PayPal makes it easy for website owners to accept payments online from their customers. It’s one of the most popular payment services, which is why a lot of readers ask us how they can accept PayPal payments on their WordPress site.
Luckily, you can easily integrate PayPal with WordPress using a plugin. However, it’s important to choose a plugin that ensures a smooth checkout process and enhances the overall user experience.
We run a lot of different online stores through WordPress, so we’ve already worked with plugins like WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, and WP Simple Pay before. Then, we investigated and tested more popular options to find the best PayPal plugins for all kinds of WordPress users.
In this article, we’ll share some of the best WordPress PayPal plugins to accept payments.
Why Use a PayPal Plugin for WordPress?
PayPal is arguably the most popular and trusted online payment gateway worldwide.
Whether you have an eCommerce store, a membership website, a blog, or another business site, PayPal lets you collect online payments from your customers.
Since PayPal handles the entire transaction, you don’t have to worry about security issues, getting a separate merchant processor for credit cards, or PCI compliance. All you have to do is add PayPal to your WordPress website.
A WordPress PayPal plugin makes the process of connecting your site with your PayPal account very easy.
It also helps you create payment collection forms, insert shopping carts, add a pay now button, offer express checkout solutions, and more.
That being said, let’s look at some of the best PayPal plugins for WordPress.
1. WPForms
WPForms is the most beginner-friendly contact form plugin for WordPress and is trusted by over 6 million professionals.
It offers a drag-and-drop online form builder that allows you to easily create contact forms, email subscription forms, order forms, payment forms, donation forms, and other types of online forms with just a few clicks.
The plugin offers pre-built form templates, which let you create any type of online form in no time. There are multiple form fields that you can add to customize your form using the drag-and-drop builder.
With the WPForms PayPal addon, you can easily accept payments, donations, and online orders from your WordPress website.
Once the addon is active, you can fill out your PayPal details in the form settings.
WPForms will then automatically direct users to PayPal when they submit a form.
WPForms is a perfect solution if you want to set up a quick online order form without creating a full eCommerce cart.
Note: There is a free version called WPForms Lite that you can use. However, it only allows you to accept Stripe payments.
2. MemberPress
MemberPress is the best WordPress membership plugin and is very easy to use. You can sell courses, offer digital downloads, and allow users to access posts, pages, videos, and other content after becoming a member.
It offers lots of features and comes with a drag-and-drop course builder. You can also control who can access what content by setting up different membership levels.
The plugin comes with built-in integration with PayPal. You can easily accept payments using PayPal Standard and PayPal Digital Goods.
There’s no need to manually add a PayPal payment gateway to your membership website. MemeberPress comes with PayPal gateway API keys.
Simply select PayPal as your payment method, and MemberPress will add it to your membership website.
3. Easy Digital Downloads
Easy Digital Downloads is the most popular WordPress eCommerce plugin for selling digital downloads in WordPress.
Whether you want to sell an eBook, music files, digital art, software, or any other type of digital goods, Easy Digital Downloads is the plugin for you.
It comes with integrations for PayPal Standard, PayPal Express, PayPal Pro, and even the new PayPal commerce platform.
Aside from PayPal, it also allows you to accept other payment solutions, including Stripe, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and more.
You can sell subscriptions, accept recurring payments, add discount codes, and set up a full shopping cart in just a few minutes.
4. Formidable Forms
Formidable Forms is an advanced WordPress forms plugin in the market. It lets you create complex forms without the need to hire a developer.
The plugin offers a drag-and-drop form builder, making it super easy to build all kinds of forms. For example, you can create simple contact forms, quizzes, surveys, payment forms, and more.
What makes Formidable Forms so powerful is that you can also build advanced forms like mortgage calculators, directories, job board listings, and much more.
Formidable Forms offers a PayPal addon, allowing you to collect online payments from visitors. You can also customize your PayPal settings, like selecting different currencies and setting a one-time or recurring payment type.
To get started, all you have to do is edit or create a new form in Formidable Forms and add PayPal as a new action in your form.
5. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a popular WordPress eCommerce plugin that allows you to accept payments using PayPal. You can add the PayPal payment method to your WooCommerce store in just a few clicks.
Along with PayPal, the plugin also integrates other WooCommerce payment options, including debit card, credit card, and pay upon invoice.
WooCommerce allows you to sell physical goods and subscriptions, integrate with shipping providers, collect taxes, handle inventory, and more.
It’s the most popular WordPress eCommerce plugin if you are planning to sell physical goods.
6. Quick PayPal Payments
Quick PayPal Payments is a simple but powerful plugin that lets you easily accept payments using PayPal.
The plugin is super easy to use. All you need to do is set up a payment form and add it anywhere on your site using a shortcode.
The plugin also provides different options to customize the appearance and styling of your payment form. Besides that, you get fixed and variable payment options, GDPR compliance, multi-language support, and more.
Quick PayPal Payments also offers a customizable autoresponder. When you enable this feature, the plugin will automatically send your customer a confirmation message about their payment.
7. Payment Button for PayPal
Payment Button for PayPal is a WordPress plugin that allows you to create buy now, add to cart, donation, and subscription buttons.
You can place these buttons anywhere on your WordPress blog or eCommerce store using a shortcode and enable PayPal checkout for your visitors.
Another advantage of using the PayPal Button plugin is that it allows you to test purchases using test buyers and seller accounts in PayPal Sandbox.
This way, you can make sure that the checkout process is working properly before accepting payments from real customers. This can help you avoid friction and improve your sales funnel.
Other features offered by the plugin include setting up recurring payments, selling in different currencies supported by PayPal, charging shipping and tax on your products, and much more.
8. Donations via PayPal
Donations via PayPal is a simple plugin with a shortcode and a ready-to-use PayPal WordPress widget that you can add to your WordPress sidebars.
It’s beginner-friendly, and you can configure the settings from your WordPress dashboard. Simply enter your PayPal email address and choose your currency to get started.
The plugin also offers different styles of PayPal donate buttons that you can use on your website. There is also an option to use your custom donation button.
9. WP Express Checkout
WP Express Checkout is the next WordPress PayPal plugin on our list. Like other plugins, it also lets you create a PayPal payment button for your WordPress website.
However, this plugin is different because it offers the checkout process in a popup window. This way, your customers never leave your website, allowing for quick and easy checkout.
The plugin works seamlessly for selling products and services. It’s great for anyone looking to collect online payments by offering downloadable content like PDFs, eBooks, or music.
WP Express Checkout automatically allows customers to download files once they’ve paid. You can also deliver digital downloads using an encrypted download link that expires automatically.
10. WordPress Simple PayPal Shopping Cart
WordPress Simple PayPal Shopping Cart provides an easy way to sell products/services on your website and accept payments using PayPal.
It adds a shopping cart system and allows users to add physical products and digital goods to their cart. On checkout, users can pay using PayPal.
You can use shortcodes to display the shopping cart on any post or page and turn your WordPress website into an online store.
Bonus: WP Charitable
WP Charitable is a full-featured fundraising and donation plugin for WordPress, used by over 10,000+ nonprofits to raise money online.
With Charitable, you can create your first fundraising campaign in less than 5 minutes and easily start accepting donations through PayPal. You can quickly create GDPR-ready donation forms and set up as many custom fundraising campaigns as you like.
It comes with powerful features like recurring donations, peer-to-peer fundraising, premium payment gateways, a donor management dashboard, integrations for popular email marketing services, and more.
We hope this article helped you find a PayPal WordPress plugin for accepting payments on your site. You may also want to check out our other guides that can be useful for your online store.
Best WordPress Guides for PayPal Payments
- How to Add a PayPal Payment Form in WordPress (Step by Step)
- PayPal Alternatives for Freelancers to Collect Payments
- How to Connect WordPress to PayPal Commerce
- How to Easily Accept Credit Card Payments on Your WordPress Site
- How to Set Up Installment Payments in WooCommerce
- How to Allow Users to Choose a Payment Method on WordPress Forms
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Dennis Muthomi
Great article on PayPal plugins for WordPress! I found the section on WPForms particularly helpful. As a small business owner, I’ve been using WPForms with the PayPal addon for my online order forms, and it’s been a game-changer.
Ahmed Omar
I am working on my site to add some products.
I would try your recommendations about paypal plugins
thank you
WPBeginner Support
You’re welcome
Admin
Robin M Buskirk
I have a form which is linked to the paypal account for payment via the standard paypal addon in WPforms. I want the customer to receive a receipt that they have made the payment, but I can’t find a way to do this.
WPBeginner Support
You may want to check with PayPal as that is who would normally send the receipt.
Admin
Scott Page
Great article! Just wanted to let you know “PayPal Payment” is no longer available. Maybe time for another round of PayPal plugin reviews?
WPBeginner Support
Thank you for letting us know, we’ll certainly take a look at alternatives
Admin
Dan Williams
So, are there no plugins that allow me to take the code from the hundreds of PayPal buttons that I’ve already created and use it on a WordPress Page and have the dropdowns work?
Why has no one written a conversion plugin that would take PayPal’s html button code and convert it to something WP can use?
Aziz
I need a PayPal Button let me add to my wordpress page after making price calculation to my services (Editing).
Could you help me with that ?
Greg
I have a customer who represents a nonprofit. She would like to sell tickets to charitable event and also have the option for the customer to give an additional donation on top of buying a ticket to the event. Is there a plug-in that with allow for the creation of a form for a ticket purchase and a variable donation all at once?
Thanks!
David Gordon
Please advise where to acquire the 8. PayPal Payment plugin?
peter
at airbnb, there is an option that customer’s deposit payment being charges when there’s damage condition.
looking to doing a group purchase website, when I refer to market player, customers click “commit price” to makes payment at paypal, but at paypal the payment not get charge immediately, which there’s a line at paypay payment page: your payment being processed later.
so when the group purchase quota reach, then the committed payment will be charge, or else the deal will be cancel.
any paypal plugin (website base is wordpress & woocommerce) with this “payment being processed later” plugin?
Ed Hobbs
Your site is a wealth of great info for all of us!!
I need a plugin for PayPal that allows me to collect a couple of more pieces of information from somebody joining our association such as spouse, who recommended you, etc. and have that returned to us. Was planning on using “Instructions to Seller” in PayPal to collect this but it looks like that is no longer available.
Am willing to add in code to make this work. Have Simple PayPal Shopping Cart installed and love it.
Any help will be appreciated. Thanks Ed
WPBeginner Support
Hi Ed,
Please checkout WPForms, it is a WordPress form builder plugin with a PayPal addon. You will be able to build a form and integrate it with PayPal.
Admin
hossein taherloo
Witch one is better for downloadable file?
and
Wich one support more Gateway s ?
Georg Schardt
I am trying to use WPForms in my site but I can not understand settings. Is anybody here who can help me in this?
WPBeginner Support
Hi Georg,
Please see our step by step guide on how to create a contact form in WordPress.
Admin
Mary Ann
Thank you for your post – very helpful
I have a WordPress website that I installed PayPal onto – I did a test and it appear to be working – only now I realized after a few orders have been placed the payment has not been sent to my bank accounts – in fact when I went into my PayPal account looking for transactions there are no transactions listed – yet on the my WordPress website it shows customers have ordered products – I was sent an email stating that a new customer order – I shipped the order thinking that the payment was processed- only it has not been – so, customers has received their product & yet not paid for
Where do I start on the WordPress site to getting the processing working – ( in my business PayPal account a bank is listed and when you do place an order it takes your credit card and appears to process it) thank you for any help
WPBeginner Support
Hi Mary Ann,
Are you using a WordPress plugin or eCommerce platform to accept payments through PayPal? If so, can you please check that the plugin or payment settings is not in sandbox mode. PayPal’s API allows developers and site owners to test their applications using the sandbox mode. In this mode, transactions are not processed but your plugin will show that they did because it is in testing mode and was able to pass the test.
Admin
Gordon P
I am developing a WordPress website for a high school baseball team. I need a plug in to help manage player fees paid online and the accounting to be displayed on a secure webpage of each players account as payment are made (ie balances, amount owed. etc.). I know this page is directed towards payment gateways and plug ins but any additional input related to my needs is appreciated.
Susi
i am trying to take paypal off that someone installed as its going into someones elses bank account How do i take it off my web site Its a word press web site Where do I look to take it off ?
WPBeginner Support
Depends on where the paypal button or payment option appears on your site. You can start by disabling plugins one by one. Until the payment option is gone. If that doesn’t work then try editing posts or pages where the button appears. Lastly, look in Appearance » Widgets to see if there is a widget with paypal button code.
Admin
Andrew binks
I am trying to set up a recurring payment/ subscription button. The only code available on PayPal is to copy and paste to a website, but I understand the email html code is the correct one. Nothing enables this on the PayPal site. Is there a plugin for this feature? Cheers!
warren
I am looking for a way to take payments, recurring monthly payments and be able to up sell on the checkout page as well as integrate with Aweber to capture the email details and add it to a list.
I am unsure which plugin to use is there one which does all?
Carole
Love your articles! So clear and easy to follow. Thanks!
WPBeginner Support
Glad you find them helpful.
Admin
John
Hi, does anyone know of a WP button that allows you to add postage costs to it please? I can only find ones that you put with the price of the article but not with a field for the postage costs.
I also have only one item to sell not multiples. Thanks in advance for any help or advice.
abdel
Can I add paypal to any wordpress theme?
rani
yes ofcourse
Mar
Can you utilize both with PayPal – WooCommerce and Gravity forms on the same WP site. WooCommerce of course allows for more for visual presentation but gravity forms offers a different avenue of approach for conversion as well. Any insights or thoughts on this would be much appreciated. Thanks.
Mario
I have the same issue, how can I use the Australia post codes have different shipping rates?
Elaine Maul
Thank you for this post. It is really useful as I’ve just started trying to research Shopping Carts that work wih WordPress.
I do have a problem though that is probably more of an issue for someone (like me!) from the UK. If you are in the USA, Paypal has settings that allow you to set up local postage and international postage. However, for users of Paypal in the UK (for reasons that I can’t fathom?) don’t have access to this.
So ….. as someone in the UK, I need a plugin that itself allows me to set postage for local/international (and ideally weight!!!) before linking to Paypal to carry out the actual transaction. Does anyone have any recommendations? Thank you.
Clare
Elaine, did you ever find a solution? I have the exact same issue.