Use the steps below to connect a form on your website with PayPal Checkout. Visitors will be charged when they submit the form, and payments will be processed by PayPal.

FEATURE AVAILABILITY

The Form Builder is available for Grow and Amplify plan websites. Change your plan in the Account & Billing section of your website Dashboard.

Helpful Terminology

  • The payment processor is the service you use to charge people money online. This provider manages transactions and ensures that the funds end up in your account. The most common providers are Stripe, Authorize.Net and PayPal.
  • A feed on a form refers to that form’s connection with a third-party provider. For example, you might set up a feed to charge a visitor through PayPal for the amount they offered to donate. This feed is typically processed each time a visitor submits your form.
  • Conditional logic is used to determine the criteria in which a form’s feed is processed. For example, you may have two feeds on a donation form: one that processes a single donation and another that processes a recurring monthly donation. For the feed processing recurring payments, you would set up conditional logic to only process the feed when the donor selects the option to make a monthly gift.
  • The “Product” field type used in your form determines what the visitor is paying for and how much a visitor should be charged when they submit. A Product field can have a fixed price, such as for a t-shirt, or it can be a variable price that the visitor sets, such as a donation amount.
  • The “Sales” tab provides a convenient way to view specific results and will only appear for forms that accept payments, making tracking and managing payments easier.

Before You Begin

  • Follow the steps to connect your site to PayPal before attempting to configure a feed for a paid form.
  • Be sure your form contains a PayPal field. If not, you will see this notice before you can set up a feed.
Screenshot of the PayPal Checkout Feeds section with a notice that a PayPal field must be added to the form before a feed can be created.

If your organization uses a payment processor that isn’t PayPal, learn how to connect to other services.

Setting Up a PayPal Checkout Feed

  • While editing your paid form, hover over the Settings menu and click “PayPal Checkout” in the dropdown.
Screenshot highlighting the PayPal Checkout option within the form's settings.
  • Click the “Add New” button to create a new feed or edit an existing feed.
  • Enter a Name for the feed. You can set this name to something generic such as “PayPal Checkout Feed”, or if you end up having multiple feeds that only process under specific circumstances, we’d recommend naming it something more descriptive.
    • For example, you may end up with two feeds for a donation form: one to process one-time donations and another to process recurring donations. In that case, we’d recommend naming the feeds “One-Time Donation” and “Monthly Donation” to make sure it’s easy to tell the difference between the two.
  • Choose the Transaction Type.
    • If you plan to charge the visitor one time, choose “Products and Services” from the dropdown. 
    • If you plan to charge them on a recurring basis, such as monthly or yearly, choose “Subscription” from the dropdown.

Products & Services Settings

If you chose Products and Services as your transaction type, be sure to adjust the following settings.

  • Choose the Payment Amount you want to charge the submitter. We almost always recommend “Form Total”. This will combine the prices of all products selected by the individual filling out the form.
  • Leave the Authorize only box unchecked.

Subscription Settings

If you chose Subscription as your transaction type, be sure to adjust the following settings.

  • Choose the Recurring Amount you want to charge the submitter. We almost always recommend “Form Total”. This will combine the prices of all products selected by the individual filling out the form.
  • Adjust the Subscription Product Type if needed. In most cases, it should be set to “Digital.”
  • Set the Billing Cycle to determine how often the submitter should be charged. For example, to charge them quarterly, set the field to “3 month(s)”.
  • Check the box for Recurring Retry if you want to charge the submitter again after a payment fails.
  • Modify the Recurring Times field based on how many times the recurring payment should happen. This will almost always be set to “infinite”.
  • Leave the Setup Fee and Trial boxes unchecked. These options are rarely used and don’t require customization very often.

Other Settings

  • With a Products and Services transaction, you’ll see a section for Billing Information.
    • For each field listed, open the “Select a Field” dropdown and choose the corresponding field from your form.
    • Try to match up as many of your form fields as possible. If you don’t ask for a piece of information on your form, you can leave it set to “Select a Field”. 
    • Be careful to match the fields correctly. In some cases, forms will have two fields with very similar names. For example, a field called “Dedication Email” and one called “Email Address”. Make sure you select the correct one.
Screenshot of the Billing Information settings showing dropdown menus to match form fields to information required by PayPal.
  • For both types of transactions, you’ll see Options to prompt the buyer to include a shipping address. In most cases, you’ll want to check that box so they aren’t asked for this information.
    • If you need a shipping address for the submitter, we recommend asking for it in your form rather than through PayPal Checkout.

Conditional Logic

Both types of transactions allow for Conditional Logic, which means the feed will process if certain conditions are met.

To use this option, check the box to enable conditional logic and configure the conditions for the feed.

The example below allows the feed to process only when a submitter chooses “Monthly Donation” for the Donation Frequency field.

Screenshot of the Conditional Logic configuration for feed that processes monthly donations.

You can add multiple conditions using the plus (+) icon on the far right and choose to process the feed if “All” or “Any” of the conditions are true.

Finish Your Feed

  • Review your settings and click the blue “Save Settings” button at the bottom of the page to save your feed.
  • If you need to add another feed to the same form, start over and follow these steps again until all the necessary feeds are created. 
  • Most importantly, test your form to ensure payments are processed correctly for each feed you’ve created.

A Complete PayPal Checkout Feed Example

For reference, we’ve included a screenshot below of a PayPal Checkout feed. This feed processes only one-time donations on a typical donation form.

Screenshot of a complete PayPal Checkout One-Time Donation feed.

*This form doesn’t include a Billing Address field, which is why those fields in the Billing Information section are not filled in.

Still Have Questions?

The quickest way to get support is to reach out to us within your website’s admin dashboard. Log into your website and then fill out the Request Help form. You’ll hear back from us within one business day.