How to run Paypal without payment for test/demo products as a pass thru ?

[coop2]

I have a paid report on my website whereby users go to Paypal to pay for the report first, then my backend system provides the report.  From time to time I need to run non-paid reports as teasts or demos.  Is there a way to set up a credit card on my account or a process whereby I can run Paypal without payment... as a pass thru ?

[angelleye]

Log in to http://developer.paypal.com using your live PayPal account.  Once you're there you can click into the Dashboard, and then into Sandbox Accounts.  

You can create and manage Sandbox accounts here, which are fake PayPal accounts that run on http://sandbox.paypal.com.  Everything about them looks and feels like PayPal, and you can complete payments to see how everything works and looks from both seller and buyer perspectives as well as trigger IPN notifications for testing, etc.  It's all fake money, though.  

[coop2]

Thanks for the quick response and the info on the sandbox. But my issue is a bit different and I don;t think the sandbox will cut it, so to clarify... I have an active paypal account (not a test account) that is linked to an order form on one of my web sites.  When a user submits the form, it takes them to Paypal to pay a fee and once paid sends a call request to one of our systems to provide a report.  From time to time we need to demonstrate how the website and the report works for our clients and investors and we would like to do that on the live site through the live paypal account using some kind of internal payment mechanism or credit card number that will not incur an actual charge.  I'd prefer not to have to defer these demos to a seperate sandbox account as I'm guessing that's going to require a seperate set of forms linked to the sandbox account plus another sdtup of the report API with the sandbox account.

[angelleye]

What you're explaining is exactly what the sandbox is for:  testing and demoing PayPal solutions and the events that are triggered when transactions are completed.

It's a recommended practice anyway to keep a copy of your site on a test server somewhere which mirrors everything about your live server except that it works with the sandbox instead of the live PayPal site.

That way future development can be done on your test site with the sandbox and not moved to your live site until it's all demoed and proven to be fully functional as expected.  It's also a nice place to always have functional demos for any purpose at all.

So yes, the sandbox will definitely suit your needs and would be the recommended way to go.  

With proper integration the test/sandbox site and your live site can easily be switched back and forth using a flag in a config file or a URL parameter, for example.  On that note, you could set that sort of thing up on your live site, too, so that everything works in the sandbox when this flag is provided.  Then you wouldn't have to maintain separate servers.

Again, though, it's recommended for developers to always keep separate test servers anyway.