How to Configure the PayPal Sandbox

Introduction

If you're integrating PayPal with your Community Server website or any other website, you'll need to test your implementation before you go live.

Through its Developer Central website, PayPal provides a testing sandbox where you can set up a fake business, some fake customers, and see what happens as you place orders through your website. You can use the PayPal Sandbox to test either Website Payments Standard or Website Payments Pro.

In this article, you'll learn how to sign up for a PayPal Developer Central account, create sandbox accounts, and configure them for testing. This document assumes that your test business account is a PayPal Business Account and you are testing  integration with Website Payments Pro. It doesn't cover the set up for a PayPal Premier account or any of the configuration related to PayPal IPN.

At times, you may find this process to be long and tedious. Don't give up! There are quite a few steps, most of them easy. In the end, when you see money deposited into your PayPal account, it will be worth it.

I tried to be as thorough as possible. If you find errors or omissions, or just want to see the article expanded, please feel free to contact me.