Sujata BajracharyaCurious to know how to set up a payment gateway in WordPress? Then, you’ve just entered the right place.
Unfortunately, the WordPress core doesn’t provide options to help you accept payments directly from your website. But there’s nothing to worry about as plenty of plugins and tools are available to help you with that.
Thus, in this article, we’ll be using different payment plugins like Everest Forms, User Registration, and more to show you how to add a payment gateway to WordPress websites.
Hence, keep reading!
Table of Contents
What are the Popular Payment Gateways for WordPress?
Before we begin, lets’ first briefly discuss the payment gateways available for WordPress.
To put it simply, payments gateways are the third-party services that you integrate on your site to let your customers securely pay for the products and services they purchase. So, they act as a bridge between your customers, your website, and the payment processor.
You can find numerous payment gateways for WordPress, and each of them comes with its own pros and cons. However, some of the globally accepted popular payment gateways that offer a secure platform for online transactions are listed below:
- PayPal: PayPal allows you to accept payments from 202 countries and in 25 different currencies. Best of all, it provides a broad range of payment methods and even protects your business from fraud with 24-hour account monitoring and advanced encryption.
- Stripe: Stripe is supported in 35+ countries and allows you to accept payments in 135+ currencies. It lets you accept recurring payments for subscriptions and other regular payments.
- Amazon Pay: Integrating Amazon Pay on your site lets your customers pay for your products/services via their Amazon account. It offers a safe and secure online transaction as everything is tracked in the Amazon account.
- Authorize.net: Easy, fast, and secured payment gateway Authorize.net also provides you with multiple payment methods. You can either accept credit card payments or payments via eCheck.
- Square: Square is suitable for businesses of any size or type to accept payments with anti-fraud and a layer of security. And, it offers a fast deposit meaning your fund will be transferred to your account within two business days.
Having said that, it’s time to know how to set up the payment gateways in the WordPress site now.
How to Set Up Payment Gateway in WordPress?
Here we’ve explained four different methods to accept payments online in WordPress. However, we’ll mainly focus on setting up two flexible and most popular payment gateways, i:e PayPal and Stripe in WordPress. So, let’s begin!
Method I. Using Everest Forms Plugin
Everest Forms is one of the best form builder plugins that lets you create amazing forms using its drag and drop feature. Be it a simple contact form, complex multi-step form, or a survey form, the Everest Forms plugin is a one-stop solution for all.
Similarly, it also allows you to build a payment form to accept different types of online payments (donations, registration fees, etc.) without any fuss. Curious to know how? Well, for that, you need to go through the simple steps below.
Step 1. Install and Activate Everest Forms and Everest Forms Pro
Before anything else, you need to install the plugin. For this, login to your WordPress dashboard and go to Plugins>>Add New.
This will redirect you to the Add Plugins page. Here, type Everest Forms in the plugin search box and click on the Install Now button once it’s displayed on the screen. After that, hit the Activate button to activate the plugin on your site.
With this, you’ve successfully installed the free version of Everest Forms. However, you need the Everest Forms Pro to accept payments online with a payment form.
You might ask why it is essential to install the free version then? That’s because Everest Forms Pro cannot function without installing the free version.
To purchase Everest Forms Pro, visit the official plugins page first. Then, choose a suitable plan that includes the PayPal Standard as we’ll require this addon to integrate the PayPal payment gateway later.
After purchasing the premium plugin, you can log in to your user account. Then, click on the Downloads tab from your accounts dashboard and download the Everest Forms Pro zip file on your computer.
Also, don’t forget to copy the license key from the License Keys tab.
Next, go to Plugins>>Add New similar as before and click on the Upload Plugin button from your WordPress dashboard.
Now, choose the zip file you’ve downloaded and click on the Install Now button. After that, activate the plugin.
Soon after the activation, you’ll be asked to enter the license key. So, paste the license key you copied before. That’s all.
Step 2. Install and Activate PayPal Standard Add-on
The next step is to install and activate the PayPal Standard add-on. So, go to the Everest Forms>>Add-ons, search for the PayPal Standard and hit the Install Addon button.
After that, click on the Activate button to activate the add-on on your site. With that, you’ve all the necessary equipment, i:e Everest Forms, Everest Forms Pro, and PayPal Standard, to set up a payment gateway in WordPress.
Step 3. Create a New Payment Form
Now, you need to create a new payment form. So, navigate to Everest Forms>>Add New.
On the Add New Form page, you’ll see several form templates plus an option to start from scratch. So, you can either choose a suitable form template and modify it as per your need or start from the ground.
Here, we’ll show you how to create a form from the start, so click on the Start From Scratch option.
A small pop-up window opens up, suggesting you give a name to your form. So, name it as per your convenience and hit Continue.
A form builder window opens up where you can easily drag and drop required form fields from the left to the blank space on the right.
The best part is that Everest Forms allows you to add unlimited fields to add as many form fields as you want.
Add Payment Fields
If you scroll down, you’ll see different payment fields: Single Item, Multiple Choice, Checkboxes, Quantity, and Total. As the name implies, these fields allow you to add single or multiple products, their prices, quantity, and totals to your form.
You can easily drag and drop the required payment field and click on the individual field to customize its settings
a. Single Item: It allows you to add a single product and display its default price. Clicking on this field takes you to the Field Options tab from where you can customize the label, description, plus add the item type description as follows:
- Pre Defined: Setting item type as pre-defined restricts users from changing the item’s price from the front-end.
- User Defined: Setting item type as user-defined allows users to change the item type from the front-end.
- Hidden: Choosing the input type as hidden hides the field when viewed from the front-end.
b. Multiple Choice: Adding this form field allows your users to choose an item from multiple product options. Further, you can customize this field to add labels and prices to each product. Not to mention, you can also enable image choices where you can upload images for your products.
c. Checkboxes: This field is quite similar to Multiple Choice, but it allows users to choose multiple items.
d. Quantity: It allows your users to set the desired quantity for the chosen products.
e. Total: It helps you display the total of all your payment’s field prices.
Once you finish adding the necessary form fields, do not forget to click on the SAVE button at the top.
Likewise, you can also set up the desired currency by navigating to the Everest Forms>>Settings and clicking on the Payments tab.
Step 4. Enable PayPal Payment and Configure Settings
After that, you need to enable PayPal as the payment option and configure some PayPal Standard settings.
So, go to Everest Forms>>All Forms and click on the Payment Form you created before.
Now, click on the Payments tab at the top and Enable Payment Standard. Then, enter the email address linked to your PayPal account in the PayPal Email Address field.
Likewise, select the required Mode. You can choose Sandbox mode for the testing purpose; otherwise, choose the Production mode. Next, you can select the Payment Type as Product & Service, or Donation. Besides, Cancel URL allows you to redirect the URL if the user cancels after redirecting to PayPal.
Not to mention, with the release of Everest Forms 1.4.9, now you can also apply conditional logic using the Conditional Logic add-on for the payment options too. We’ll be discussing it in detail in the next section.
Note: If you want to know about the conditional logic feature in detail, click here.
Step 5. Use Conditional Logic for PayPal (Allow Users to Choose between PayPal and Stripe)
Now, suppose you’ve purchased higher plans like Professional or Agency. In that case, you can also allow your users to choose between Paypal and Stripe payment using a conditional logic feature of Everest Forms. However, you need to ensure that you’ve installed and activated both the add-ons on your site.
Firstly, insert the Multiple Choice field to your form and add PayPal and Stripe payment options as shown in the image.
Next, click on the Payments tab at the top and ensure that you’ve enabled the PayPal payment gateway. Then, click on the PayPal Standard and Enable Conditional Logic feature as follows.
You can also enable conditional logic for the Stripe payment gateway similarly. But you need to set up the Stripe payment gateway with the Everest Forms first. For this, you can check out our documentation for the detailed process.
After that, users will be able to choose between Paypal and Stripe payment gateway.
Step 6. Add Payment Form to Your Site
Now that your payment form is ready, the only thing left is to add it to your site. You can add your payment form to your posts, pages, or anywhere you like. Here, we’ll show you how to add it to pages.
So firstly, copy the shortcode of your payment form at the top.
Then, navigate to Pages>>Add New from your dashboard.
Next, provide a suitable title to your form and paste the shortcode. Finally, hit the Publish button at the top.
Method II. Using User Registration Plugin
As the name implies, User Registration is a wonderful plugin that allows you to create stunning registration and login forms without any hassle. And with the integration of add-ons like PayPal or Stripe, this plugin also enables you to accept registration fees and other payments via forms.
Here, we’ll show you how to integrate payment gateway like PayPal in WordPress using the User Registration plugin. This method is super easy to accept payments online. All you have to do is follow the simple steps below.
Step 1. Install and Activate User Registration Pro
First, you need to purchase the premium User Registration plugin by visiting its official page. The PayPal Payment add-on is available in Plus and Professional plans. So, you can choose any one of them depending upon your need.
After completing the purchase, you need to log in to your WPEverest user account. Then, from your accounts dashboard, go to the Downloads tab and download the User Registration Pro. It’ll be downloaded as a zip file.
Also, don’t forget to copy the license key from the License keys tab, as you’ll require to enter it later in the steps.
Now, from your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins>>Add New and click on the Upload Plugin button as before.
Next, choose the zip file of the User Registration plugin and hit the Install Now button. Once the installation is complete, click on the Activate option to activate the plugin on your site.
Soon after that, you’re asked to enter the license key. So, paste the license key you copied before.
Besides, you’ll also notice the welcome message at the top with options to Install User Registration Pages. Clicking on the option automatically creates the My Account and Registration pages for your site.
Also, you need to enable the membership option so that your users can register to your WordPress site from the front-end.
For this, go to Settings>>General and scroll down to the Membership option. Now, checkmark the box to allow anyone to register. Also, don’t forget to click on the Save Changes button at the bottom once you’re done.
Step 2. Install and Activate Payments (PayPal) Add-on
After that, go to the User Registration>>Extensions and search for the PayPal Payment add-on. Once you find it, click on the Install Addon button and finally activate it on your site.
With that, you’re now all set to create a registration form with the payment fields for your site.
Step 3. Create a New Registration Form
User Registration also provides you with the default registration form. So, you can edit and modify the form as per your need and instantly add it to your site. However, here we’ll show you how to create it from the ground.
To create a registration form with payment fields, go to User Registration>>Add New.
Then, a form builder interface opens up. You can see that two essential default fields are already added to your form.
Now, you can begin your form-making journey by giving a proper name to your form. Here, we’ve named it the Registration Form. But you can always name it as per your need or convenience.
After that, you can add other necessary fields like First Name, Last Name, Username, Confirm Password, and so on. You can easily add these fields by dragging them from the left and dropping them to the right and you can also reorder the fields as per your need.
Add Payment Fields
As you scroll down, you’ll also see three different Payment Fields: Single Item, Multiple Choice, and Total. Thus, adding these fields to your form allows you to display your products/services and their prices on your form.
a. Single Item: It lets you display a single product item and its price. Further, you can configure the necessary settings by clicking on this field. For instance, you can change the label, description, make the field required, and even define the item type as follows:
- Pre Defined: If you set item type as pre-defined, users won’t be able to change the items’ price from the front-end.
- User Defined: If you set the item type as user-defined, users will be able to change the price for the item.
- Hidden: If you choose the item type as hidden, the field won’t be displayed in the front-end.
b. Multiple Choice: It lets you display multiple items and their relevant prices. Hence, users will be able to choose from multiple items.
c. Total: It shows the total price of items/products chosen by the users.
After adding the necessary form fields, click on the Create Form button at the top.
Also, if you want to change the currency, you can do that easily by going to User Registration>>Settings>>Payments. Then, you can choose the desired currency from the dropdown menus.
Step 4. Enable PayPal Payment and Configure Settings
The next step of our tutorial on how to set up a payment gateway in WordPress is to enable PayPal payment and configure the payment settings.
So, firstly navigate to User Registration>>User Registration, and click on the Registration Form you created before.
Then, go to Form Setting>>PayPal Standard and Enable the PayPal Payment option.
After that, enter the valid email address linked to your PayPal account and choose the required mode. You can select Test/Sandbox mode for testing or else select Production from the dropdown menus.
Next, choose the Payment Type and add the Cancel and Return URL. Cancel URL is the redirect URL if the user cancels after redirecting to PayPal. Return URL is the redirect URL after the completion of the payment process.
Similarly, you can also use the smart conditional logic to let users choose between PayPal and Stripe payments. We’ll discuss it in detail in the later section.
Step 5. Configure Login Options
You may not want to allow your users to log in until they complete the payment process. So, for this, you need to configure some settings.
First, navigate to the User Registration>>Settings>> General. Then, from the User login option, choose Payment before login.
Likewise, you can also customize the front-end Payment Messages for your registered users by navigating to User Registration>>Settings>>General>>Frontend Messages.
Since you’ve chosen the payment before login option, you’ll be notified about the pending and successful payments via email. You can customize your email settings by navigating to User Registration>>Settings>>Email.
Step 6. Use Conditional Logic for PayPal (Allow Users to Choose between PayPal and Stripe)
With this incredible WordPress registration payment plugin, you can also allow your users to choose between PayPal and Stripe payment gateways. For this, you must first ensure that you’ve activated both PayPal and Stripe add-ons to your site.
Next, you need to add the Radio Button field to your form and add PayPal and Stripe as options to choose from.
After that, go to the Form Setting and click on the Paypal Standard. Then, tick on the Use conditional logic option.
Similarly, you can also enable the conditional logic feature for Stripe once you configure the setup for the Stripe payment gateway. You can check out the detailed documentation for setting up the Stripe with the User Registration here.
Step 7. Add Registration Form To Your Site
Now that your registration form is ready, it’s time to add it to your site. So, copy the shortcode of your form first.
Then, navigate to the pages/posts and click Add New.
After that, give a title to your form and paste the shortcode. Finally, click on the Publish button at the top and make your form live.
Method III. Using Accept Stripe Payments Plugin
The third easy method to integrate the payment gateway in WordPress is by using the Accept Stripe Payments plugin. It allows you to accept payments online via the Stripe payment gateway.
Using this plugin, you can effortlessly add Buy Now buttons for your products/services. Also, you can add this button to posts, pages, or anywhere on your site using a simple shortcode.
And guess what? You can get this responsive plugin absolutely free from the official WordPress.org plugin page. So, here are the quick steps you need to follow to integrate this payment method on your site.
Step 1. Login to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Plugins>>Add New.
Step 2. Search for the plugin by typing the name in the search box, then click on the Install Now button once it displays.
Step 3. Activate the Stripe Payments plugin.
Step 4. Navigate to Stripe Payments>>Settings.
Step 5. Under the General Settings tab, configure the Global Settings. The plugin will automatically create the Checkout Result Page URL and Products Page URL for you. Besides, you can also choose Currency, Currency Symbol, Button Text, etc.
Step 6. Scroll down to add the Stripe Account Credentials. [Note: For this, you need to have a stripe account. If you don’t have one, you can create one from here free of cost.]
Step 7. You can also enable or disable Debug option. Once, you complete the settings, hit on the Save Changes button.
Step 8. After that, add your products by navigating to Stripe Payments>>Add New Product. From here, you can add the product’s title, description, price, etc.
Step 9. Now, go to Stripe Payments>>Products and copy the shortcode of the product.
Step 10. Finally, paste the shortcode to the desired pages or posts. If you look from the front-end, the Buy Button is added to your product as shown in the image below.
Now, whenever the users click on the Buy Now button, a payment form is displayed where they can enter their Name, Email, and Credit and debit card number.
Method IV. Using WooCommerce Plugin
The payment methods mentioned above are suitable if you’ve got limited products or services. But what if you want a full-fledged online store with a large number of products? That’s where the WooCommerce plugin comes into play.
WooCommerce is one of the most popular and flexible eCommerce plugins one can get. It’s a complete package for creating and managing online stores plus collecting payments online. Further, you can also enhance its functionality with several WooCommerce extensions.
So, here’s how you can use WooCommerce to accept payments online in WordPress.
Step 1. Go to Plugins>>Add New and type Woocommerce in the search box, then install and activate the plugin on your site.
Step 2. Configure the Setup Wizard.
Step 3. After completing the setup wizard configuration, navigate to WooCommerce>>Home and click on the Set up payments option.
Step 4. You can choose different payment gateways from the Set up payments tabs like WooCommerce payments, Stripe, and PayPal. Additionally, you can also enable options like Cash on delivery or set up Direct bank transfer.
Further, several extensions are available in the WooCommerce repository to help you integrate more payment gateways like Amazon Pay, Square, PayFast, Braintree, etc.
Wrapping Up!
We’ve mentioned four different methods to add payment gateways in WordPress. So, you can use any one of the methods to collect payment online according to your convenience.
If you’re still unsure, we recommend setting up a payment gateway using Everest Forms or User Registration. Both plugins let you easily accept donations, registration forms, or any type of payment via WordPress forms.
Further, using the smart conditional logic feature provided by the plugin, you can enable your users to choose between different payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe.
However, if you own an online store with many products, you can also go on with the WooCommerce plugin. After all, the final choice is always yours.
And that wraps up our article on how to set up a payment gateway in WordPress. If you liked what you read, make sure to share it with your friends too. Also, don’t forget to share your experience with us if you use any of the methods above.
Want to read more of our WordPress blogs? Then, you can also check out articles on making job application forms and donation forms.
