Authenticate Program with paypal Payment?

[Bdole]

Hello, I was wondering if anyone could please point me in the right direction. I have spent some time looking for answers on the web and not found exactly what I need.

in a nutshell:
I want my program to be registered once a user enters a serial number of some sort along with their email address. I have an app for my phone and that is what I had to do to get the full version of it.

Any sort of help would be grateful. Thanks

[moti barski]

how does user get serial number ?
where email of the user supposed to go is it necessary for the email to be input ?

[Bdole]

a serial would be sent to the customer once payment was made. The customers paypal email would be the username I suppose.
here is an example of what I kind of email I would send to the customer

1) Open "MyProgramName", click Help, click
on "Register".

2) Enter the following info into the respective boxes:

Paypal email address: [email protected]
Unlock code: 2873828UD9247Jd827


Please keep this email for reference and don't share your unlock
code with others.

[Bdole]

Somehow the customer would get an automated email from me once paypal payment was made saying that their paypal email address would be their username and an unlock code would be attached(which is generated OFF of their paypal email address).

I don't know how I would go about doing the automated email response thing and how to generate a code off their email.

Thanks

[weirddemon]

I'd recommend using a different company than Paypal to process your payments.

I use Avangate and I love it. I don't use serial codes, but it's really easy to setup and you don't really have to do any coding to get this done.

There are no fees to sign up, but they take a small amount of each sale, depending on how you want to set it up.

They have the ability to upload a document that has the keys in it and once the customer has paid, they send them one of those keys. So you could find a free app that generates thousands of keys, upload to Avangate when you set up your account and they'll handle everything for you.

You can then compare that license code to a database of the same codes on your website.

[Bdole]

that sounds like a good idea except for the part where they take a small fee and that I would like to have a username and a code that is unique.

so 1 person cant buy the program and just share it with the rest of the world. If that makes sense? not sure how to do it, but thats what i am looking for.

[sapator]

To able to get notified about a payment made in paypal you must have a merchant account or another one(that it's name doesn't come to me right now).
You can then use the IPN and PDT features.From what i read you don't need the PDT feature(will redirect to a page of your choice when payment is done).
Your first task would be to fill the variables that paypal provide so you can instruct paypal where it will "post" the data after a payment is made(if you only have one return page then you can specify it in paypal's ipn page).
That variable is "notify_url" .
Now about the special code you want.There is a variable in paypal called "custom" that you can put anything in there.So you can create a random code and put it in there before you send your notification.
Have in mind that paypal IPN will redirect to a valid address (it will ask you for a valid address to check inside the site) so you need to have a web page that is Static or get a pseudo-static address from a site that provide that but i can't guarantee that this will work as expected.
Also have in mind that paypal lucks the info and support on asp.net .
Sure they can give you a ready to go button but you have to program all the other features.Also have in mind that there is a problem on having 2 paypal buttons in one page (because the button they give you include <form> and you can only have one <form> in a page.This is solvable but i cannot give the code out cuz it's a pattern i made on a company i support.
Nevertheless it's not an easy task so expect to get dirty

Now after saying that, what you want cannot be done in the way you specify it.There is no automated way to do payments, the user needs to physically do they payment and IPN can take it from there.
So you give the user a paypal button, you insert a security code inside the "custom" variable (it's actually 'custom' with one ' ), you redirect the user to the paypal site with all important the variables filled, the user pays, IPN hits back to a page you have for paypal, you read back the data from paypal and you e-mail the "custom" variable value to the user.
Of course you need to write the created custom variable to your database first and then to check for the matching variable given back by IPN.
I think i have frighten you enough.

[n00bl3z]

that sounds like a good idea except for the part where they take a small fee and that I would like to have a username and a code that is unique.

so 1 person cant buy the program and just share it with the rest of the world. If that makes sense? not sure how to do it, but thats what i am looking for.

Paypal has a PHP API, Which can be manipulated to your own use........ If you need examples on this i'll type them out tomorrow...

Now, with the keys, you can programmatically make a registration system, write up your own algo and such, its quite easy. This way you can assure 1 key per email, and you can set up MySQL Databases to see how many registers (or if the key/email is already registered) and use WebRequests to process this information. (To do this would require knowledge of PHP and MySQL, Not hard to learn but you'll have to take the time to sit down and learn them in order to make a decent system)


The Algo could be as simple as

Function GenerateKey(ByVal EMAIL As String) As String

        Dim s1 As String
        Dim s2 As String
        Dim s3 As String
        Dim s4 As String
        Dim output As String

        Dim i1 As Integer
        Dim i2 As Integer

        s1 = EMAIL.Length * 4
        s2 = s1 * 3 & "-"
        s3 = s1.Length & "-"
        s4 = s1.Length * s2.Length - s3.Length
        i1 = s4 + (s2.Length - s1.Length)
        i2 = i1 + (i1 + s2.Length - s1.Length)
        output = s1 & s2 & "0342" & i1 & "-39311" & s3 & i2 & "-18883-" & ((s4 * s4 * s4) * s4) * s4 * s4

Return output
End Function

[moti barski]

you could use clickbank instead of paypal

[weirddemon]

that sounds like a good idea except for the part where they take a small fee and that I would like to have a username and a code that is unique.

so 1 person cant buy the program and just share it with the rest of the world. If that makes sense? not sure how to do it, but thats what i am looking for.

You're dreaming if you think you're going to find a company that will process
your payments for free.

I found Avangate to be the cheapest

Everyone charges. The good thing about Avangate and PayPal is that they're aren't any initial fees. ClickBank charges 50 USD to start and they still take a fee.

I found Avangate to be the easiest and to use, but expansive enough to accommodate what J needed as well as charge the lowest fees. So again, no matter who you choose, you're going to have to pay, even PayPal.

What I did with Avangate is used their calculator to figure out how much I would have to charge to cover their fees and still make what I wanted from it.

[Bdole]

Thanks everyone for all the input. some very useful information. I do understand that It would be hard to get myself out of fees, but I will try I have come up with an of idea. let me know what you think.

Build a small server that will take registration requests and send back the proper variables to let the client programs register their program. I could use just a simple protocol component. Its been awhile, but I built one in the past. Some sort of login system is the only thing that I can think of to ensure only 1 key is registered at a time

The programs that I would be trying to sell would be small at a low price, but hoping to sell many of them - like an app. n00bl3z I would be interested in the PHP code you have for paypal. PHP is a new thing to me so I will have to learn.

[weirddemon]

Thanks everyone for all the input. some very useful information. I do understand that It would be hard to get myself out of fees, but I will try I have come up with an of idea. let me know what you think.

Build a small server that will take registration requests and send back the proper variables to let the client programs register their program. I could use just a simple protocol component. Its been awhile, but I built one in the past.

The programs that I would be trying to sell would be small at a low price, but hoping to sell many of them - like an app. n00bl3z I would be interested in the PHP code you have for paypal. PHP is a new thing to me so I will have to learn.

You're still in the clouds.

You really shouldn't try and make your own method of accepting payments. Distributing keys and keeping track of them is the easy part. That's a completely separate thing from the keys. Accepting payments can be very risky. If you don't know what you're doing, and that's obvious, and someone screws with your customer's data, you'll be in big trouble. Which is why people use third parties to handle payments. They have extremely secure systems that have been programmed by professionals and insurance for those kinds of things.

If you go the PHP API way via PayPal, you're still going to have to pay. I can assure you that there's no way of getting around paying. The API just gives you a better way of interacting with their services. And going that route will just make you spend more time on this than is necessary.

Why is it such a big deal to get around this? The fees are minimal and all you have to do is increase the cost slightly to make up for the fees.

The old saying, "you can't make money without spending money" is about as true as it gets.

[sapator]

Let me add that merchant account update from the standard account is free.I have asked this to paypal because they don't say anything to their side and i got suspicious.
Also if you use asp.net there is no need to go to php to use paypal.Just because they have their attention to php does not mean you can't handle their framework in asp.net also you don't need to learn mysql if you know sql server, you just use the free sql express (WTH, i'm promoting Micro$oft! ).
If you need php(especially) and mysql you probably must go to another forum.
Finally u can use the guid to get a #reg key.If one in a thousand the key is duplicated you just insert an index on your database for no duplication and author another key.Also i suggest to do your registrations online or by phone because creating a software of your own to handle registrations offline and if the software get's popular(so someone get's interested to crack it), would get cracked in one hour tops, thanks to Microsoft,"lamelame&#174;" , dll security.(there got my blood back for promoting Billy boy).