How to Create a Custom PayPal Form For WordPress Sites

Do you want to create a custom PayPal form in WordPress?

PayPal is the most popular online payment method on the internet. It’s widely used to transfer payments, collect online payments, accept donations, and more.

A custom PayPal form allows you to get user information along with the payment. You can add the PayPal form to sell services and products on your website.

In this article, we’ll show you how to create a custom PayPal form for WordPress sites so you can accept online payments with or without an eCommerce setup.

How to Connect PayPal with WordPress

PayPal is one of the top payment solutions with millions of users. It connects with your website or blog easily to accept online payments from anywhere in the world.

For example, you can allow clients to quickly make payments through PayPal. Or if you’re running a non-profit organization, you can integrate PayPal with WordPress for your fundraising campaigns. This way, you can collect money without setting up a credit card or payment gateway.

Manually integrating PayPal with WordPress can take a lot of your time and requires a fair amount of coding. We recommend using a plugin like WPForms, the best WordPress form builder.

WPForms comes with a drag and drop form builder to make a custom payment form in WordPress. It also offers:

• PayPal Addon: A built-in addon that lets you connect your PayPal account with your website to collect payments online.
• Zero Coding: You can create a fully functional PayPal form in just a few minutes without writing any code or hiring a professional developer.
• Responsive Templates: All form templates are mobile-friendly and look great on any screen size or device.
• Payment Records: You can view all form entries with payment records within your WordPress dashboard.
• Spam Protection and Security: WPForms has built-in spam protection and CAPTCHA integration. It blocks fraud form submissions automatically.

You can track each form submission and payment within the WordPress dashboard. And the payments go to your PayPal account from where you can easily transfer the money to your bank account.

WPForms is beginner-friendly and comes with dozens of other features and customization options, making it the best builder to create a custom PayPal form.

For more details, you should check out our complete WPForms review.

Now that you have the right tool, let’s dive right into the tutorial to build the custom PayPal Form.

Create a Custom PayPal Form in WordPress

We’ve detailed the step-by-step process to create a custom PayPal form and add it to your WordPress site using WPForms.

Step 1. Install and Activate the WPForms Plugin

The first thing you need to do is sign up for a WPForms account.

WPForms offers a free version of the plugin, but you’ll want to sign up for a Pro plan or higher to get access to payment integrations. It comes with a 100% risk-free money-back guarantee.

When you sign up, you’ll get a plugin to install and activate on your site. Not sure how to upload the plugin to WordPress? No worries, follow our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Once the plugin is activated, you need to visit the WPForms » Settings page to enter the license key.

You can find the license key in the Downloads section of your WPForms account.

Click on the Verify Key button and you’ll see a success message. With that, WPForms is now active on your site.

Step 2. Install and Activate the PayPal Addon

To create a payment form, you’ll first want to integrate WPForms with PayPal.

There’s a PayPal addon that you simply need to activate and WPForms will handle the technical process for you.

Head over to the WPForms » Addons page and search for the PayPal addon.

Install and activate the PayPal Standard Addon to fully integrate this payment system on your website.

Now you can go ahead and create your PayPal payment form to add to your site.

Step 3. Make a Custom PayPal Form in WordPress

To build a payment form, you need to visit WPForms » Add New from your WordPress admin dashboard.

On the next page, you can start creating your form by entering a name for it. This name is for internal use so that you can easily find it in the list of forms you create.

Then you can select a template so you don’t have to start from scratch. WPForms offers built-in form templates for:

• Simple Contact Form
• Donation Form
• Request a Quote Form
• Billing/Order Form
• Suggestion Form
• Survey Form
• And more…

For this guide, we’ll use the Donation Form template because it’s got all the fields we want to create a simple payment form. You need to move your mouse over the template and click on the Create a Donation Form button.

This will open up the WPForms form builder on your screen. You’ll see the form preview on the right and form fields on the left.

The form template is ready to launch as-is. However, you can also add any custom fields to suit your goals.

WPForms allows you to drag and drop custom fields from the left side to the right side. This includes:

• CAPTCHA
• Image
• File upload
• Dropdown/checkboxes
• Single line text/Paragraph text

You can even add an items list with product pricing, fields for shipping address and contact details, and much more.

Then to customize a field, simply click on it and you’ll see the field options in the left panel.

You’ll see options to customize the field label, add a description, and make advanced changes.

If you aren’t collecting donations, you can customize the field label to match your business or simply change it to ‘Bill Amount’.

When your form is ready, we recommend hitting the Save at the top to store your progress.

Step 4. Set Up PayPal Form Notifications

WPForms comes with default notification settings to inform you and your team about new submissions. In this case, you’ll know when a new payment is made using your PayPal checkout form.

The best part is that you can fully customize notifications, add notification rules, and more. You can also send custom email notifications to your customers or donors automatically.

1. Email notifications for you and your team

To set up email notifications, you need to visit Settings » Notifications tab in the WPForms builder.

In the Sent to Email Address field, you can add the email addresses of your team members separated by commas. You can also change the subject of the email, add a custom message, and so on.

2. Email notifications for customers

To send automated email notifications to your customers, you’ll want to create a separate notification for that. Start by clicking on the Add New Notification button.

Then use the Show Smart Tags option and select Email in the available fields.

Now WPForms will send a custom notification to the email address entered in the form by the customer.

Next, you can add a ‘Reply To’ email. If a customer replies to your email notification, it will be sent to the address you enter here.

You can also create a customized message to confirm receipt or thank them for their payment.

Once you’re satisfied with the notification settings, don’t forget to Save your changes.

Step 5. Configure and Customize the Confirmation Message

A confirmation message will appear to users on your website when they submit the PayPal form.

WPForms makes the confirmations interesting with 3 options:

• Message: You can add a custom message on the PayPal form. This is the default option and ensures customers that their payment is processed successfully.
• Show Page: With this option, you can redirect customers to a custom thank you page or new URL to continue their journey on your site.
• Go to URL (Redirect): It allows you to add a specific URL and send customers to a different website upon submitting the form.

To set up a confirmation message, go to the Settings » Confirmation tab and select an option from the Confirmation Type menu.

If you select ‘Message’ as a confirmation type, you can write a custom message for buyers. Click on the Save button to store your settings.

If you choose to show a page or URL, you simply have to enter the link and save your changes.

Step 6. Enable PayPal for Your WordPress Form

WPForms supports multiple payment options including PayPal, Authorize.Net, and Stripe.

For this guide, we’ll show you how to connect PayPal to accept online payments.

Since you already activated WPForms PayPal addon, you can visit the Payments » PayPal Standard tab on the form builder.

You need to checkmark the Enable PayPal Standard Payments option. It’ll ask for your PayPal personal or business account details, including email address, payment type, mode of payment, and more.

After carefully adding all details, save your settings, and your PayPal form is ready to be added to your site.

Step 7. Publish and Display PayPal Form in WordPress

WPForms makes it incredibly easy to display a form on your WordPress website. You can add the form to pages, posts, and sidebars.

If you’d like to add the form inside a page or post, in the WordPress block editor, add a new block and search for WPForms.

Add the WPForms custom block and use the dropdown to select the PayPal payment form.

Now Publish or Update the page and you can visit your website to see the PayPal form in action.

In case you’re still using the Classic editor, you’ll find an Add Form button that lets you select your form.

WPForms also lets you display the PayPal form in WordPress widget-ready areas such as sidebars and footers. Navigate to the Appearance » Widgets page. Find the WPForms widget and drag and drop it into your sidebar, footer, or any other widget area.

You can add a custom title for the form widget and select the PayPal form in the dropdown.

And with that, you’ve successfully created and added a custom PayPal form to your WordPress site. You can start receiving payments on your site from clients, customers, and donors.

WPForms is hands down the best among WordPress form builder plugins. You can continue to use the plugin to build more forms for your site like a contact form so potential customers can get in touch with you to learn more about your product or cause. This will help you overcome objections and increase sales and conversions.

That’s all we have for you here. We hope this tutorial has helped you learn how to create a custom PayPal form for WordPress sites.

If you’d like to get the PayPal form to open when a customer clicks on a payment button, you can use OptinMonster for that. It’s the best conversion-optimization tool in the market.

OptinMonster is easy to use and lets you target your customers at the right time and place. You can create a popup and then embed the PayPal form inside using the form shortcode.

After that, you can add the popup link anywhere on your site inside URL links, ‘Buy now’ buttons or donate buttons. There are so many possibilities.

Follow this guide to create an on-click popup for your form: How to Open a WordPress Lightbox Popup on Click.

If you are looking for alternative options, you may want to check out WP Simple Pay. It makes collecting payments online so simple for anyone to set up and use. You’ll be able to accept one-time and recurring Stripe payments on your WordPress site. And, all of that without having to set up a WooCommerce store and a shopping cart.

If you’re looking specifically for a donation plugin, then WP Charitable is the one for you. It was created to help non-profits raise funds without being charged hefty fees and losing control of their campaigns. You can accept online donations through PayPal and offline. These options are available by default and are free. All you have to do is click a few buttons to enable the PayPal donation option.

For your next steps, you’ll want to use these resources to improve your online payment process and boost sales:

• Best WordPress payment plugins
• 6 Best Live Sales Notifications Tools to Boost Revenue
• How to Build a Sales Page in WordPress (Step by Step)

These articles are packed with tools and software to help you drive sales and grow your online business.