How do I set up an eWebinar so people must pay in order to register for it using a third-party payment processor, like PayPal?

Use a payment processor like PayPal or Stripe to have attendees purchase your webinar before registering.

If you wish to charge people to attend one of your webinars, you can use eWebinar in combination with a third-party payment processor like Paypal or Stripe to stop people from registering for your webinar unless they purchase it first. To accomplish this, you’ll need to build your own custom landing page outside of eWebinar, while also using eWebinar’s registration and thank you pages.

Here is a high-level summary of what you will need to do:

1. Use a third-party payment processor to create a checkout page you can share or link to from a custom landing page advertising your webinar
2. Have the payment processor redirect to your eWebinar registration page after a successful transaction so the purchaser can register for a session themselves

Though this set up is possible using many different payment processors, here is how to do it using PayPal as an example:

Setup in eWebinar

When you create your webinar in eWebinar, do the following on the tabs listed below:

Schedule: Schedule your eWebinar however you like. Just remember, since people won’t be able to choose a session until after they purchase your webinar, you’ll need to communicate clearly on your custom landing page when sessions will be available.

Registration: Since you will be using a custom landing page to advertise your webinar, the purpose of the eWebinar registration page is to communicate two main points to purchasers to get them to choose and register for a session:

• The transaction is complete
• They still need to register

Be mindful not to share the link to your eWebinar registration page, since that would allow people to register for your webinar without purchasing it first. Instead, only ever share the link to your custom landing page. 

Settings: We recommend you set replay links to expire after a few days (which you can do under Replay room) if you wish to include them in your follow-up emails to discourage people from sharing the links with others. If you choose to do this, be sure to communicate that links are only valid for a short period of time in your confirmation emails (which you can customize on the Notifications tab.)

Setup in PayPal 

The steps below explain how to set things up in PayPal and find what you need to build your custom landing page.

1. Login to PayPal, go to where you can make a new PayPal Button, and configure a “Buy Now” button as follows.
2. In Step 1, specify the Item name and Price of your webinar
   
3. Skip Step 2
4. In Step 3:
   1. Turn off the need to collect the customer’s shipping address
   2. Check Take customers to this URL when they cancel their checkout and enter the link to your custom landing page, so they’ll be taken back to where they started if they cancel their checkout
   3. Check Take customers to this URL when they finish checkout and enter the link to your eWebinar registration page.
      
      NOTE: Purchasers are not taken to the URL you specify automatically after they finish checking out. They must click “Return to Merchant”. 
5. Click Create Button and then do one of the following:
   1. Go to the Website tab, copy the code, and paste it into the code of your custom landing page
      
   2. Go to the Email tab, copy the link, and share it however you choose or configure a button with it on your custom landing page
      

NOTE: Keep in mind the instructions will be different for every payment processor. If you get stuck setting things up in the payment process, work directly with their support team to figure it out.