There certainly is, and if you've figured out how to create the subscription button in Paypal you should find that it's only the tiniest extra step to actaully grab a shorter URL that's suitable for email purposes.

Since most people reading this don't know how to create a Paypal subscription button, however, let's start where all good tutorials start: at the beginning. :-)

Log in to your Paypal account.

Tip: You'll need a merchant or premium account for this to work. Check on the Paypal site about upgrades if needed. It's free, just requires more verification...

Now, along the top tabs is one labeled "Merchant Services":

Look on the main page and among the many, many options you'll see a section labeled "Create Buttons":

As I have highlighted, click on "Subscribe".

Now you'll be at the button creator area in Paypal. It's pretty slick, with tons of flexibility, but that comes at the price of it being a bit complex, with many options. Take your time...

In this first section, give your subscription item a name, even if it's just "membership" or "subscription". You can pretty much ignore everything else.

Scroll down a bit...

For our purposes, I'd say you can skip all of these, but if you are building a button of some sort for your Web site, not a link for an email message, then experiment with these settings and what they you do.

Scrolling down yet further...

This is where it gets interesting. How much per billing? How frequently are you billing? What's the end date? Enter it all, double check that it's all accurate, and scroll down yet further...

Given that you need a merchant ID to create a subscribe button, I'm not sure how you can switch accounts, but my personal Paypal account is verified too, so perhaps that's why I have this option? Anyway, again, for what we're trying to accomplish you can safely ignore all of these options and just click on "Create Button".

Here's the code:

If you're working on a Web page, that's what you'd need to copy and paste into the source or HTML view of the page. But we're not, so click on the Email tab instead:

There we go! A nice, short URL that you can easily paste into an email message or even Tweet out or share on Facebook if you're so inclined.

Wondering what someone will see when they click on it? You can find out for yourself: click here to subscribe to my unnamed subscription for $125/month or you can just look at the following screenshot:

If you do actually subscribe, I'll probably eventually cancel your subscription. :-)