How to pay users on Android

Question

I would like to know the best way to do this:

users of my Android app gain points as they use the app. they can then 'check out' their points for money to their paypal or bank account

the app should take the money out of my the app's paypal account and transfer it to the users bank or paypal account.

any suggestions?

Answer 1

The payment from you to your app users does NOT happen on the Android app. Instead, the payment can be triggered either by user actions (for example clicking on some "pay" button) or by other events like "user has gained enough points and the payment will be done at the end of the month", etc.

The payment from you to your app users' PayPal account can be done by calling PayPal Payouts API or Mass Pay API on your server . Payouts API is REST API and Mass Pay is classic which uses NVP/SOAP. Check here for the docs:

https://developer.paypal.com/docs/payouts/

The Payouts API and Mass Pay API can be used to pay a lot of people in a call, so it's recommended to get a list of users and pay them at the same time, say, at the end of the week or month.

Or, in a cumbersome way, you can have script telling you which users and how much to pay periodically, say a month, and ask a customer service person / assistance or whoever you trust with your money to manually pay through your PayPal account. I know it's funny, but it's a way useful if there aren't a lot of users to pay, or this is what you can do before your automated process is in place. Some merchants do this, and I'm just trying to list the ways that you can do through PayPal, and leaving the decision to you. ;-P

Answer 2

I don't know the exact logistics of how to do this but here is a link to a possible PayPal api you could use https://developer.paypal.com/docs/integration/mobile/android-integration-guide/ .

I will warn you that if done improperly this could be very dangerous for your bank account. If someone could use a tool like SB Game Hacker or Game Guardian to change their point value they could essentially steal money from you that they did not earn.

To combat this you can set up a database containing your user's point values and use that database when deciding how much money to give. Also make sure a user could not push their own manipulated point values to the db.