Payflow is the gateway many businesses set up in 2008 with a web developer and never touched again. It worked, quietly, on top of a merchant account from a bank. Now PayPal is retiring it and the platforms that connect to it are pulling their integrations. This page is for the merchant who just got that email.
What Payflow was
PayPal acquired the Payflow gateway from VeriSign in 2005. It came in two forms:
- Payflow Pro. API-based gateway with a virtual terminal, recurring billing, a stored-card vault and fraud filters. Historically $25 a month plus 10¢ a transaction. Used with the merchant’s own acquiring account from a bank or processor.
- Payflow Link. Hosted checkout page for merchants who wanted the smallest integration and PCI footprint. Lower monthly fee.
The defining feature was that Payflow was a gateway only: your processing was with your own acquirer, priced by them. That is also why moving off it is straightforward.
What is happening
PayPal has announced the deprecation of Payflow Pro and PayPal Payments Pro as part of consolidating on its current platform. Third-party software has started acting on it: NationBuilder listed Payflow among processors no longer supported beginning in 2026; Zoho and Gravity Forms have posted similar notices. As of September 2026 PayPal has not published a final date for ending transactions on existing accounts, and processing continues for now.
The practical read: no new features, shrinking integration support, and a shutdown date that will arrive with less notice than you want. Migrate on your timeline.
Your options
| Option | Keeps your merchant account? | Keeps your integration? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| accept.blue on your existing acquirer | Yes, if the acquirer is supported | Plugin or API change | Modern interface, invoicing, Level 3, vault, recurring. Our default for Payflow migrations. |
| NMI on your existing acquirer | Yes, 150+ processor connections | Plugin or API change | Broadest integration catalog; strong for multi-MID. |
| Fluidpay on your existing acquirer | Yes, via a partner | Plugin or API change; Authorize.net AIM emulation for legacy carts | Partner-only. |
| Authorize.net | Yes | Plugin or API change | Direct sign-up, published $25 + 10¢, oldest plugin catalog. |
| PayPal’s current bundled products | No, PayPal becomes the processor | PayPal’s checkout | Simplest if you want everything inside PayPal; flat-rate pricing, aggregator underwriting. |
For a merchant with negotiated interchange-plus processing on a bank merchant account, the first three preserve it. Moving to a bundled product resets you to a flat rate.
Migration sequence
- Confirm your acquirer and your current processing pricing from the merchant statement.
- Check your cart or software for a native connection to accept.blue, NMI or Fluidpay. Most mainstream carts have all three; custom code may use an Authorize.net-compatible endpoint.
- Board the new gateway on your existing merchant account (or a new one if the pricing is bad anyway).
- Request the Payflow stored-profile and recurring export from PayPal; supply the receiving gateway’s encryption key.
- Import the vault, remap customer IDs, recreate recurring schedules timed after the last Payflow billing run.
- Live tests, cutover, then close Payflow.
Two to four weeks with stored cards. About a week without. The step-by-step in switching from Authorize.net applies to Payflow with the export request pointed at PayPal instead.
While you are moving
A migration is the one time re-pricing the processing costs nothing extra, because the account is being touched anyway. Send the statement with the migration request and we quote interchange-plus alongside the gateway. If your current acquirer’s pricing is good, we say so and leave it.