Getting your PayPal API keys

Last updated 2026-08-01.

Buyers pay you directly into your own PayPal account. For that to work, PalSingles needs two credentials from you — a Client ID and a Secret — which PayPal issues from their developer dashboard. This page walks through getting them.

Never send your Secret by email or chat, to us or to anyone else. Paste it into Taking payment and nowhere else. We encrypt it on arrival and never show it back to you.

Before you start

A PayPal Business account. Personal accounts cannot issue API credentials at all. Upgrading a personal account is free and takes a few minutes on PayPal's site — it does not change your balance, your history or your login.
A PayPal developer account. This is not a separate signup: developer.paypal.com is signed into with the same PayPal login. Whichever account you sign in with is the account that gets paid, so use the business one.
A payment card for marketplace fees. Because your buyers pay you and not us, our commission cannot come out of the sale — it is billed to a card you keep on file. See Marketplace fees.

Getting your keys

Sign in at developer.paypal.com with the PayPal account you want to be paid into. Same login as normal PayPal — no separate signup.
Switch the toggle to Live. It defaults to Sandbox, which is PayPal's test mode. This is the single most common mistake: sandbox keys look identical, are accepted everywhere, and move no real money. If you connect with sandbox keys, PalSingles will refuse to let buyers check out from your store and will tell you why.
Open Apps & Credentials and click Create App. Name it anything — PalSingles is a sensible choice, because it is what you will see if you ever review connected applications. If PayPal asks for a type, choose Merchant.
Copy the Client ID and the Secret. The Secret is hidden behind a Show link. The Client ID is long and begins with A; the Secret is a similar length. Copy the whole of each, with no trailing spaces.
Paste both into Taking payment and save. We immediately exchange them with PayPal to prove they work. If PayPal rejects them nothing is saved as active, and you are told what was wrong rather than finding out when a buyer cannot pay.

If it does not work

PayPal rejected the credentials: Almost always one of three things: the keys were copied from Sandbox rather than Live, a character was missed at one end, or the Client ID and Secret were pasted into each other's boxes. Re-copy both from the app page and try again.
“Connected in sandbox mode”: Your keys are valid but belong to PayPal's test environment. Your store cannot take real orders until you reconnect with Live keys. Go back to step 2.
I cannot find Apps & Credentials: You are probably signed in with a personal account. PayPal only shows the developer dashboard's app tooling to business accounts. Upgrade the account on PayPal's site, then sign in again.
I rotated my keys in PayPal: Update them here straight away. We have no way to know your old credentials were revoked until a buyer's payment fails, and that failure costs you the sale. Keeping them current is your responsibility — see Seller requirements.

What we do with them

Your Client ID identifies your PayPal account when we create an order for a buyer. Your Secret is encrypted with AES-256-GCM before it is written down, decrypted only at the moment a payment is created or refunded, and never displayed back to you or to our staff. We use them for exactly two things: creating the order the buyer approves, and issuing refunds you ask for from your dashboard.

We cannot move money out of your account, and we never hold it. If you want to end the arrangement, disconnect on Taking payment or revoke the app in PayPal — either one stops new orders immediately.

PayPal occasionally moves things in their dashboard. If a step here no longer matches what you see, their own guide is at developer.paypal.com/api/rest, and you can contact us — a step that has drifted is worth telling us about, because everyone after you hits it too.