I assume if he wanted to go the authorize.net route he would have already done so. If the sandbox is your only problem with Paypal then stick with them. There

I assume if he wanted to go the authorize.net route he would have already done so. If the sandbox is your only problem with Paypal then stick with them. There aren't a lot of good alternatives out there. If time is critical, why not just test on a real account? The payments are small and it sounds like you should be able to accomplish what you are looking for without a ton of testing. You will lose money in fees, but that might be a small price to pay compared to going with a much more expensive or generally a crappy alternative.