PayPal lets buyers pay with their PayPal balance or a linked account. You connect your own PayPal business account, so the money lands there directly and you stay the seller. PayPal works next to Stripe or on its own, for one-time purchases and subscriptions.
Before you start
You need a PayPal business account and an app in the PayPal Developer dashboard. A personal account only shows sandbox credentials. In the workspace, connecting and disconnecting need Manage Integrations and Update Platform Settings. Without it you see the status of the connection but no buttons.
Connecting your account
Below the Stripe box on the payments overview sits the PayPal box. It has one row for Live and one for Sandbox, each with its own Connect button. Click Connect on the row you want, and the Connect PayPal form opens with the matching Mode already chosen.
The box Where to find your PayPal credentials walks you through it:
- Open the PayPal Developer dashboard and switch the toggle at the top to Live or Sandbox, matching the row.
- Under Apps & Credentials, open an existing app or create one of type Merchant.
- Copy the Client ID and reveal the secret, then paste both into Client ID and Client Secret.
Click Connect. The workspace checks the pair with PayPal right away. If PayPal rejects it, the message tells you which mode it expected. Sandbox and live credentials are not interchangeable, and mixing them up is the most common cause of a failed connection.
You can also connect from Settings > Integrations.
Connect the sandbox first and run a test purchase with a PayPal sandbox account. No real money moves.
The webhook
PayPal reports payments, renewals, cancellations and disputes to the workspace through a webhook. It is registered for you when you connect. A connected row then reads Ready, with the end of the Client ID and Webhook registered below it.
If the webhook is missing, the row reads Action needed and explains: "No webhook is registered, so payments would stay pending." Click Register webhook to set it up again. If PayPal no longer accepts the credentials, the row says so. Disconnect and connect again with a fresh pair.
Offering PayPal at checkout
Connecting alone does not show PayPal to buyers. Go to Payments > Settings > Payment methods, open the PayPal tab and switch on Enabled. The switch stays grayed out while no PayPal account is connected.
Buyers then see Pay with PayPal, are taken to PayPal to confirm and come straight back. For a subscription they approve the recurring payment once, and PayPal charges every period on its own.
Buyers only ever see your live PayPal account. The sandbox account is offered only in test mode. PayPal is not offered for event tickets, for a total of zero, when the product allows only other payment methods, for a payment plan with a coupon, or for a subscription with a setup fee when tax is added on top.
What PayPal does differently
A PayPal subscription runs on a fixed PayPal plan, so some things that work with Stripe do not work here:
- An order bump is offered with one-time purchases only, not with a PayPal subscription.
- Members cannot pause a PayPal subscription themselves. Your team can.
- Cancelling stops the billing at PayPal at once. Access stays until the end of the paid period. A cancellation cannot be taken back, the member subscribes again instead.
- Changing the plan, extending a trial or adding a coupon to a running PayPal subscription is not possible. Members manage the payment in their PayPal account under Automatic Payments.
- A subscription your team starts and charges needs Stripe, because PayPal wants the buyer's approval for every plan.
Refunds work from the workspace, including Refund remaining. Disputes on PayPal payments are handled in the PayPal Resolution Center, not in the workspace.
Disconnecting
Click Disconnect on a row and confirm Disconnect PayPal?. New PayPal payments stop immediately and PayPal disappears from the checkout. Past orders stay untouched.
Existing PayPal subscriptions keep charging at PayPal until you cancel them there. The workspace no longer hears about their renewals, so cancel them in PayPal or move the members to a new plan before you disconnect.