PayPal is an American financial technology company that runs an online payments system. It works as an electronic alternative to paper checks and money orders, and it processes payments for online sellers, auction sites and other businesses. Sellers pay a fee for each transaction.
History of PayPal
Creator: Max Levchin, Peter Thiel and Luke Nosek. Year: 1998.
In December 1998, Max Levchin, Peter Thiel and Luke Nosek founded the company. It was first named Fieldlink. It was renamed Confinity. Confinity made security software for hand-held devices. That business model did not succeed. Confinity then moved to a digital wallet. The first version of the PayPal payments system launched in 1999. In March 2000, Confinity merged with X.com. X.com was an online financial services company. Elon Musk and others founded X.com in March 1999. In October 2000, Peter Thiel replaced Musk as chief executive of X.com. X.com was renamed PayPal in June 2001.
PayPal listed on Nasdaq in 2002 through an initial public offering (IPO). The ticker is PYPL. eBay bought the company on October 3, 2002. The price was US$1.5 billion (US dollars) in eBay stock. By the end of 2007, the company had US$1.8 billion in revenue. In January 2008, PayPal bought Fraud Sciences for US$169 million. Fraud Sciences was a start-up based in Israel. It built online risk tools. By 2010, PayPal had over 100 million active user accounts. Those accounts were in 190 markets. eBay spun off PayPal to its shareholders in 2015.
PayPal has been a separate public company since 2015. Its brands include Venmo, Braintree, Xoom, Zettle, Honey and PayPal Credit. In 2025, the company reported US$33.2 billion in revenue. Its operating income was US$6.07 billion. It had 23,800 employees. John Donahoe is the chairman. Enrique Lores is the president and chief executive officer. The company ranked 143rd by revenue on the 2022 Fortune 500 list. That list covers large United States companies.
Changelog and latest update
In 2005, PayPal bought the VeriSign payment solution. The purchase added security support. In 2007, PayPal announced a partnership with MasterCard. The partnership led to the PayPal Secure Card. The card let customers pay on websites. Those websites did not accept PayPal directly. In November 2008, PayPal bought Bill Me Later. Bill Me Later is a company. It gives credit for online transactions. In July 2011, fourteen people linked to the Anonymous group were charged. The charges were over denial of service attacks against PayPal. Those attacks happened in December 2010.
The 2015 spin-off from eBay made PayPal a separate company. Since then, PayPal has added services through acquisitions and launches. The PayPal newsroom posts show recent changes. On September 21, 2026, the newsroom posted an update. The update covered its Small Business Impact Award program with Global Citizen. On September 30, 2026, it posted a holiday spending survey. Each post shows its date. Readers can match a feature to its release date.
Latest update: Venmo Credit Card cash back update, 2026-10-05
On October 5, 2026, the PayPal newsroom posted an update. The update says the Venmo Credit Card pays up to 4% cash back when users split costs with friends. Venmo is a PayPal subsidiary. This is the last dated item on the PayPal newsroom page. The page was read at the time of research. Each post lists its date. The post links to the full announcement.
Usage examples
PayPal offers a Buy Now button for single purchases. The button sends the buyer to a PayPal page. The buyer can pay with a PayPal account or with a guest card. The seller puts a form on a web page. The form posts the item name, price and seller account to PayPal. PayPal also has an application programming interface (API) for developers. It follows the REST style, short for Representational State Transfer. The API uses a client ID and a secret to create an access token. The token then creates orders and captures payments. Replace each placeholder, such as YOUR_EMAIL or YOUR_CLIENT_ID, with a real value from your PayPal account. Never publish a secret key in page code.
<form method=post
action=https://paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr>
<input type=hidden name=cmd value=_xclick>
<input type=hidden name=business value=YOUR_EMAIL>
<input type=hidden name=item_name value=Sample>
<input type=hidden name=amount value=10.00>
<input type=submit value="Buy Now">
</form>The form posts one item to PayPal at a fixed price of 10.00. The cmd value _xclick selects the Buy Now flow. The business value is the seller account email. PayPal credits the payment to that account. The submit input draws the button.
curl -s -X POST \
https://api-m.paypal.com/v1/oauth2/token \
-u "YOUR_CLIENT_ID:YOUR_SECRET" \
-d "grant_type=client_credentials"Requests an OAuth 2.0 access token with the client credentials grant. The -u option sends the client ID and secret as HTTP Basic authentication. OAuth 2.0 is a standard. It lets an app get a token without a user login. The reply holds the access_token value. Later calls use that value.
curl -s -X POST \
https://api-m.paypal.com/v2/checkout/orders \
-H "Authorization: Bearer TOKEN" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"intent": "CAPTURE",
"purchase_units": [{"amount":
{"currency_code": "USD", "value": "10.00"}}]}'Creates an order for 10.00 US dollars. It asks PayPal to capture the payment after buyer approval. TOKEN is the access_token value from the token call. It is sent as a bearer token. The intent value CAPTURE means the seller takes the funds once the buyer approves the order.
References
These sources are outside Websnoogie and were checked on 2026-10-12.
PayPal - Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Encyclopedia article on PayPal. It covers the 1998 founding as Confinity, the X.com merger, the 2002 IPO, the eBay ownership from 2002 to 2015, the 2015 spin-off and the financial results of 2025. Each claim links to a cited source.
PayPal Newsroom
PayPal
Official PayPal newsroom for company announcements. Each post carries its date, such as the October 5, 2026 post about the Venmo Credit Card cash back update. Use it to check the latest company news.
PayPal REST API authentication
PayPal Developer
Official PayPal developer guide to REST API authentication. It documents the client credentials flow, the token endpoint on api-m.paypal.com and the Basic authentication header used in the token request.
PayPal Checkout documentation
PayPal Developer
Official PayPal guide to adding checkout to a website. It covers the payment buttons, the order flow and the options for buyers who pay with a card without a PayPal account.
PayPal brand resources
PayPal
Official PayPal brand page. It links to the PayPal logo files, such as the color and monotone wordmarks, and the rules for using the PayPal name and marks on a website. The logo files are served from the PayPal static asset host, so a site can link to the official copy.
Pay buttons need a clear price
Many small businesses in Omaha and across Nebraska take PayPal on their websites. A PayPal button works only when the page around it names the product and the price. We check both on every page we build for you.
A shopper who clicks a button expects the amount on the checkout screen to match the page. We place the price right beside the button, in plain words, so nothing changes at the last step. If the price changes later, the words beside the button change with it. We also test each button on a phone, since many shoppers pay from one.
Some businesses move an older site and bring its payment page along. We move normal-size WordPress sites for free. Bigger sites carry a one-time charge of $199, and we give you that figure before any move starts.
Call 402-813-4034 between 7 am and 10 pm, every day, and list the products you sell. We will send back a clear plan and a price. If you want the full package, use the button below to see what it includes.
