Can I process credit cards on my website without a shopping cart using PayPal Pro?

Question

I am currently using PayPal's Website Payments Standard to accept credit cards on my website. It is not currently the best option for me because people have to leave my website to enter their credit/debit card details and then return to my site after PayPal has processed their information. What I am looking to do is upgrade to PayPal's Website Payments Pro plan which will allow to accept credit card on my own website. My biggest concern though so far with PayPal's Website Payments Pro plan is that all of the payment options use a shopping cart. I DO NOT need a shopping cart. My company sells 1 service and that service only. I just need them to fill out the registration form and then process their credit card details on the next page. Simple and easy. But, I do not know if this is possible PayPal's Website Payments Pro plan. So to anyone who may know, my question is the following:

With PayPal's Website Payments Pro plan, can I process credit cards on my website without a shopping cart? Also, can I do recurring payments for when people want to do installment plans?

Thanks in advance. 

Allen

Answer 1

The product you want is called PayFlow Pro. It gives you an api to transmit the payment information (ie: credit card details and the amount to charge) to the paypal gateway.

There is a setup fee ($250USD) and a monthly charge of ($60USD) that buys you 1000 transactions a month. If you go over, an additional charge of $0.10USD per transaction applies.

They bought this from Verisign a few years ago. The only time I've ever seen a problem with it was a little over a year ago. Other than that it's been perfect for about 10 years.

Other options I've used include Authorize.Net and PlugNPay. Of those, I'd say PayFlow Pro was the best followed by Authorize.Net.