Test Premier/Business account for non existing business

Question

We are contemplating on using your services on the web app we are developing, We have following requirements.

Our's is a multisided services platform, an employer assigns a freelancer to do some job. Freelancer will create partial invoices until the full value of the job is realized. We sit as a middle man, and does the job of forwarding the invoice to employer and transfer the amount collected from the employer to the corresponding freelancer, after taking a cut.

1) We need to provide seamless integration on invoicing, The freelancer will use our web interface to create/send invoice. We will record the cost of the invoice in our database.

2) It is the employers prerogative, to decide when to respond on the invoice. Say, he responded after 10 days of receipt of the invoice. When the payment is made our website traps it and records it in the database.

3) When our web app come to know that a payment is made by the employer, we will transfer the amount (after taking a cut) to the freelancer.(adaptive payments).

I found out that chained payments is best suited for the scenario above.

What type of paypal account i need here to do the chained/adaptive payments? If it is Business or premier account , can i set up an account before legally registering a company for testing/sandbox environment? I am from India I see paypal registration form asking for the PAN number for company, which i don't currently have.

Thanks for your attention

Answer 1

Short anser: if you are not a business, use a premier account. That should be able to use all adaptive payments features including chained payments.

PayPal no longer distinguishes between personal and premier accounts (they used to carry different fee structures but that ended years ago), although some older features still may have blocks preventing access by personal accounts. Both types of accounts are expected to be owned by an individual. In contrast business accounts are expected to be owned by a business. Functionality should be essentially identical to a premier account except for details like personal vs corporate tax ID numbers & such.