[WooCommerce] PayPal Checkout (formerly PayPal Express Checkout)

Required for this integration:

  • A PayPal Business account.
  • WooCommerce PayPal Checkout plugin download here and a working PayPal checkout (learn more here). 

    • Important: The new PayPal Payments plugin is not currently supported by Autoship Cloud. Please do not attempt to replace WooCommerce PayPal Checkout Gateway with WooCommerce PayPal Payments.

  • Reference Transactions must be enabled for both Production and Sandbox (testing) accounts.
  • PayPal Mark (Checkout from the checkout page) - This feature tokenizes payments in a way that allows Autoship Cloud to create future orders and must be enabled!
  • The PayPal Standard payment method must be disabled in WooCommerce > Settings > Payments.  Only the supported PayPal Checkout plugin works with the Reference Transactions.

Unsupported Settings & Features:

  • Checkout from Cart Page: This setting will bypass completing an Autoship Checkout.
  • Checkout from Product Page: This setting will also bypass completing an Autoship Checkout.
  • PayPal Credit: PayPal Credit does not support recurring billing.
  • Adding payment methods via My Account > Payment Methods: The PayPal Checkout plugin does not provide a way for customers to add a PayPal payment in My Account.  Customers must complete a Billing Agreement after selecting PayPal as their payment method at Checkout.

Adding PayPal Checkout to Autoship Cloud

Use the PayPal Sandbox API Password and Signature entered into WooCommerce above and follow the steps in outlined in our doc here to start testing quickly. 

You are now ready to test  Checkout and Scheduled Orders with Autoship Cloud.

Placing a Test Order as a Test PayPal Customer

Create a test customer in PayPal

PayPal test accounts can only be created in a PayPal Developer Account.  

PayPal Developer accounts are free to register, and PayPal provides detailed steps to guide you through the creation of Test PayPal Customer account here.

Once you have created a Test PayPal Customer, you will be able to place a test order on your site by adding at least 1 product scheduled for Autoship to your cart and selecting PayPal as your payment method at checkout.

Use the Test PayPal Customer account that you created in your PayPal Developer account to test placing an order as a customer via PayPal Checkout and save PayPal as your payment method for Scheduled Orders.

Placing your test order via PayPal Checkout:

1. Visit your store as a customer (make sure you are not logged in as the WordPress Admin).

2. Add at least 1 item scheduled for Autoship to your Cart.

3. Complete a checkout using PayPal Checkout as your payment method.

4. Verify that the order has successfully processed. 

5. As the same customer, visit My Account > Scheduled Orders, and verify that you have an upcoming Scheduled Order that includes your scheduled item(s) and PayPal as your payment method.

6. Log back into your site's WordPress Admin and navigate to Autoship Cloud > Scheduled Orders to review your new Scheduled Order.

Going Live

Once you have successfully completed a test checkout and verified that a Scheduled Order was created with your Test PayPal Customer account, you are ready to enter Live Mode (in which actual payments and Billing Agreements will be created with your PayPal Business Account). 

Switching PayPal from Sandbox (Test) to Live:

1. Login to your PayPal Business account ( https://www.paypal.com/us/home )

2. Navigate to WP-Admin > WooCommerce > Settings > Payments > PayPal Checkout, and change the setting for Environment from "Sandbox" to "Live". 

3. Enter the API credentials from your PayPal Business account and select "Save changes".

4. Navigate to WP-Admin > Autoship Cloud > Payment Integrations and select the "edit" button (blue circle with a "pencil" icon) next to the PayPal integration. 

5. Replace the Sandbox (Test) API credentials with the API credentials from your PayPal Business account (the same settings used to configure the PayPal Checkout plugin), and disable the "Test Mode" checkbox.

6. Select "Save" to confirm your changes.

Pro-Tip! Use your own PayPal Customer account (or create a new one at PayPal.com) to place a real order as a customer on your own store.  You can set up a coupon for yourself so that you only pay a small amount or simply refund the order after you are sure that everything is working as expected!