PayPal Forms

Knowledge Base → Add-Ons → eCommerce → PayPal Forms

The PayPal forms plugin allows you to add PayPal to your website and collect PayPal payments using Formidable Forms. Send users and a total directly to PayPal after submitting a Formidable form. Your users do NOT need to have a PayPal account in order to pay with PayPal.

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Download and install

If you haven't already done so, install and activate Formidable Forms.
In your WordPress admin, go to Formidable → Add-Ons and click the Install button for the PayPal forms plugin for PayPal Standard.

Set up the PayPal add-on

Now that the PayPal forms plugin is activated, set up Formidable Forms to integrate with your PayPal account. To add PayPal to your website, connect your PayPal account and set up instant payment notifications.

Connect your PayPal account

Now that the PayPal forms plugin is activated, go to Formidable → Global Settings and click the PayPal tab.
Insert your PayPal email address and update any other settings. For live sites, make sure the 'PayPal' environment is set to 'Live'; otherwise, users will be prompted to set up new PayPal accounts.

Set up instant payment notifications

In order for your collected payments to get correctly marked as paid, you must configure your PayPal account to send payment notifications. Follow the directions below to set this up.

Log into your PayPal account.
Click the gear icon at the top right section of the page and select Account Settings.
From the left sidebar menu, select Website Payments and click the Update link right next to 'Instant payment notifications'.
Click the Choose IPN Settings button.
Enter a notification URL, select Receive IPN messages (Enabled) and hit Save. It doesn’t matter what URL you insert since Formidable PayPal will override it.

If you would like more information about instant payment notifications, see the PayPal IPN's page.

How to use PayPal testing mode

Before you can use the test mode, you'll need to:

Create both a personal and business PayPal account at sandbox.paypal.com.
Set up the instant payment notifications (IPN) on your business sandbox account.
In your Formidable → Global Settings → PayPal, switch PayPal Environment from 'Live' to 'Testing'.
Go to edit the form you would like to use with PayPal. Click on form Settings → Actions & Notifications → PayPal.
Insert the email in the PayPal Email that is associated with your business sandbox account.
Run a test transaction and pay using your personal sandbox email.

Note: The 'Hold email notifications until payment is received' option doesn't trigger in test mode.

Set up a form to take PayPal payments

Once the PayPal Forms plugin is activated, connect your PayPal account and set up instant payment notifications. After doing so, set up a form for collecting payments. Follow the directions below to collect PayPal payments with a Formidable form.

Go to edit the form you would like to use with PayPal. Click on Settings → Form Actions → PayPal.
Give your PayPal form action a Label for easy reference. This label will only be seen on the back-end.
Set the Item Name. The item name will appear on the PayPal page and on the PayPal receipt. You can either type in a static product name or select a field from your form if it will change depending on your user's selection.
Insert the email in the PayPal Email that is associated with your PayPal account.
Set an Amount for the online payment. Either select a field from your form (this field should contain the payment amount) or select 'Set Amount' and insert a value in the box.
Set the Payment Type:
- One-time Payment: Collect a one-time payment.
- Donation: Collect a one-time donation.
- Subscription: Use this option to set up recurring payments. Check out Set up a recurring payment for more instruction.
Select the Currency that will be used.
In the Return URL box, insert the URL that you would like to send the user to after their online payment is processed. In the Cancel URL box, insert the URL that you would like to send the user to if they cancel the transaction. If these boxes are left blank, the defaults set in your Formidable Global Settings → PayPal tab will be used.
In the After Payment section, you may change the value of a field when the status of a payment has changed. Use this setting to save the payment status in a field.
If you would like to conditionally send users to PayPal after form submission, you will need to add Conditional Logic. Please note that Conditional Logic is only available in the Pro version of Formidable Forms.
Hit 'Update' so these settings will be saved.

Save payment status in a field

If you would like to save the status of a payment in a field in your form, follow the instructions below.

Go into edit a form that has a PayPal action included.
Add a dropdown field. Title it 'Payment status' and add the options 'Pending' and 'Completed'. Select 'Pending' as the default value.
If you would like to hide the field from the user, go to your 'Field Options', scroll down to Visibility and select 'Administrator'. Click 'Update'.
Go into your form's 'Settings' → 'Actions & Notifications' and open the PayPal form action.
Scroll down to the After Payment section. Click the 'Add' button.
In the 'Payment Status' column, select 'Completed'. In the 'Field' column, select your 'Payment status' field. In the Value column, insert the text 'Completed'.
Hit Update. Now when an Forms payment is successfully completed, the payment status field will switch to 'Completed' to reflect the status of the PayPal payment. If the payment status is not updating properly, please review the IPN troubleshooting steps.

Set up a recurring payment

If you would like to set up a PayPal form action to take recurring payments, follow the steps below:

Set up your WordPress form to take PayPal payments.
Under Payment type select 'Subscription'.
In the Repeat Every section, select how often the payment will recur.
You may include a trial period before the actual subscription begins. If you would like to include a trial period, select 'Start this subscription with a trial'. Input how much the 'Trial amount' will be, then select how long the 'Trial Length' will be.
If you would like to retry a failed recurring payment, select 'Retry a failed payment for a subscription'. A failed PayPal payment is considered to be a subsequent payment in a recurring profile that doesn't go through. This does not include failing to complete the first payment once sent to PayPal.
Click Update. Now when a user submits the form, they will be taken to PayPal to make the first payment of the recurring series. PayPal will automatically bill the user at intervals determined by your 'Repeat Every' setting.

Set up a recurring and non-recurring payment

If you would like to set up a WordPress form that allows a user to select a recurring payment or a non-recurring payment, follow the instructions below.

Create a new form or edit an existing form that takes payments. Add a Radio Button or Dropdown field. Add options for the user to select a recurring or non-recurring payment.
Click Update.
Go to 'Settings' → 'Actions & Notifications'. Click the 'PayPal' icon to add a PayPal form action.
In the Label box, insert 'Non-Recurring'.
In the Amount section, select 'Set Amount'. In the box, type in the amount of the non-recurring payment.
In the Payment Type, select 'One-time Payment'
Scroll down to the Conditional Logic section and have it read: 'Do this action if any of the following match: 'Radio Button field' is equal to 'Non-Recurring option'.'
In the 'Actions & Notifications', add another 'PayPal' form action.
In the Label box, insert 'Recurring'.
In the Amount section, select 'Set Amount'. In the box, type in the amount of the recurring payment.
In the Payment Type, select 'Subscription'. In the Repeat Every section, select how often the recurring payment will take place.
Scroll down to the Conditional Logic section and have it read: 'Do this action if any of the following match: 'Radio Button field' is equal to 'Recurring option'.'
Click Update. Now when the user submits a form, they will be charged depending on their selection of either the recurring or non-recurring option.

Set up two different currencies

If you would like to set up a form that allows a user to select between two different currencies (e.g. US Dollars (USD) and Canadian Dollar (CAD)), follow the instructions below.

Set up your form to take PayPal payments.
Add a Radio button or Dropdown field in your form with options for the user to select their preferred currency payment.
Add a PayPal form action, set the currency to US Dollars (USD), then add a Conditional Logic section and have it read: 'Do this action if any of the following match: 'Currency' is equal to 'US Dollars (USD)'.
Add another PayPal form action, set the currency to Canadian Dollar (CAD), then add a Conditional Logic section and have it read: 'Do this action if any of the following match: 'Currency' is equal to 'Canadian Dollar (CAD)'
(Optional) For the other PayPal form action using Canadian Dollar (CAD) currency, you can change the Return URL and Cancel URL to that of your separate PayPal Canadian account. These are the URLs used for Paypal to send users after purchase or if they cancel the transaction.

If you are accepting recurring and non-recurring payments for both currencies, follow the steps below instead.

Set up your form to take recurring and non-recurring payments.
Add a Radio button or Dropdown field in your form with options for the user to select their preferred currency payment.
In the 'Recurring' form action with US Dollars (USD) currency, add two conditional logic and have it read: 'Do this action if all of the following match: 'Currency' is equal to 'US Dollars (USD)' and 'Frequency' is equal to 'Recurring (Monthly)'.
In the 'Non-Recurring' form action with US Dollars (USD) currency, repeat step 2 but change the 'Frequency' is equal to 'One-time payment (Non-Recurring)'.
Repeat steps 3 and 4 to create the form actions for the Canadian Dollar (CAD) currency payments.

Allow a dynamic recipient

Start out by setting up the form action with the settings described above. The 'PayPal Email' setting accepts field shortcodes like [25]. If you would like the user to enter the PayPal email address, an email field would work great.

If you have a few options to choose from, follow the instructions below:

Add a drop down or radio field to your form. Check the box to 'Use separate values' in the field options.
Add the name for the displayed value and the PayPal email address for the saved value.

When your users fill out the form, they will select the name for the payment.
Update your form and go to the PayPal settings for this form.
Insert the field id shortcode in the PayPal Email field. It will be in a format like [25] or [fieldkey].

Trigger an action after payment is complete

Trigger an action after a PayPal payment is completed. Send a payment notification email, subscribe a user to MailChimp, send a text, or register a user only after a successful PayPal payment. Please note that any actions you want to trigger after a completed payment must be included in the same form.

Go to your form 'Settings' → 'Actions & Notifications' and open the action that you would like to trigger after a PayPal payment is completed.
Scroll down to Action Triggers and select 'Trigger this action after PayPal payment'.
Click Update. Now when the user submits a payment in PayPal, and your site is notified by PayPal of the payment completion, the action will be triggered. The action will not be triggered until the PayPal notification is received. If the actions are not triggering after a complete payment, please review the IPN troubleshooting steps.

Publish a post on complete payment

If you would like to publish a post only after collecting a PayPal form payment, follow the steps below.

Set up your form to take a PayPal payment.
Add a Create posts action.
Add a post status field to your form, if you don't have one already.
Select 'Draft' as the default value in your new 'Status' field.

If you do not want the user to have access to changing the status of this field you can set the field to Read Only. You can also hide the whole field from the user by changing the Visibility to 'Administrator'.
Click Update.
Go into the form's PayPal action. In the After Payment section, set the dropdown in the Payment Status column to 'Completed', set the dropdown in the Field column to your 'Status' field, and type 'publish' in the Value column.
Click Update and Publish your form on a page. Now when a user creates a post and submits the form, they will be taken to Paypal so they can submit a payment. The post will not be published until the PayPal payment notification is received.

Enable guest checkout

If you would like to allow users to checkout without having to sign up for a PayPal account, follow the instructions below. Please note that users with PayPal accounts will still have the option to sign in.

Log into your PayPal account.
Click the gear icon at the top right section of the page and select Account Settings.
From the left sidebar menu, select Website Payments under 'Products & Services' and click the Update link near 'Website preferences.'
Scroll down to PayPal Account Optional and make sure the 'PayPal Account Optional' is turned on.
Now when the user checks out they will have the option to sign in to their account to check out, or check out as a guest. Please note that if the user chooses to sign out as a guest, they will have the option to sign up for a PayPal account after checkout.

Visit the PayPal page for more instruction on enabling guest checkout.

Troubleshooting

Not sending to PayPal on submit

If you're not sent to PayPal when your form is submitted, you may have one of the following problems:

The 'Total' amount is 0. You must have a Total greater than 0 in order to be sent to PayPal.
You may have conditional logic on your PayPal action that is preventing it from firing.

If this does not help solve the problem, please create a ticket in our help desk.

Instant payment notifications

If PayPal is not notifying your site when a payment is complete, please go through each of the steps below.

Double-check that instant payment notifications are enabled in your PayPal account.
Check if you have a firewall plugin that may prevent PayPal from reaching your site. If you're not sure, visit yoursite.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=frm_payments_paypal_ipn while logged out. If you see a blank page, that's good. If you are running a firewall plugin that may be blocking the IPN data, please disable that plugin and submit a new payment.
If you are implementing any Access Control List (ACL) or filters on IP addresses for the IPNs received from PayPal, You need to add or whitelist the following PayPal IP Addresses. Doing so will help avoid missing IPNs from PayPal.
- 66.211.170.66, 173.0.81.1, 173.0.81.0/24, 173.0.81.33, 173.0.81.65, 173.0.81.140
If your PayPal environment is set to 'Testing', try switching to 'Live'. You can switch from Testing to Live in your Formidable → Global Settings → PayPal.
Check to see if you have any custom code on your site that could interfere. If you have custom code that uses the frm_payment_paypal_ipn hook or that modifies any entry values in the PayPal form, please remove the code and submit a new payment.
Turn on the debug log. Go into Formidable → Global Settings → PayPal and check the 'Log results from IPN notifications' option. Hit Update. Then submit a new payment and open the debug log. Create a new ticket in our help desk and paste the log data in the ticket.
If you see 'IPN Response from PayPal Server: INVALID' in your debug log, please log into your PayPal account and review your IPN history page. Check if there are any notifications logged there and check their status. Report your findings in a help desk ticket.
If you see pending_reason=unilateral in your debug log, check if you have verified your email address. The payment is pending because it was made to an email address that is not yet confirmed or registered. Report your findings in a help desk ticket.

Paypal emails not being sent

While it is possible to trigger an email on successful payments, PayPal only sends out a Payment Failure notice on recurring payments. It gets fired when a subscription payment attempts to charge and fails. It doesn’t fire, however, on initial or one-time payments that aren’t completed or even new payments that fail.

A workaround would be to use the Form Action Automation add-on to send a reminder 30 mins after purchase. You could then add a conditional logic to the email notification based on your Paid status. If the payment status field is not updated to Paid, then the email sends out.

Paypal checkout not processed

If you're seeing an error message "Things don't appear to be working at the moment" in your Paypal checkout page, you may need to unblock the non-encrypted websites to make payments. To resolve this, follow the instructions below.

Log into your PayPal account.
Click the gear icon at the top right section of the page and select Account Settings.
From the left sidebar menu, select Website Payments under 'Products & Services' and click the Update link near 'Website preferences.'
Select Off next to 'Block Non-encrypted Website Payment'.

Additional customizations

These code examples can be added to a child theme's functions.php file or the WPCode plugin.

Add a currency

If you need to take a payment in a currency that is not included in the PayPal action's currency options, you may add a currency using the code below.

add_filter('frm_currencies', 'add_custom_currency');

function add_custom_currency( $currencies ) {

    $currencies['USD'] = array(

        'name' => __('U.S. Dollar', 'frmpp'),

        'symbol_left' => '$', 'symbol_right' => '',

        'symbol_padding' =>  '',

        'thousand_separator' => ',',

        'decimal_separator' => '.', 'decimals' => 2,

    );

    return $currencies;

}

Send user info to PayPal

When a visitor fills in details on your site, save them time by passing this information along to PayPal. This prefills the field values over at PayPal. A full list of allowed values is kept in the PayPal docs.

add_filter( 'formidable_paypal_url', 'set_recurring_payment_limit', 10, 3 );

function set_recurring_payment_limit( $paypal_url, $entry_id, $form_id ) {

  if ( $form_id == 5 ) { //change 5 to the ID of your form

    $entry = FrmEntry::getOne( $entry_id, true );

    $paypal_url .= '&first_name=' . urlencode( $entry->metas[25] ); // change 25 to your first name field ID

    $paypal_url .= '&last_name=' . urlencode( $entry->metas[26] ); // change 26 to your last name field ID

	$paypal_url .= '&email=' . urlencode( $entry->metas[27] ); // change 27 to your email field ID

	$address_field_id = 28; // change 28 to your address field ID

	$address_meta = $entry->metas[$address_field_id];

    $paypal_url .= '&address1=' . urlencode( $address_meta['line1'] );

    $paypal_url .= '&address2=' . urlencode( $address_meta['line2'] );

	$paypal_url .= '&city=' . urlencode( $address_meta['city'] );

	$paypal_url .= '&zip=' . urlencode( $address_meta['zip'] );

	$paypal_url .= '&state=' . urlencode( $address_meta['state'] );

    $paypal_url .= '&country=' . urlencode( $address_meta['country'] );

  }

  return $paypal_url;

}

Limit number of recurring payments

Setting an end date for recurring payments is not currently an option, but you may use the code below to only have a certain number of recurring payments. Replace 5 with your form ID. Replace 4 with the number of recurring payments that you want to take.

add_filter( 'formidable_paypal_url', 'set_recurring_payment_limit', 10, 3 );

function set_recurring_payment_limit( $paypal_url, $entry_id, $form_id ) {

	if ( $form_id == 5 ) { //change 5 to the ID of your form

		$paypal_url .= '&srt=4';

	}

	return $paypal_url;

}

Change the user role after payment

Use the following example to change a user's role after they make a PayPal payment. Change 'contributor' to the role you want to set after a payment is completed. Change 123 to your form ID.

add_action('frm_payment_paypal_ipn', 'change_paid_user_role');

function change_paid_user_role($args){

    if ( $args['entry']->form_id != 123 ) {

        return;

    }

    $new_role = 'contributor'; //change this to the role paid users should have

    if(!$args['pay_vars']['completed']) {

       return; //don't continue if the payment was not completed

    }

    if(!$args['entry']->user_id or !is_numeric($args['entry']->user_id)) {

       return; //don't continue if not linked to a user

    }

    $user = get_userdata($args['entry']->user_id);

    if(!$user) {

        return; //don't continue if user doesn't exist

    }

    $updated_user = (array) $user;

    // Get the highest/primary role for this user

    $user_roles = $user->roles;

    $user_role = array_shift($user_roles);

    if ( $user_role == 'administrator' ) {

        return; //make sure we don't downgrade any admins

    }

    $updated_user['role'] = $new_role;

    wp_update_user($updated_user);

}

Save transaction ID in field

If you would like to save the transaction ID in a field after the payment is complete, you may use the code below. You can add it to a child theme's functions.php file or the Code Snippets plugin. Replace 10 with the ID of your form and replace 123 with the ID of the field that will store the transaction ID. Make sure the field is blank by default or you will get extra data added to your database when this code is triggered.

add_action('frm_payment_paypal_ipn', 'save_frmpaypal_transaction_id');

function save_frmpaypal_transaction_id( $vars ){

    if ( ! $vars['pay_vars']['completed'] ) {

        return; //don't change value if the payment was not completed

    }

    if ( $vars['entry']->form_id == 10 ) {

        $field_id = 123;

        $transaction_id = $vars['pay_vars']['receipt_id'];

        if ( $transaction_id ) {

            FrmEntryMeta::add_entry_meta( $vars['entry']->id, $field_id, null, $transaction_id );

        }

    }

}

Insert a link for payment

If the one-time payment fails the first time, you can generate a link to allow users to pay again without filling out the form a second time. This shortcode can be used in a number of different ways, but the most likely would be in a view where you can add filters like "User ID is equal to current user", and the shortcode would be [pay_again id=[id]]. You can also set a specific entry id here if you would like [pay_again id=60].

Note: This isn't setup to work with recurring payments.

add_shortcode('pay_again', 'pay_frm_again');

function pay_frm_again($atts) {

    if ( ! class_exists('FrmPaymentsController') ) {

        return;

    }

    $atts = shortcode_atts(array('id' => '', 'form_id' => ''), $atts);

    $entry_id = $atts['id'];

    $entry = FrmEntry::getOne($entry_id, true);

    if ( empty($atts['form_id']) ) {

      $atts['form_id'] = $entry->form_id;

    }

    $form = FrmForm::getOne($atts['form_id']);

    $action_control = FrmFormActionsHelper::get_action_for_form($form->id, 'paypal', 1);

    if ( ! $action_control ) {

       return;

    }

    $settings = $action_control->post_content;

    $amount_field = isset($settings['paypal_amount_field']) ? $settings['paypal_amount_field'] : '';

    $_POST['item_meta'][$amount_field] = $entry->metas[$amount_field]; // set the POST for the amount

    $amount = FrmPaymentsController::get_amount($form, $settings);

    if ( empty($amount) ) {

      return;

    }

    global $wpdb;

    $invoice = $wpdb->get_var($wpdb->prepare('SELECT id FROM '. $wpdb->prefix .'frm_payments WHERE item_id=%d AND amount=%s AND paysys=%s', $entry_id, (float) $amount, 'paypal'));

    if ( ! $invoice ) {

        return;

    }

    $frm_payment_settings = new FrmPaymentSettings();

    $paypal_url = 'https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr/';

    $paypal_url .= '?cmd='. (( isset($settings['paypal_type']) && ! empty($settings['paypal_type']) ) ? $settings['paypal_type'] : '_xclick');

    $paypal_url .= '&' . 'notify_url='. FrmPaymentsHelper::format_for_url(admin_url('admin-ajax.php') . "?action=frm_payments_paypal_ipn");

    $paypal_url .= '&business='. FrmPaymentsHelper::format_for_url($frm_payment_settings->settings->business_email);

    $paypal_url .= '&' . 'currency_code='. FrmPaymentsHelper::format_for_url($frm_payment_settings->settings->currency);

    $paypal_url .= '&return='. FrmPaymentsHelper::format_for_url( FrmPaymentsHelper::get_action_setting( 'return_url', array( 'settings' => $settings ) ) );

    $paypal_url .= '&cancel_return='. FrmPaymentsHelper::format_for_url( FrmPaymentsHelper::get_action_setting( 'cancel_url', array( 'settings' => $settings ) ) );

    $paypal_url .= '&invoice='. FrmPaymentsHelper::format_for_url($invoice .'-'. FrmPaymentsHelper::get_rand(3));

    $paypal_url .= '&custom='. $entry_id.'|'. wp_hash($entry_id);

    $paypal_url .= '&amount='. urlencode($amount);

    if ( defined('ICL_LANGUAGE_CODE') ) {

      $paypal_url .= '&lc='. FrmPaymentsHelper::format_for_url(ICL_LANGUAGE_CODE);

    }

    $item_name = apply_filters('frm_content', $settings['paypal_item_name'], $form, $entry_id);

    $paypal_url .= "&item_name=". urlencode($item_name);

    return '<a href="'. $paypal_url .'">Pay Now</a>';

}

Change return URL

Please Note: The Return URL option has been added to the PayPal action since version 3.0.

add_filter('formidable_paypal_url', 'formidable_paypal_url', 10, 3);

function formidable_paypal_url($paypal_url, $entry_id, $form_id){

  if($form_id == 5) //change 5 to the ID of your form

    $paypal_url .= '&return='. urlencode('http://example.com');

  return $paypal_url;

}