WooCommerce Payments: What You Need To Know To Get Started

The first thing you’ll want to do is check to make sure WooCommerce Payments supports your country.

If your location is covered, make sure you’ve updated to the latest versions of WordPress, WooCommerce, and PHP to minimize any compatibility issues.

From your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugin -> Add New and search for WooCommerce Payments.

There are a number of payment plug-ins with similar names. You’re looking for the one by Automatic.

Click Install Now and then Activate.

Click Finish Setup. 

You’ll be prompted to answer some questions about you and your business. These include:

• Your SSN or tax ID
• Date of birth
• Bank account or debit card

Double-check to make sure your information is accurate before you begin processing transactions to avoid any delays in receiving your money. Note that using a debit card to sign-up is only available to U.S. businesses and limits the size of single deposits to $10,000 per transaction.

Stripe is what’s powering WooCommerce Payments, so you’ll be taken to Stripe’s site to create an account.

You should be fine just following the prompts, but if you get lost, check out our feature on how to set up a Stripe account.

On your WordPress dashboard, under Payments -> Settings, you should see checkboxes for enabling or disabling WooCommerce Payments. Make sure it’s enabled.

You’ll also see an option for Test Mode. Test mode allows you to make sure your integration is working by making dummy transactions with test card numbers and a product from your store. Make sure this is disabled before you start trying to accept real transactions.

Additional options include the ability to choose which payments you’ll accept at checkout, enabling express checkout features, and choosing how frequently funds will be deposited into your linked bank account.

You should now be ready to take WooCommerce Payments through your WooCommerce store.

While you’ll be able to start taking payments immediately, be aware that Stripe takes 7 – 14 days to verify your account. You won’t get your first deposit until that is complete. From that point on, it should take about two business days for funds from any particular sale to hit your bank account.

But wait, didn’t I just say that WooCommerce Payments is a white-label version of Stripe? I did, indeed. Remember that I also said that WooCommerce Payments should be viewed as a specific configuration of Stripe. It’s possible to use Stripe with WooCommerce without using the WooCommerce Payments plugin.

Why would you want to?

The WooCommerce Payments plugin is easy and convenient, but it can be a bit of a straightjacket compared to a custom installation of Stripe. Stripe is always iterating and introducing new features, so if you want to be sure you’re keeping up on the absolute latest that Stripe offers, you don’t want to have to wait for a WooCommerce Payments update to catch up. Just be aware that you’ll be doing more work upfront, making sure that your Stripe integration plays nicely with WooCommerce.

Amazon Pay can be used by WooCommerce businesses even if they’re not listing their products on Amazon. You’ll just need an Amazon Seller’s account and the WooCommerce Amazon Pay plugin.

Amazon Pay’s transaction rates and pay-as-you-go model are very similar to Stripe’s. With such similar features, whether you choose WooCommerce Payments or Amazon Pay is really just a matter of personal preference, but some business owners may appreciate being plugged into the Amazon Seller ecosystem.

PayPal offers one of the most well-developed eCommerce payment platforms. It has remarkable international reach, expansive features, and its own proprietary payment methods like its peer-to-peer wallet, Pay in 4, and Venmo.

These features come at a premium, however, as PayPal’s eCommerce transactions tend to be more expensive than WooCommerce Payments. That said, the cost may be justified if your sales would be increased by accepting one of PayPal’s proprietary payment methods, which aren’t available to WooCommerce Payments.

WooCommerce Braintree Payments

Braintree is technically a part of the PayPal family but differs from the main brand in a few important ways.

• Braintree offers businesses independent merchant accounts rather than third-party processing.
• Braintree supports some payment methods PayPal does not.
• Braintree is developer-centric with an eye toward customization. Where PayPal is designed for ease of use.

WooCommerce businesses that make most of their sales in-person may be better served by Square than WooCommerce Payments. While the latter is capable of taking in-person transactions, the Stripe ecosystem is more optimized for eCommerce.

Square, in comparison, offers a more well-developed array of low-cost hardware and far easier installation of terminals and POS systems. Additionally, Square offers a lot of quality business productivity software at no additional charge.

WooCommerce can enable a variety of different payment processing options through plugins designed to integrate with your WooCommerce store. Supported payment processors include:

• Stripe
• PayPal
• Square
• Amazon Pay

Since WooCommerce Payments is a white label integration of Stripe designed to work with WooCommerce, WooCommerce Payments will be the superior choice for most businesses. However, WooCommerce businesses that need to access Stripe’s newest and more niche features may be better served with a custom installation of Stripe.

WooCommerce Payments is a white label integration of Stripe designed to work smoothly with WooCommerce. There are, however, other ways to integrate Stripe into your WooCommerce store.

While the answer may differ depending on the needs of your business, the average WooCommerce business will be well-served by WooCommerce Payments, which uses Stripe to process payments.

To add Amazon Pay to WooCommerce you’ll need to create an Amazon Seller’s account. Once you’ve done that, you can add the WooCommerce Amazon Pay plugin to your store through WordPress.