The PayPal Standard add-on provides secure payment processing capabilities for your WordPress forms, enabling users to complete transactions through their PayPal accounts. This integration offers a trusted payment gateway that supports both one-time payments and recurring subscriptions.

Prerequisites: 
- Everest Forms Pro.
- PayPal Account for processing payments.

What’s New in Recent Versions? #

Here’s a sneak peek at our recent improvement for PayPal:

In version 1.4.9, Everest Forms deprecated the previous Payment Field named Payment Options. Users could leverage Conditional Logic to dynamically select between payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe during form submission.

With the release of Everest Forms v1.8.1, a new field – Subscription Plan is available under the Payment Field. It enables the admin to configure subscription plans directly through form settings. With this update, you can also add a trial period to your subscription plan.

Installation #

1. Purchase the Everest Forms Pro plugin from WPEverest.
2. Access your WPEverest account dashboard.
3. Download both the main plugin and PayPal Standard add-on files.
4. Go back to your WordPress dashboard > Plugins > Add Plugins > Upload Plugin.
   Now, upload the Everest Forms Pro zip file, click “Install Now,” and then Activate.
5. Repeat the process for the PayPal Standard addon file. Else, you can also navigate to Everest Forms > Add-ons and search for PayPal. Next, toggle to enable the add-on.

For a detailed guide, read our documentation on how to install and activate Everest Forms Pro. 

PayPal Global Settings #

The Global PayPal Settings allow you to configure PayPal parameters once and apply them to all forms, eliminating the need to set up PayPal credentials for each form. After you enable the plugin, you can click on the settings icon to access the settings:

Else, navigate to the global PayPal configuration through your WordPress admin:

1. Go to Everest Forms > Settings.
2. Select Payments from the settings menu.
3. Locate the PayPal Settings section.

Configure PayPal Settings through Global Payments Settings #

You can now configure the global settings for PayPal from here:

• Currency: Set the default currency for all PayPal transactions

Under the PayPal Settings, configure all the details related to your PayPal account:

• PayPal Email Address: Enter your primary PayPal business account email. This email will receive all payment notifications across your site and must be registered with PayPal.
• Mode: Choose between Production and Sandbox mode.
  Production mode is used for live transactions involving real money, while sandbox mode is used for testing and development purposes.
• Payment Type: Choose between Product & Service and Donation Payments.
  Product & Service is suitable for selling products, services, or digital downloads and provides a standard PayPal checkout experience. On the other hand, Donation Payment is optimized for charitable organizations and fundraising.
• Cancel URL: Define the location to which users are redirected if they cancel the PayPal payment. So add the URL to your homepage, customer support, or anything that you feel is suitable.

Click on the Save Changes once you have completed configuring global settings for PayPal.

PayPal Standard Settings in Individual Form #

To override the Global setting in the form, open the form where you want to add an individual setting. On the top, you’ll see the Payments tab; click on it. Now, toggle the Enable PayPal Standard, and you’ll see more settings required for PayPal:

From here, you can disable the Global PayPal settings for the form. Similar to the global settings, next, you can configure the PayPal:

• PayPal Email Address: The email address of the payment receiver.
• Mode: Sandbox or production mode. Sandbox mode for testing purposes.
• Payment Type: Products and Services or donation. The type of payment.
• Cancel URL: The Redirect URL if the user cancels after redirecting to PayPal.

Enable Conditional Logic: If you also use the Conditional Logic add-on, you can use it to provide a payment option between the PayPal and Stripe add-ons.

Find all the documentation related to Conditional Logic from here. 

Similarly, you can enable a recurring subscription.

Subscriptions

To charge users periodically, you can enable recurring payments on the registration form, and then the users will be regularly charged.

To do so, enable Recurring Subscription on PayPal.

• Plan Name: Give your recurring plan a name.
• Customer Email: Select the Email field that your user will fill in during the form submission.

Get more information on Subscription Plans from here. Save the changes after you’re done.

More on Setup and Configuration #

Let’s proceed with setting up the payment fields on your form.

Payment Fields #

If you haven’t added any payment-related fields to your form, you’ll get multiple fields under the Payment Fields.

Single Item

Start by dragging a single item and the total payment field.

Single item Settings:

Item Price: Set the default price to the item

The item type description:

• Pre-Defined: If set predefined, users won’t be allowed to change the item price later in the frontend.
• User Defined: If set user-defined, users can change the item price from the frontend ( suitable for donation type ).
• Hidden: If the single item input type is hidden, It will not be displayed on the front and the price set on the item price will be the product’s price.

Multiple Choice

With the multiple items fields, you can provide options for the user to select the option. You can set each item’s price as shown in the figure below.

Quantity

This field can be assigned to a single item or multiple-choice field and it maps the quantity entered by the users.

Checkbox

With the checkbox field, you can allow the users to select two or more options. The item’s price can be set as below.

Total

The total field helps you to display the total of all payment fields’ prices.

Frontend View:

Subscription Plan on Form #

The Subscription Plan field allows you to add multiple plans for your product or services so that users can choose the preferred services.

You can add the Subscription Plan field to your form only when you enable recurring payment on your form.

To do this, enable recurring subscription payments on PayPal.

Now, drag and drop the Subscription Plan field into your form. The subscription plan field has three choices by default.

You can edit them by clicking on the field. As you click on the subscription plan field, you will see the Field Options tab on the left side with all the required settings.

You can also easily change the label of the plan options. To add or delete the plans, click on the Plus (+) and Cross(x) signs, respectively. Similarly, you can change pricing details by entering new pricing information into the field.

Recurring Details: Select the frequency at which the next transaction will be done. Also, you can select intervals between the recurring payment, i.e., 15 days, 5 weeks, 6 months, and so on.

If you want to display the form by pre-selecting one of the choices, click on the circular checkbox, like in the image below. 

You can also add an image to let user glance at your product or services. To do so, enable the option Use image choices and add images to each plan.

Add a Trial Period to Your Subscription Form #

You can also enable trial period on your plan from here. To do so, toggle the Enable Trial Period and set the trial period details. You can set days, weeks, months or years for trial.

Similarly, you can add an expiration date to your subscription plan to inform users about their subscription’s expiration.

You’ll see Enable Expiry Date below the Enable Trial Period option. Toggle it to enable the option.

Now, a calendar pops up that allows you to set the expiration date.  

Subscription Plan Advanced Options #

The advanced options let you modify the layout of the subscription plan. You can change the design of the subscription plan by dividing it into multiple columns or showing them in a single row (inline)

Similarly, you can hide the label in the field.

Next, adding CSS Classes and enabling/disabling Conditional Logic is also possible in the subscription plan field.

Don’t forget to save the changes after you have completed the settings.

How to add PayPal as a payment method with Stripe? #

If you have both the Paypal standard and the Stripe addons, you can create options for your customers to choose between the two payment methods.

Firstly, insert a Multiple Choice field and add PayPal and Stripe as payment options.

Compatibility with Conditional Logic:

Everest Forms Pro allows you to enable conditional logic using the Conditional Logic addon on. You can not only integrate conditional logic on each and every form field but also, on both the payment options. This lets you set up a more responsive and situationally adaptive payment for your users.

If you are new to Conditional Logic and want to learn what it is in detail Click Here.

Use Conditional logic for PayPal:

Go to the Payments tab at the top. And make sure you enable both Paypal and Stripe. Then, Click on PayPal and Enable Conditional Logic. Now, make the settings so that Stripe is implemented only if the user selects the PayPal option in the form.

Once the payment is done successfully, user will receive the confirmation similar to the image below: