How to Set up PayPal for WooCommerce Stores

Digital commerce is made possible by online payment gateways. If this component works smoothly, the rest of the issues can be easily solved.

The good part is that the number of reliable payment gateways is small enough to make it easier for you to choose your preferred payment gateway. If you are new to WooCommerce or similar platforms, experts suggest you stick to PayPal for two simple reasons: it works and works great almost everywhere.

In this article, I will show you how you can integrate PayPal with WooCommerce and simplify payment processes for your customers.

Let’s get started!

• Why Use Paypal Payment Gateway
• Features & Benefits Using PayPal
• PayPal Sandbox Account
• WooCommerce & PayPal Integration
• Popular PayPal Plugins/Extensions
  • WooCommerce PayPal Powered by Braintree Payment Gateway
  • WooCommerce PayPal Checkout Payment Gateway
  • PayPal Plus for WooCommerce
  • PayPal Buy Now Button
• Host WooCommerce on Cloudways Server
• Integrate PayPal With WooCommerce
• Configure your Settings
• Final Thoughts

Why Use PayPal Payment Gateway?

As a WooCommerce store owner, you can choose several popular industry-leading payment gateways, including Stripe, Skrill, PayPal, and many more. So why PayPal?

According to the official stats, around 19 million merchants rely on PayPal to build, run, and grow their businesses. Customers worldwide trust PayPal with their financial information, such as credit card details and banking information.

Features & Benefits of Using PayPal

• PayPal is safe and free!
• Easy onboarding with WooCommerce
• Easy installation and integration
• A simple guide on connecting PayPal with the WooCommerce store
• PayPal handles security

PayPal Sandbox Account

Very often, it happens that the WooCommerce store is up and running with the inventory uploaded and all the extensions in place along with the payment gateway but you haven’t tested it yet because there is no way of doing it other than carrying out an actual transaction.

PayPal provides a PayPal Sandbox Account that is a safe and isolated environment for testing gateway operations and ensuring that everything is working as intended.

In this article, I will take you through the process of setting up a PayPal Sandbox account and integrating it with your WooCommerce store.

Login to the PayPal Developer Website

To set up the Sandbox Account, go to the PayPal developer website. In the top-right section, click the Login into Dashboard button.

On the next screen, you can either set up a new PayPal account (click the signup button) or login to an existing one with the associated email address or phone.

For the purpose of this article, I will set up PayPal for WooCommerce. When creating a new account, you have the choice of opting for either a Business or a Personal account.

• Personal Account is good for end users who want to use PayPal for online shopping and similar activities.
• Business Account is ideal for merchants who want to integrate PayPal as a payment gateway for their stores.

To create a sandbox test account, click Create Account and select either a Business or Personal account and Country location.

Since I am demonstrating WooCommerce PayPal integration, I will opt for a PayPal Business account.

Next, enter your email address, and click the Create button.

That’s it. You have successfully created your PayPal sandbox account.

The next major step is to connect PayPal to the WooCommerce store.

WooCommerce & PayPal Integration

With a fresh WooCommerce installation, the default payment options are:

• Direct Bank Transfer
• Check Payments
• Cash on Delivery
• PayPal Standard

The first three options are offline but the PayPal Standard is a standard digital option used by numerous online stores around the world.

Managing the PayPal related operations on the WooCommerce stores, you can use one of the several popular and highly functional PayPal for WooCommerce extensions that add great value to your WooCommerce store.

Before going deeper into how PayPal Standard adds value to the store, it is a good idea to go over some of the popular PayPal extensions. Note that the following list reflects my opinion. If I have missed out on your favorite extension, do mention it in the comments.

Popular PayPal WooCommerce Plugins/Extensions

• WooCommerce PayPal Powered by Braintree Payment Gateway
• WooCommerce PayPal Checkout Payment Gateway
• Angell EYE-PayPal for WooCommerce
• WP Easy PayPal Payment Accept

WooCommerce PayPal Powered by Braintree Payment Gateway

This WooCommerce PayPal plugin/extension is powered by Braintree. It simplifies the store payment processes so users can pay for their purchases through debit cards, credit cards, and PayPal funds.

Features

Some of the most important features of this plugin are:

• This plugin support subscriptions & pre-order plugins
• You can add multiple merchant IDs to support multi-currency when used with a currency switcher
• It can support 3D Secure (with an enabled Braintree account)
• Supports Braintree Advanced Fraud tools and Kount Direct (if enabled)

WooCommerce PayPal Checkout Payment Gateway

This is the official WooCommerce PayPal Checkout plugin with over 800,000 active installations. Security is the strong suit of this plugin. Since this is an official plugin, WooCommerce PayPal setup is very easy and straightforward.

PayPal Plus for WooCommerce

PayPal plus for WooCommerce is another great extension that allows smooth integration of all PayPal Plus payment methods (PayPal, credit card, direct debit and pay-upon-invoice)  into your WooCommerce stores.

Features

This plugin has a host of features including:

• Set up faster payments with the Express Checkout button
• The PayPal checkout is fully responsive and very user-friendly

PayPal Buy Now Button

This plugin allows your users to pay for products and services by using the PayPal Buy Now button. You can place this button anywhere on your store to customize your payment processing flows.

Features

In addition to standard features, the plugin offers:

• The process of creating the buy button is simple: just fill the name and price, and the button is ready for deployment.
• Four different PayPal button designs and sizes available
• Apply a fixed discount and per item discount rate

All the above-mentioned extensions work well in their role. For the purpose of this article, I will show you how to host a WooCommerce application and I will go with the default WooCommerce PayPal option to walk you through the WooComerce PayPal integration process.

Host WooCommerce on Cloudways Server

If you are a new user then you need to sign up for Cloudways.

Want to Test Your Changes on Free Staging URLs?

Try Cloudways managed WooCommerce hosting for a hassle-free experience.

Start Free

Next, verify your account and complete the signup process. Once it’s done, you will see a Launch button that will let you launch your server and host your WooCommerce store on a cloud server.

Next, click on the Launch button and choose WooCommerce from the Application drop-down list and fill the application & server name field.

Select your server type, server size, and server location for your WooCommerce store. Please note that for the smooth performance, the recommended server size for the production WooCommerce store is 4 GB or higher. 1 GB or 2 GB can be used for staging or testing purposes.

Next, click on “Launch” and in a few minutes, your WooCommerce store is ready. Then, go to your application and login to your WordPress Dashboard.

Integrate PayPal With WooCommerce

Cloudways is a varnish compatible WooCommerce hosting platform with smooth performance and high security. As a result, your visitors have a great experience at your store.

Now, it’s time to Install a WooCommerce PayPal Payment plugin to your WooCommerce site. So, go to Plugins > Add New > search for WooCommerce PayPal Payments and click Install & Activate.

Now, navigate to WooCommerce > Settings > Payments. Enable the PayPal option and click the Manage button.

Configure your Settings

Once you click on the PayPal toggle button, a new tab will be displayed on your screen to activate PayPal as an all-in-one checkout solution. Under the settings, you can see some of the options which you now need to configure.

Under the settings, you can see some of the options which you can select for PayPal configuration. Simply scroll down and click on “Test Payment With PayPal Sandbox”.

Now, you need a Sandbox email account and password to connect your PayPal.

I have already created a Sandbox account earlier, so, go back to PayPal Sandbox accounts and click the icon under the Manage Accounts and click View/Edit account to check your email and password.

Copy your Sandbox email & password and paste it to connect your PayPal with WooCommerce.

Allow your PayPal to connect with your WooCommerce store. Click Agree and Connect.

Then, select Use existing business account and click Next.

After that, add your business details and click Next.

When the setup process has been completed then you will see the following message, which means you have successfully configured PayPal for your WooCommerce store.

Now, go back to your WooCommerce store and check the Payment section where you will see your store is connected with the PayPal Sanbox Account. From this section, you can set the WooCommerce PayPal settings like PayPal Checkout Settings, Customize the appearance of PayPal Checkout, Displays Pay Later messaging, and more.

PayPal Configuration

Let’s discuss the configurations of the PayPal settings. Here, you can see some options that you can edit and customize it your own way.

• PayPal Checkout Settings
• Checkout
• Single Product Page
• Cart
• Mini Cart

PayPal Checkout Settings

From this section, you can change the PayPal checkout settings like Title, Description, and more.

Title: Add the title you want to show to your customer during the checkout page.

Description: Add the description you want to display on your checkout.

Intent: There are two options; Capture and Authorize. The capture option is for immediate payment and the Authorize option for authorization of a payment after order creation.

Instant Payments: Enable the instant payment transfer through this checkbox if you like.

Brand Name: Add the brand name you want to display in the PayPal process.

Landing Page: Here, you have two options; Login and Billing page.

Hide Funding Source(s): You can use the option to hide your funding sources for Credit Cards, Venmo, and other payment methods. By default, all funding options will be displayed.

Vaulting: Enabling this option will let users save their payment (PayPal and Credit Card) accounts.

Logging: This option will help you track unexpected behaviour.

Invoice Prefix: Add the unique identify prefix that identifies the online orders.

Checkout

This section settings will let you change and customize the display/styling of your PayPal checkout on the checkout page.

Enable buttons on Checkout: It allows you to enable the buttons on the checkout.

Button Layout: This option lets you set the button layout through two options: Vertical and Horizontal.

Tagline: The tagline is only for the horizontal layout.

Button Label: You have multiple options to display the label on your PayPal button like PayPal, PayPal Checkout, Pay with PayPal, and more.

Color: Set the background color of your button.

Shape: Select the shape of your button.

Single Product Page

This is a single product page section where you can customize its styling and design.

The single product page consists of the same fields and styling option as the Checkout section.

Cart

This section is for the cart page and from here, you can customize its checkout design and appearance.

The cart product page has the same fields and styling option as the Checkout section.

Mini Cart

This section is for the PayPal checkout on the mini cart.

The Mini Cart section has the same fields and styling option like the Checkout section. But here, the field “Button Height” lets you change the height.

Final Thoughts!

That’s all folks. I hope by now you have a clear understanding of how PayPal for WooCommerce integration works and how you can set it up on your WooCommerce stores. If you have any queries regarding this tutorial feel free to mention them via the comment section below.