PayPal payments

AmazingForms supports PayPal for one-time payments and recurring subscriptions via PayPal Billing Plans.

---

Prerequisites

• A PayPal Business account (not a personal account)
• An AmazingForms Pro licence

---

Connecting PayPal

1. Go to AmazingForms → Settings → Payments → PayPal
2. Click Connect with PayPal
3. You’ll be redirected to PayPal’s authorisation screen — log in and grant permissions
4. You’ll be returned to AmazingForms with PayPal connected

Tip

Use a PayPal Sandbox account for testing. Enable Sandbox mode in Settings → Payments → PayPal before building. See PayPal Developer for sandbox credentials.

---

One-time payment setup

1. Add a Payment field to your form
2. Set Payment type to One-time
3. Select PayPal as the gateway
4. Set the amount (Fixed or User-entered)
5. Save the form

On submission, an official PayPal Smart Button (PayPal’s JS SDK) renders in the form. The user can pay via:

• Their PayPal account
• A debit or credit card (without needing a PayPal account)

Caution

PayPal’s embedded checkout button may not display correctly in some browsers or on some devices (older iOS WebKit in particular). In these cases, AmazingForms automatically falls back to a PayPal redirect checkout — the user is taken to PayPal, completes payment, and is returned to your site.

---

Subscription setup

PayPal subscriptions require a Billing Plan created in the PayPal Developer Dashboard first.

Step 1: Create a Billing Plan in PayPal

1. Log in to PayPal Developer → Dashboard → My Apps & Credentials
2. Navigate to Billing Plans and create a new plan:
   • Set billing cycle (monthly/yearly)
   • Set the price and currency
   • Activate the plan
3. Copy the Plan ID (format: P-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX)

Step 2: Configure in AmazingForms

1. Add a Payment field to your form
2. Set Payment type to Recurring
3. Select PayPal as the gateway
4. Paste the PayPal Plan ID into the Plan ID field
5. Save

The PayPal subscription button renders on the form. On confirmation, the contact’s subscription is active in PayPal.

---

Post-payment workflow

After a successful PayPal payment, AmazingForms triggers your configured workflow with payment merge tags:

Merge tag	Value
{payment_amount}	Amount charged
{payment_currency}	Currency code (e.g. GBP, USD)
{payment_status}	completed, failed, or pending
{paypal_transaction_id}	PayPal transaction ID
{paypal_payer_email}	Email address from the payer’s PayPal account

---

Sandbox testing

1. Enable Sandbox mode in Settings → Payments → PayPal
2. Use your PayPal Sandbox buyer account to test payments
3. Test payments appear in your PayPal Sandbox dashboard, not your live account

Switch Sandbox mode off before going live.

---

Limitations

Limitation	Detail
Embedded button reliability	May fall back to redirect on some browsers (see above)
Subscription management	Managed via PayPal Dashboard, not AmazingForms
Refunds	Issue from PayPal Dashboard; logged to contact timeline via webhook
Currency	Must match the currency configured in your PayPal account