Last updated: October 1, 2026
Subscriptions let you bill customers at regular intervals rather than collect one-time payments. Use subscriptions if your business charges customers on a recurring basis, whether that's a fixed amount, a variable amount based on the number of users, or an amount based on volume or tier. Subscriptions are built for merchants who need recurring billing with built-in trial periods, plan changes, and payment recovery, rather than a single upfront transaction.
A subscription is built from two objects:
You can create products and plans in two ways: manually in the PayPal Business dashboard, or programmatically using the Subscriptions API.
Decide between using the PayPal dashboard or the Subscriptions API by comparing setup effort, automation needs, and how subscriptions are created and managed.
Create and manage a subscription plan from your dashboard using just the essential fields, no code required.
The Subscriptions API lets you create, update, and manage subscription products, plans, and billing programmatically from your backend systems.
Add your customized PayPal Subscriptions button to your website and test the checkout flow.