Paypal Rest API vs Classic Sdk

Question

I am working with paypal first time. I have a product and I want to integrate paypal with it.

I want to achieve the following tasks :

1. Client comes to my website and select a plan,which is a monthly recurring plan.
2. Then client is redirected to Paypal for payment.
3. Client makes payment.
4. Return backs to home page.

I have gone through the documentation of paypal and I have the following questions.

1. What should I use REST API or Classic Sdk, as I want to create Recurring Profile,Work with EXPRESS-CHECKOUT and REFERENCE TRANSACTIONS.
2. I have customers all over globe and it is stated in the documentation that, for the customers in Germany and China , I have to use REFERENCE TRANSACTION.
3. Some where in the documentation of Merchant SDK it is stated that the classic API's will be deprecated, so is it a good approach to use Classic SDK
4. I also wanted to track the transactions(payment) made by user, so that I can show him the amount that is deducted in each month in his profile details.

Please suggest a feasible solution to my problem.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Here's what I use. I went to Web Payments Standard and created a Subscription button. (I like the unencrypted variety, but you can encrypt if you want.) In there, you set the terms of the subscription, as well as where to post the IPN message. When the IPN message comes back, you deal with it. You'll get a subscr_signup at the start along with a subscr_payment. Then, on renewals, you'll get a subscr_payment again. What I like to do is store every verified IPN message in the database for my customer.

For handling the management of those subscriptions for things like tracking info, refunds, subscription cancellations, and voids, you'll need to use NVP API, which is a very simple API. If you stored in a database every IPN message with all those fields, then you should be able to pass certain fields of those to the NVP API in order to get what you need done.

If you're worried about longevity of the APIs, then don't. All they do when they deprecate APIs is stop giving you good docs on them. They still let those older versions run. If they didn't, there would be major upheaval on the web with web commerce products breaking all over the place. However, that said, if you want to prepare for the future, then get on the Braintree Payments API because PayPal bought Braintree and that's the future of their API.