How to Accept Payments with Stripe on Your Website

Do you want to be able to easily make money from your WordPress website by using Stripe to collect payments?

Since not everyone has a PayPal account, it’s a smart idea to let people use their credit card or bank account to buy services or goods from your business online — and Stripe lets you do just that.

In this post, we’ll show you exactly how to accept payments with Stripe on your WordPress website.

Click Here to Start Accepting Stripe Payments

Why Accept Online Payments with Stripe?

Stripe is an online payment processor for online business.

PayPal lets people pay for things online with or without credit card numbers, but everyone has to have a PayPal account to do this. With Stripe, your customers won’t need to have a Stripe account to checkout on your website from one of your order forms.

And Stripe is fantastic because it allows people to check out using their credit card or bank account. This lets more people spend money on your website, since some people don’t have a PayPal account.

While they’re both great options for payment platforms, there are some other big differences. Be sure to check out our post on Stripe vs PayPal to get an in-depth comparison of these PCI compliant and Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) payment options. You can collect Stripe, Square, Authorize.Net, and PayPal payments on WPForms to maximize your income potential!

How to Accept Payments with Stripe

If you’re ready to start receiving online payments by credit card, follow these easy steps to start accepting them with Stripe on your website:

Step 1: Connect Stripe to Your WordPress Site

Before we get started, be sure to install WPForms on your WordPress site. WPForms is the most user-friendly form builder plugin. It also serves as one of the best WordPress payment plugins as it integrates with Stripe and other popular payment gateways.

WPForms gives you the ability to create Stripe forms in any version of the plugin. You can use it to collect credit card payments in the free version too.

To start, you’ll need to open WPForms » Settings in the left menu of your WordPress dashboard. From there, click on the Payments tab.

If you’d like to adjust the currency, go ahead and select the option you need from the Currency dropdown before proceeding.

When you’re ready, scroll down to the Stripe section. Here, you should see a field labeled Connection Status. You’ll need to click the blue Connect with Stripe button.

When you connect with Stripe, webhooks are automatically set up. Stripe webhooks make it super easy and convenient for you to manage subscriptions and refunds, in addition to payments, all in one place in your WPForms account.

Next, you’ll be asked to authorize the connection between your forms and Stripe. The exact content you see on this Stripe dashboard page will vary based on whether your Stripe account is already activated.

Once you’ve agreed to the requirements, you’ll be redirected back to your WordPress admin area. Here, the Connection Status should now have a green checkmark confirming the connection looks good and you’re that much closer to being able to accept payments with Stripe.

Step 2: Add Stripe to Your Forms

Now that you’ve connected Stripe to your WordPress site, you can start adding Stripe to your forms.

First, you’ll need to create a new form or edit an existing one.

In order for your form to work with Stripe, you’ll need at least these 2 fields:

• An items field (Single Item, Multiple Items, Checkbox Items, or Dropdown Items)
• A Stripe Credit Card field

For our example, we’ll create a simple order form that includes:

• Name
• Email
• Dropdown Items
• Total
• Stripe Credit Card

The Total field is not required for Stripe to work, however, it can be helpful for users to easily see how much they’ll be paying.

And while you’re adding fields to your Stripe form, keep in mind that you can even add a coupon field to offer discounts to your website users and customers.

Once you’ve added all the fields you want to your form, go to Payments » Stripe. From the Stripe panel, check the box labeled Enable Stripe payments.

Now, you’ll be able to enter a short Payment Description, which will appear on the user’s bank or card statement.

Last, under Stripe Payment Receipt you can choose an Email field where Stripe can send a receipt.

If you’re just going to be receiving one-time payments, you’re all set! If you’d like to set up a recurring Stripe payment, we’ll walk you through that next.

Step 3: Set Up Recurring or Subscription Payments (Optional)

Great news if you want to make more money online by using a recurring business model. Stripe supports subscription payments.

And you can easily set up a subscription payment within this same settings panel as the last step.

Under the section titled Subscriptions, go ahead and check the box labeled Enable recurring subscription payments.

Once you’ve checked this box, additional settings will appear.

Here are the fields you’ll need to complete:

• Plan Name — You’ll need to enter a title for the subscription, such as “Donation to Example Organization”. This will appear within the Stripe transaction.
• Recurring Period — You can choose how often the recurring payments should occur: Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Semi-Yearly, or Yearly.
• Customer Email (Required) — Within this dropdown, select an Email field from your form where the customer can be contacted.

Step 4: Setting Up Conditional Logic for Payments (Optional)

If you choose to upgrade to WPForms Pro, the Stripe Pro addon gives you the option to set up conditional logic to accept payments with Stripe. Conditional logic lets you create “smart forms” that automatically change the form fields based on a user’s selections.

There are tons of ways you can use conditional logic with Stripe payments like:

• Let your users choose whether to pay with Stripe or PayPal
• Making payment optional
• Let your users choose whether to submit a one-time payment or start the recurring payment

For example, we’ll set up the last option from that list and let users choose whether to submit a one-time or recurring donation.

To get started, we’ll create a simple donation form. This will need to include either a Dropdown or Multiple Choice field that will let users pick whether they’d like to submit a one-time donation or set up a recurring donation.

In our form, we’ll let users choose between 2 payment options: Once or Monthly.

Next, go back to the Stripe settings under Payments » Stripe. We’ve already followed the steps in the previous section to set up the basic settings. So now we need to set up the logic for our recurring payment methods options.

First, we’ll set up the monthly recurring payment option. Set the Recurring Period to Monthly.

Then, scroll to the bottom of the settings (under the Subscriptions section) and check the box labeled Enable conditional logic.

This setting will display additional fields where you can set up any conditional rules. For our example, we’ll set up a conditional rule that states:

Process payment as recurring if the answer to the “Would you like to make a recurring donation?” Dropdown field is “Yes, I’ll donate monthly”.

Then, Save your form and you can go ahead with these steps to embed your form on any WordPress page.

Before launching your payment form, we recommend testing Stripe payments. You can also check out this article on common complaints about online payment forms to make sure you aren’t making the same mistakes.

Great job, you’ve set up a conditional recurring payment!

Click Here to Start Accepting Stripe Payments

Next, Boost Your Small Business Marketing Strategy

And that’s it! You now know how to accept payments with Stripe on your WordPress website . If you want to make sure your visitor attaches their order too, find out how to require payment on a file upload form.

You might also be interested in our guide to the best small marketing business ideas.

So what are you waiting for? Get started with the most powerful WordPress forms plugin today. WPForms Pro includes a free Stripe integration and a 14-day money-back guarantee.

And if you liked this guide, make sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more free WordPress tutorials.