PayPal Instant Payment Notification for WordPress

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If you want to receive notification for completed payments you need IPN or upgrade to the Pro version of the plugin. You will need a PayPal Business or Premier account.

To enable IPN in your PayPal account:

  1. Go to the plugin settings and select the IPN tab.
  2. Copy the Listener URL
  3. Log into your PayPal account
  4. Go to Profile > Profile and Settings > My Selling Preferences
  5. Look for an Instant Payment Notification option.
  6. Click on the update link (on the right).
  7. Click Choose IPN Settings
  8. Enter the Notification URL and make sure you have selected to receive IPN messages.
  9. Save the settings.

But IPN can be blocked or restricted by your server settings, theme or other plugins. The good news is you can simulate the notifications to check if all is working.

To carry out a simulation:

  1. Download, install and activate the plugin.
  2. Enable IPN on the IPN settings page.
  3. Enable the PayPal Sandbox on the plugin setup page
  4. Fill in and send your payment form (you do not need to make an actual payment)
  5. Go to the dashboard Payments History and copy the long number in the last column from the payment you have just made
  6. Go to the IPN simulation see https://developer.paypal.com/api/nvp-soap/ipn/IPNSimulator/
  7. Login and enter the IPN listener URL
  8. Select ‘Express Checkout’ from the drop down
  9. Scroll to the bottom of the page and enter the long number you copied at step 5 into the ‘Custom’ field
  10. Click ‘Send IPN’. Scroll up the page and you should see an ‘IPN Verified’ message.
  11. Go back to your Payments Report and refresh, you should now see the payment completed message

That’s all there is to is. If the simulation worked you will now be getting payment confirmations on the Payment history report.

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