auto return ON

    Turn on auto return to enable payment data transfer
    • Enter the return URL: https://kartra.com
  4. Under “Payment data transfer,” turn Payment data transfer ON

    Turn on payment data transfer in website preferences
    • An Identity token appears when the selection is saved. Copy the whole token, taking care not to leave any characters off.

Go back to Kartra

Add the PayPal PDT token to Kartra

Add your payment identity token to the integration

In Kartra:

  1. Go back to Integrations and the PayPal connection window
  2. Paste the Payment data transfer identity token in the PDT token field
  3. Click Create/Edit in the top right corner to Save the integration

Go back to PayPal

Turn on instant payment notifications (IPN) from PayPal

Instant payment notifications are needed for Kartra to be able to track refunds, recurring payments, and other notifications PayPal sends in the background.

PayPal account settings to access instant payment notifications

In PayPal:

  1. Go to Account Settings and select Notifications in the left menu
  2. Click Update next to Instant payment notifications
  3. Click Choose IPN Settings
  4. On the next screen:

    Enable IPN messages to turn on payment notifications
    • Enter the notification URL: https://kartra.com
    • Select the radio button “Receive IPN messages (Enabled)”
  5. Save the IPN settings

That’s it! Your PayPal payment integration is complete.