PayPal is a worldwide online payment system that facilitates payments between parties through online transfers. PayPal allows paying via an account on its platform, which is connected to a user's credit card or checking account. The company is highly popular as a payment processor for online sales all over the world due to its one-click transaction confirmation and storing passwords. For more info about this payment provider please visit: https://www.paypal.com.
1. Pre-connection checklist
To enable PayPal as a payment gateway on your checkout, you must have an active PayPal business account. If you have already used PayPal for your sales, we suggest you simply connect it to Checkify Plus (do not create a new one). If you don't have one, register it here.
Please note that PayPal Business is available only to businesses in certain countries. For the list of supported countries, please visit their website.
A single PayPal Business account can support a maximum of 10 integrations (Checkify accounts or other apps). This is due to PayPal’s limit of 10 active webhook URLs per developer application. To connect more than 10 stores, you would need to use an additional PayPal Business account.
2. Setting up PayPal on Checkify Plus checkout
2.1 Generate live API keys in your PayPal Developer Account
To connect your PayPal account to Checkify, you need to generate an API key for Checkify. For this, sign in to your PayPal account and go to the PayPal Developer section, then select Apps & Credentials in the menu.
ATTENTION: Make sure you are viewing your live PayPal API keys ("Live" must be selected).
Getting your PayPal API keys
Step-by-step - PayPal API keys generation
To generate API keys for Checkify Plus:
Click on the "Create app" button.
Set "Checkify" as your app name.
Confirm your action by clicking the "Create app" button.
Select all the required features for the app, as shown below:
Put ticks into all the checkboxes in Payment methods, Payment capabilities, Add-on services, PayPal SDKs. Pay attention that PayPal has switched from SDK v5 to v6 in autumn 2025. This is crucial for the PayPal - Checkify integration to work correctly.
NOTE: If you have a new PayPal account, you may not have access to card payments immediately.
Click "Learn more" to proceed with enablement.Press "Save Changes".
Your PayPal credentials (Client ID and Secret) are ready to use!
2.2 Add PayPal as a new payment option on Checkify Plus
Login to your Checkify account, if you haven't done it yet.
Go to "Payment methods" in the menu on the left.
Find "PayPal" in the set of thumbnails and press "Connect +".
2.3 Copy PayPal API Keys to Checkify Plus
Copy your Client ID from PayPal and paste it to the corresponding field in Checkify's admin panel.
Copy your live Client Secret key from PayPal (click on it to show the full key, before copying) and paste it to the corresponding field in Checkify's admin panel.
Click on "Connect +" in the bottom right corner of the screen.
2.4 Additional options
After adding PayPal as a payment method on Checkify Plus, you will also be able to configure a couple of additional options:
currencies - align the presentment currencies in accordance with your business goals;
target countries - select specific countries or regions for which this payment method will be displayed.
2.5 Orders in Checkify Plus admin panel
PayPal's payment method initially performs a pre-authorization of the payment sum and then, upon a successful charge on the bank's side, PayPal changes the status of the payment to either Failed or Success. In such cases payment processing may take from couple of minutes to day(s).
Since it is being managed by PayPal, Checkify has no influence on it and has no ability to speed it up. You can track the status of such orders in the Orders section of your Checkify admin. It is not recommended to ship an order to your customer when "Payment pending" status is seen. When the payment status changes to "Paid", feel free to dispatch the order.
Once processing by PayPal is over, the status on of the order changes to either Paid or Void (void - if PayPal returned a Failed status meaning there was no captured payment).
3. Supported currencies
PayPal currently supports 24 currencies (listed below). If the default currency of your Checkify Plus account is not one of them, PayPal integration will not work.
"USD",
"EUR",
"GBP",
"JPY",
"AUD",
"CAD",
"CHF",
"CZK",
"CNY",
"ILS",
"MXN",
"MYR",
"SGD",
"HKD",
"HUF",
"NZD",
"SEK",
"NOK",
"DKK",
"PHP",
"PLN",
"THB",
"TWD",
"BRL".
In other words, the currency of the checkout should be in one of those currencies. This is not a limitation for your buyers, whose cards may be in any other currency, even those not included in this list.
4. Common questions
🙀 Can I enable PayPal express buttons without a PayPal account?
No, if you want to use PayPal express buttons you need have a Business account.
🙀 I don't have a company. Can I still open a PayPal account?
In general, PayPal does not allow individuals without a legal entity to open a Business account. For up-to-date information on this question, please visit the PayPal Business Resource Center.
🙀 PayPal is not available in my country. How to get an account?
In this case, your best option is to find another payment processor that operates in your country or engaged into some sort of a partnership with third parties that are eligible. You can also check thematic forums for ideas on how to get a PayPal account from a country that is not on their list.
🙀 I got an order via PayPal. Now I see that it got cancelled. What happened?
It is a highly unlikely event, which could have been triggered by a payment decline on the payment processor's side. Your buyer could have completed the checkout and the payment from them could have been initially approved. They landed on the thank-you (order confirmation) page, and the order was formed almost instantly. However, if the funds are not settled and the transaction is rejected for some reason, such an order should be cancelled.
This mechanism provides additional customer protection, for example from fraud and potential chargebacks. Every order must be backed by a payment. If all the orders are placed (imported) and their status remains unchanged regardless the status of the payment, there could be situations when the order is fulfilled, but the payment for it will be missing (= no transaction).
🙀 Would my tracking code (from a Checkify Plus order) be also present in PayPal?
Upon fulfillment of an order and adding tracking code (ID), this code is imported to PayPal.
🙀 What are PayPal's fees for payment processing?
For up-to-date information on this question, please visit the PayPal official website.
🙀 I get the "You entered invalid keys!" error when adding PayPal API keys to Checkify.
Please make sure you copied and pasted the correct Live keys to the corresponding fields. The keys from the 'sandbox' will trigger such kind of an error. If this was not helpful, write to [email protected].
🙀 I checked everything but I still cannot pass the validation.
There is a possibility that some extensions or cache-cookies are interfering and causing the problem. Please try performing the operation in Incognito mode of your browser, or do it in a completely different browser. A network change, like activation or deactivation of a VPN, may also change the outcome.
🙀 My PayPal account got suspended! What to do?
Contact PayPal support and try to resolve this issue with them. Unfortunately, we cannot influence their decision. PayPal monitors and tracks dozens of different signals and makes decisions based on them. Examples: excessive chargebacks or disputes, pattern recognition, security issues and geographic discrepancies, among others.