Cancel Express Checkout Subscription

Audience: Low-code Engineers

Skill Prerequisites: Actions, Tokens, PayPal business account

Cancels a PayPal subscription (a recurring payments profile), so the user isn't billed again. You identify the subscription by its profile ID, which PayPal - Express Checkout returns when it creates the subscription.

A canceled subscription can't be restarted. The user has to subscribe again.

note

This action is part of the PayPal add-on (DnnSharp.PayPal). The add-on is installed separately and needs the PAYPAL feature in your license. If it isn't licensed, the action fails with a "not licensed" error. If you don't see the PayPal actions, the add-on isn't installed.

Typical Use Cases

• Let users cancel their own subscription from a button on their account page
• Cancel a subscription from an admin listing, for example after a refund
• Cancel a subscription when the user's account is closed

Don't use it to

• Refund a payment. Canceling only stops future billing.
• Cancel an Authorize.Net or Stripe subscription. It only works with PayPal subscriptions.

Related Actions

Action Name	Description
PayPal - Express Checkout	Creates the subscription and returns its profile ID. It explains the whole PayPal flow.
PayPal - Parse IPN Request	Reads the notification PayPal sends when a subscription is canceled.
Get Transaction Details	Reads the details of a single PayPal payment.

Input Parameter Reference

Parameter	Description	Supports Tokens	Default	Required
API Username	The API username of your PayPal account's classic API (NVP/SOAP) credentials. Use the sandbox credentials when Go Live is off.	Yes	empty string	Yes
API Password	The API password that goes with the username.	Yes	empty string	Yes
API Signature	The API signature that goes with the username.	Yes	empty string	Yes
Go Live	When on, the request goes to PayPal's live API. When off, it goes to the PayPal sandbox (api-3t.sandbox.paypal.com). Use the same setting as when the subscription was created.	Yes	false	No
Subscription Profile Id	The ID of the subscription to cancel, for example [PayPalProfileId].	Yes	empty string	Yes
Cancellation Note	Why the subscription is canceled. PayPal includes it in the cancellation email it sends to the user.	Yes	empty string	No

If the credentials or the profile ID are empty, the action fails with an error such as The ProfileId parameter is required.

Output Parameters Reference

Type a name without brackets, for example CancelErrorCode, and use it later as [CancelErrorCode].

Parameter	Description
Error Code Output Token Name0	0 when the subscription was canceled. Otherwise, PayPal's error code, or -1 if PayPal couldn't be reached.
Error Message Output Token Name	PayPal's error message, or empty when the subscription was canceled.

Considerations

• Check the error code. The action doesn't fail when PayPal refuses the cancellation, and it has no On Success or On Error lists. The actions after it always run, so give them a condition such as [CancelErrorCode] == "0".
• Check who's canceling. If users cancel their own subscription, read the profile ID from your database for the current user. Don't take it from a field or query string the user can change.
• Update your own records. PayPal stops billing, but your application doesn't know unless you save it, for example with Run SQL Query.
• Notifications. PayPal also sends an IPN with profile_status set to Cancelled. That can run the On Subscription Canceled list of PayPal - Express Checkout, within its 7-day limit.
• Keep the credentials out of the action. The API password is a password field, but the signature isn't, and both are stored with the action. Use tokens, for example from a setting.
• The action uses PayPal's classic NVP ManageRecurringPaymentsProfileStatus method with the action Cancel.

Examples

tip

To understand how to use the below examples, please see Running Examples.

1. Cancel the current user's subscription

These actions load the profile ID saved for the current user, cancel the subscription on PayPal and, if that worked, mark it as canceled. If PayPal refuses, the user sees PayPal's message. The credentials come from tokens.

[
    {
        "Title": "Run SQL Query",
        "ActionType": "RunSql",
        "Description": "Load the user's subscription",
        "Parameters": {
            "SqlQuery": "SELECT PayPalProfileId FROM Members WHERE UserId = @UserId",
            "BindTokens": [
                {
                    "name": "UserId",
                    "value": "[User:UserId]"
                }
            ],
            "OutputTokenName": "Member"
        }
    },
    {
        "Title": "Cancel Express Checkout Subscription",
        "ActionType": "PayPal.CancelExpressCheckoutSubscription",
        "Description": "Cancel the subscription on PayPal",
        "Condition": "[Member:PayPalProfileId] != \"\"",
        "Parameters": {
            "PayPalExpressId": "[PayPalApiUser]",
            "PayPalExpressPassword": "[PayPalApiPassword]",
            "PayPalExpressSignature": "[PayPalApiSignature]",
            "PayPalExpressLiveMode": true,
            "ProfileId": "[Member:PayPalProfileId]",
            "CancellationNote": "Canceled at your request from your account page.",
            "ErrorCodeTokenName": "CancelErrorCode",
            "ErrorMessageTokenName": "CancelErrorMessage"
        }
    },
    {
        "Title": "Run SQL Query",
        "ActionType": "RunSql",
        "Description": "Mark the subscription as canceled",
        "Condition": "[CancelErrorCode] == \"0\"",
        "Parameters": {
            "SqlQuery": "UPDATE Members SET ProfileStatus = 'Cancelled' WHERE UserId = @UserId",
            "BindTokens": [
                {
                    "name": "UserId",
                    "value": "[User:UserId]"
                }
            ]
        }
    },
    {
        "Title": "Display Error Message",
        "ActionType": "ShowError",
        "Description": "Show PayPal's error",
        "Condition": "[CancelErrorCode] != \"0\"",
        "Parameters": {
            "Message": "<p>We couldn't cancel your subscription: [CancelErrorMessage]</p>"
        }
    }
]

Revised 09/27/2026