How to Create a PayPal Button on Your Web Site

By Marsha Collier

If you're selling something on your Web site and accepting payment through PayPal, you can easily add a PayPal button to your site. First, log on to the PayPal Web site and then follow these steps to create a good-looking, automatic payment button:

Click the Merchant Services tab, at the top of the page.
Click the Buy Now Button link.
Indicate the type of item you want to Accept payments for. Your choices are
- Products: If you're selling physical merchandise.
- Services: If your customer is buying a psychic reading, bookkeeping, or some other service from you.
- Subscription and recurring billing: If you’re selling subscriptions to a newsletter or collecting dues for a membership.
- Donations: If you have a Web site and you’d like to get donations.
- Gift Certificates: If you’re selling gift certificates to your store.
Decide what kind of button you want. For this, you have two choices
- Add to Cart: If you’re selling lots of items and you’d like to encourage your buyers to make multiple purchases.
- Buy Now: When your customers will pick only one item from a number of choices.
Enter your item information.

Here’s a list of all the items you’re asked to enter in the Create Buy Now Button section. Some of this information is optional:
- Item name/service: Input your item (or service) name.
- Item ID/number: Give your item an ID number or name.
- Price: Enter the item price here.
- Currency: Decide what currency you’re willing to accept for your purchases.
- Buyer’s Default Country: If you accept international orders, specify here whether you want your buyer’s payment page to default to a specific country. If you don’t specify, buyers can choose for themselves.
- Weight: Weight of the packaged item when it’s ready to mail.
Select a button in the Customize Button section.

Choose a Buy Now button to insert on your page. If you don’t like the ones pictured, click the Customize Appearance link to see more options.
Continue to scroll down the page and make choices or fill in information as prompted.

You see the following prompts and options:
- Button Encryption: Decide whether you want your button to be encrypted.
- Shipping Method Option: From this area, select a flat shipping and handling charge or one based on a percentage of the item’s price.
- Sales Tax Options: Select your state and enter the appropriate sales tax to be applied to your in-state purchases. If you already have a sales-tax provision in your PayPal profile, it will be listed here automatically. PayPal will apply the sales tax for sales shipped within your state.
After you make your selections and choose a button to insert, click Create Button Now.
If you want to add options, click Add More Options.

On the next page, you can add extended options for your button. Included (definitely use these!) are the following:
- Item options: If your item has options (such as different sizes or colors), you can create a custom drop-down list for your payment page so the customer can choose; just type the offered options in this box.
- Insert your logo: To add a logo to your payment page, type the URL where the file is stored. PayPal will place the logo on your payment page.
- Payment landing page: If you want your customers to land on a specific page after they’ve made a payment — setting up a thank-you page on your Web site is a nice idea, for example — enter that URL here.
- Cancel Transaction page: If you want to include a page where people are taken if they cancel the transaction before completing it, you can insert that address here. If you don’t specify a page, they will land at a PayPal Web page that allows cancellation of the transaction.
- Quantity: If you’d like your customers to be able to purchase more than one of your items at a time, you may indicate that here. The buyers will then be able to fill in a number in a quantity field.
- Shipping address: Click Yes if you’d like the customer’s shipping address.
- Optional instructions: If you’d like your buyers to be able to write you a note, click Yes in this field.
Click Preview.

You see a sample of the page your customer will see after making a Web payment to you.
If the page is okay, click the Create Button Now button.
If you want to go back and edit, click the Edit button.