Wheelchair repair
New push rims and a brake adjustment.
Paid straight to the shop, so it is not counted. Her January 2027 check stays $1,029.
$420
Goes straight to Riverside Mobility Repair.
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Help Maya
En españolMaya is 29 and lives on her own. She uses a wheelchair and is starting community college. Thank you for helping with these. Every gift on this page is paid straight to the shop or clinic, or to her ABLE account, so her SSI check stays the same. With love, Rosa (her mom)
Sample household for the demo. Names and shops are fictional.
For real, the ABLE share goes to her ABLE plan's own gift page, by a six-character Ugift code or the account's gifting link; in this sandbox it is a PayPal test account. How a Ugift code works (IAble)
Give any amount
Giftwise sends it here
- Riverside Mobility Repair (Wheelchair repair)$420
- Eastgate College Bookstore (Laptop for college)$80
Her January 2027 check (set by gifts in November)
Social Security sets each check from the income two months before, so a gift in November counts toward the January 2027 check.
It stays $1,029 with Giftwise, the full 2027 check.
As cash
$609
With Giftwise
$1,029
Nothing goes to her bank or to Giftwise.
You pay $500 in one PayPal payment. PayPal pays both directly, and Giftwise adds no fee.
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What Maya needs
Laptop for college
For her online classes this spring.
A gift used for tuition, books or school supplies is not counted. Her January 2027 check stays $1,029. Keep the receipts.
$649
Goes straight to Eastgate College Bookstore.
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Electric bill, this month
Utilities count as housing support, so this goes to her ABLE account and she pays the bill herself.
A gift to her ABLE account is not counted, and the first $100,000 in it does not count toward savings. Her January 2027 check stays $1,029.
$138
Goes straight to Maya's ABLE account.
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Therapy co-pay
Weekly physical therapy.
Paid straight to the shop, so it is not counted. Her January 2027 check stays $1,029.
$90
Goes straight to Northside Physical Therapy.
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The ABLE share, for real
PayPal settles the shops and clinics. The ABLE share goes through her ABLE plan's own gift page and is not settled by PayPal: ABLE plans take gifts through their own pages, so Giftwise hands the giver to the plan for that part. In this sandbox a PayPal test account stands in for Maya's plan. What the giver sees, step by step:
Giftwise works out the split.
The rules engine sends what counts as housing to her ABLE account and everything else to the shop, the same way it does here.
Maya's organizer shares her plan's gift code or link.
A Ugift plan gives each account a six-character code, shown like 1A2-B3C; plans such as ABLE United give each account its own gifting link.
The giver opens the plan's gift page.
With a Ugift code, the giver types it at UgiftABLE.com and the plan opens Maya's own gifting page; with a gifting link, the link opens it. The gift is paid there, by bank transfer or check, into her ABLE account.
The receipt names both.
The shops' lines carry PayPal capture ids; the ABLE line names the plan's page. Maya's check stays whole either way, and the ABLE deposit counts toward the plan's yearly limit, which Giftwise tracks across every giver.
The real-world path, shown as a sample; in this sandbox the ABLE share is a PayPal sandbox capture. How a Ugift code works (IAble) and Gifting links (ABLE United)
How this works for real
This demo runs in PayPal's sandbox. Here is what changes when real money moves, and the documents each answer comes from.
Does every shop need a PayPal account?
Yes, a PayPal business account, because PayPal pays the shop directly and Giftwise never holds the money. In this demo the shops are PayPal sandbox accounts. For real, Giftwise would send each new shop a PayPal sign-up link. The shop signs up, or links the business account it already has, in PayPal's own flow, and PayPal hands back the shop's merchant ID. Every order then names that merchant ID as the payee, so a gift can only go to a shop that finished PayPal's sign-up.
Partner Referrals API: POST /v2/customer/partner-referrals returns an action_url for the shop, and PayPal's return URL carries merchantIdInPayPal. Orders v2 then sets purchase_units[].payee.merchant_id in place of the sandbox email_address. This sandbox app's call returns 403 NOT_AUTHORIZED (November 8, 2026, scripts/partner-referrals-probe.ts): PayPal opens the API once it approves the platform as a partner.
Sources: PayPal Developer: Onboard sellers before payment (Partner Referrals API), PayPal Developer: Pay another account (the payee object), PayPal Developer: Multiparty platforms, including partner fees
What if the shop does not take PayPal?
Two routes still keep the check whole. If the person has an ABLE account and the need is a disability expense, which covers housing, education, transportation, health, assistive technology and more, the gift goes to the ABLE account and the person pays the shop from it. When an organization pays with PayPal Payouts, a shop without PayPal gets an email to claim the money. If nobody claims it within 30 days, PayPal returns it to the organization, not to the person, so it never becomes the person's income.
R-ABLE-01 routes the gift to the ABLE account (POMS SI 01130.740). Qualified disability expenses: IRC 529A(e)(5), listed in IRS Tax Tip 2022-112. Payouts: an item to an unregistered recipient stays UNCLAIMED and returns to the sender after 30 days.
Sources: IRS Tax Tip 2022-112, POMS SI 01130.740, PayPal Developer: Payouts payment processing (unclaimed payouts)
How does money get into an ABLE account?
Through the ABLE plan's own gift page. Anyone can give to an ABLE account. ABLEnow and IAble give each account owner a Ugift code to share; STABLE, CalABLE and ABLE United give each account its own gift link. In this demo the ABLE account is a PayPal sandbox account, so one checkout covers everything. For real, Giftwise would work out the ABLE amount the same way and send the giver to the plan's gift page for that part, while the shops are still paid through PayPal.
Ugift: the giver enters the code at UgiftABLE.com, then pays by electronic funds transfer or check. ABLEnow and ABLE United both list $20,000 a year from all sources for 2026, the limit the rules engine already flags (R-ABLE-01).
Sources: IAble: Give a gift with a Ugift code, ABLEnow: Contributions, STABLE: Gifting, ABLE United: Gifting, POMS SI 01130.740
When can an ABLE gift be spent?
Some plans wait before a gift can be taken out: STABLE and CalABLE hold gifts made through a gift page for 10 business days. So rent or utility help sent through an ABLE account works best about two weeks before the bill is due. Money taken out for housing should be paid out in the same month; kept into the next month, it counts toward the $2,000 savings limit.
STABLE and CalABLE gifting pages: gift contributions made through an online gifting page "will not be available for withdrawal for 10 business days." R-ABLE-02: POMS SI 01130.740 counts a housing distribution kept into the month after it is received as a resource.
Sources: STABLE: Gifting, CalABLE: Gifting, POMS SI 01130.740, POMS SI 01110.003
Who pays the fees?
The giver pays the gift amount and nothing more: PayPal charges US buyers no fee when no currency conversion is involved, and Ugift is free to use. The shop pays PayPal's usual fee for receiving a payment, as it would for any PayPal sale. This demo adds nothing on top. A platform on PayPal's partner program can add its own fee to each order, which the shop sees as partner commissions, so Giftwise could cover its costs without charging the giver or the person on SSI.
Partner fees are set per purchase unit in purchase_units[].payment_instruction.platform_fees on the Orders v2 create call. PayPal does not support platform fees for first-party integrations, so this needs the partner onboarding above.
Sources: PayPal: Consumer fees (buying in the US), PayPal: Merchant fees (receiving payments), IAble: Give a gift with a Ugift code, PayPal Developer: Multiparty platforms, including partner fees