How to use the PayPal Checkout add-on | Ninja Forms

PayPal Checkout

The Ninja Forms PayPal Checkout add-on needs to be installed and activated to see the features mentioned in this this documentation.

Connect PayPal Checkout to your PayPal account

PayPal Onboarding window with options highlighted to connect for live or sandbox authorization

1. Navigate to the PayPal Onboarding option under Ninja Forms in your WordPress dashboard. Here you will be able to connect to your PayPal Business account (or create one) to begin accepting payments live, and/or in sandbox (testing) mode.

2. Click Begin LIVE onboarding authorization to connect the add-on to your PayPal account. This will launch PayPal’s account creation or login sequence. Just follow the steps to login and connect, or create and connect. This step is required to begin taking live payments from customers.

the paypal business signup or login portal opened as a popup with a field for your PayPal email address

3. Click Begin SANDBOX onboarding authorization to connect in the same manner to enable sandbox testing of payments on your forms. This step is optional but recommended. Using sandbox mode on your forms, you will be able to test that payments can complete successfully before a form goes live, or at any time after. This step does not turn Sandbox mode on. Sandbox mode can be enabled/disabled on a per form basis from inside any form (see Configure the PayPal Checkout action section below). This step only enables Sandbox functionality.

Set up a form to take payments

To begin taking payments from a form, you’ll need to add and configure a PayPal Checkout action on that form. The action can be added to as many forms as you like.

Add a PayPal Checkout action

To add the action to any form, from the Emails & Actions tab click Add New Action and then the PayPal action from inside the Actions Window that opens.

image of the Emails and Actions tab of the form builder with Add New action and the paypal action highlighted within the actions window

 

Open the form you want to accept payments from and:

  1. Click on the Emails & Actions tab
  2. Click Add New Action to open the actions window
  3. Click the PayPal Checkout action to add it to your form

Configure the PayPal Checkout action

Once the action has been added to the form, the actions setting window will open automatically. This is where you can configure your new action. You can return to this window at any time by clicking PayPal Checkout from the list of actions on the Emails & Actions tab of the form.

image of the paypal checkout action settings with features labeled 1-4

  1. You can change the name of the action here. This is for admin purposes only; only the display name of the action in Emails & Actions will be changed.
  2. Choose here if you want to take a payment of a fixed amount, from a form calculation, or from an user-entered amount. See the Get Total From section below.
  3. Enable the payment types you want to appear for the customer on checkout. Green/switch on the right = enabled, Grey/switch on the left = disabled. **Please see Accepting Apple Pay immediately below if you’re intending to set up Apple Pay payments 
  4. Enable or disable Sandbox mode here. This is for testing only. If it is enabled, your form will not accept payments from customers. Leave disabled to accept live payments, enable if you want to test payment functionality with your PayPal sandbox account.
Accepting Apple Pay

Accepting Apple Pay

Turning on Apple Pay in the Ninja Forms plugin only enables Apple Pay if you have already registered and verified your website’s domain with Apple. This is not a process that we can help with or support since it happens outside of and is independent from the Ninja Forms plugin.

However, there’s a built-in process to handle this within your PayPal Business account, and PayPal can assist if you run into difficulties. Please see PayPal’s documentation on enabling Apple Pay for details, or simply follow these steps:

  1. Go to Account Settings in your PayPal Business account (be sure you’ve completed onboarding first as described above)
  2. Click Payment methods at the bottom of the menu on the left side.
  3. Click Get Started next to Apple Pay.
  4. Add your website and click Register Domain.
  5. Click Done.

If you are unable to follow these steps for any reason, or have questions about the process, please reach out to PayPal Merchant support.

Once these steps are completed and Apple Pay is enabled as a payment option, Apple Pay will appear as a checkout option exclusively for Safari users on supported devices. For more information, please see Apple’s list of supported devices.

Please note:

Apple has recently expanded Apple Pay support to work in browsers beyond Safari, like Chrome. However, Ninja Forms doesn’t connect directly to Apple – it integrates through PayPal. Since PayPal hasn’t yet rolled out support for Apple Pay in Chrome, the option will currently only appear when using Safari.

This isn’t an issue with your setup or your Apple devices. It simply means PayPal hasn’t updated their system to match Apple’s latest changes yet.

Get Total From

This setting tells the form how/where to get the total that will be sent to PayPal. In the Get Total From section of the action settings you will see 3 options:

  1. Fixed Amount
  2. Calculation
  3. Field
Fixed Amount

Charging a Fixed Amount

If the total sent to PayPal is a static amount that will never be different from purchase to purchase, select the Fixed Amount Option. Simply enter the amount you wish to charge in the ENTER AMOUNT setting.

When the form is submitted, users will be prompted to pay this fixed amount.

view of the paypal checkout action get total from fixed amount option

Calculation

Using a Calculation to generate a total

If you are charging variable amounts per purchase via a Ninja Forms calculation, that total can be sent to PayPal directly as the amount the user will be charged.

Simply select Calculation from the GET TOTAL FROM setting, and then select the calculation itself in the SELECT CALCULATION dropdown.

When the form is submitted, users will be prompted to pay the calculation’s value.

view of the paypal checkout action get total from calculation option

Field

Using a form field as the total sent to PayPal

If your purchase total is contained within a field that has a calc value, you can have the value of that field sent directly to PayPal. Simply select the Field option from the GET TOTAL FROM setting, and then select the field that houses your from the SELECT FIELD dropdown.

Only fields that have a calc value will be available to be selected from.
The following fields have a Calc Value setting:

  • Single Checkbox
  • Checkbox List
  • Select List
  • Multi-Select
  • Radio List
  • Select Image
  • Number

When the form is submitted, users will be prompted to pay the field’s value.

Migration to PayPal Checkout from PayPal Express

If you are a currently using the PayPal Express add-on for Ninja Forms and need to migrate to PayPal Checkout, please follow the below steps. If you are a new PayPal Checkout customer, you can safely disregard the steps below.

  1. Install/activate the PayPal Checkout add-on
  2. Go to Ninja Forms > PayPal Onboarding and complete onboarding
  3. One form at a time, open first PayPal form, add Checkout action, set it up, double check that any logic targeting old Express action is now targeting new Checkout action, disable PayPal Express action
  4. Delete all old PayPal Express actions. Failure to remove all old PayPal Express actions will likely result in the form getting stuck processing without completing any PayPal actions.
  5. Test form in sandbox mode; after confirming it functions as expected, switch the form to ‘live’ mode to start accepting payments using the new PayPal Checkout
  6. Repeat steps 3 & 4 for each PayPal form
  7. Return to Ninja Forms > PayPal Onboarding and confirm that no forms are listed as still using PayPal Express
  8. Deactivate the PayPal Express add-on

If you need help at any stage, please contact us. We’re happy to assist!

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