need explanation for PayPal recurring options: BILLINGPERIOD, BILLINGFREQUENCY, TOTALBILLINGCYCLES

https://developer.paypal.com/docs/classic/express-checkout/integration-guide/ECRecurringPayments/

I understand that setting BILLINGPERIOD to MONTH and BILLINGFREQUENCY to 1 will charge the user once a month.

But according to the above link, TOTALBILLINGCYCLES is optional and is set to 0 by default. So if I don't include that option, will the user be charged once a month forever or stopped after charging for the first year (12 times)?

Also, I want to charge the user for the first year only. What should i do? Should i set TOTALBILLINGCYCLES to 1 to achieve it?

Please advise.

Thanks

Solution

Please find TOTALBILLINGCYCLES in the link below: https://developer.paypal.com/webapps/developer/docs/classic/api/merchant/CreateRecurringPaymentsProfile_API_Operation_NVP/ For the regular payment period, if no value is specified or the value is 0, the regular payment period continues until the profile is canceled or deactivated.

If you want to charge the user for the first year only, TOTALBILLINGCYCLES depends on your billing period. If you set BILLINGPERIOD=Month and BILLINGFREQUENCY=1, you should set TOTALBILLINGCYCLES=12 to charge one year. If you set BILLINGPERIOD=Year and BILLINGFREQUENCY=1, you should set TOTALBILLINGCYCLES=1 to charge one year.