PayPal Instant Payment Notification setup

Introduction

PayPal's Instant Payment Notification (IPN) allows you to integrate PayPal payments with your website back-end operations.  This means that your Web site will know if a customer’s payment has gone through, before you ship the product out – without having to look in your PayPal account.

This article guides you through activating PayPal Instant Payment through PayPal’s Web site.

Instructions

Step 1:  Sign on to your PayPal account

Open Internet Explorer and browse to http://www.paypal.com

Sign in to your PayPal account (or create a new Premier or Business PayPal account if you do not already have one)

Step 2:  Activate PayPal Instant Payment Notification

Click the Profile button

Now click the Instant Payment Notification Preferences link

If “Instant Payment Notification (IPN) On” appears, then it has already been turned on.  If it says “Off,” then click the  button.

Check () the box for Instant Payment Notification, and delete the “http://” in the Notification URL: box.

This field should be empty.

Click the  button.

Alternate Method

Depending on your PayPal account settings, the Instant Payment Notification link may not display.  This is an alternate method for accessing the link.

After signing in to your PayPal account, click the Help link.

Type the phrase “Instant Payment Notification” (without the quotes) into the Search box, and then click the  button.

Click the link called “How do I disable Instant Payment Notification” (even though you want to enable it, this is the correct link to click).

Next, click the link specified in instruction 1.

If “Instant Payment Notification (IPN) On” appears, then it has already been turned on.  If it says “Off,” then click the  button.

Check () the box for Instant Payment Notification, and delete the “http://” in the Notification URL: box.

Click the  button.