WooCommerce ships with a few payment options out of the box — direct bank transfer, cheque, cash on delivery — but the moment you want to take actual card payments, you need a payment gateway. This guide covers the two ways to add one, step by step, and when each makes sense.
The two approaches
1. One plugin per provider. Most gateways — Stripe, PayPal, Adyen, and hundreds of regional providers — publish their own WooCommerce plugin. You install it, paste in your API keys, enable it at checkout. Simple, until you want a second provider, a fallback, or a provider your region needs that has no maintained plugin.
2. One plugin for every provider (orchestration). Instead of a plugin per gateway, a single plugin connects WooCommerce to many providers at once and lets you switch or route between them without touching code.
We’ll walk through both.
Method 1: Add a single gateway (the manual way)
- Choose your provider and create an account (Stripe, PayPal, your regional gateway, and so on).
- Install the provider’s plugin. In WordPress admin: Plugins → Add New Plugin → search the provider’s name → Install → Activate.
- Enter your API keys. Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Payments, find the gateway, click Manage, and paste the keys from your provider dashboard (use test keys first).
- Enable and test. Toggle it on, run a test order in the provider’s sandbox, then switch to live keys.
That covers one provider. The friction shows up later:
- Every extra provider is another plugin, another set of keys, another thing to keep updated.
- No fallback. If your provider has an outage, checkout is down until they recover.
- Regional gaps. Some providers your customers ask for have no maintained WooCommerce plugin at all.
Method 2: Add every gateway with one plugin
If you expect more than one provider — or you sell across markets — connecting them through a single layer is less work over time.
- Install the PaymentHood plugin for WooCommerce (free and open-source).
- Create a free PaymentHood account and connect the providers you want — cards, wallets, and regional gateways, 36+ supported.
- Add or switch providers from the dashboard — no reinstall, no code, no touching your checkout.
Because the integration is one plugin, adding a fifth provider is a dashboard toggle rather than a fifth installation. And if a provider fails, payments can route to another automatically, so their outage doesn’t become yours.
Common issues (and quick fixes)
- Gateway doesn’t appear at checkout. Confirm it’s enabled under WooCommerce → Settings → Payments, and that your store currency is one the provider supports.
- “Payment method not available for your currency.” The provider doesn’t settle in your store currency — change currency, or use a provider (or orchestration layer) that covers it.
- Test payments work, live ones fail. You’re likely still on test/sandbox keys, or the provider account isn’t fully activated for live payments.
- Webhooks not updating order status. The provider’s webhook/callback URL isn’t set correctly, so orders get stuck in pending. A plugin that verifies webhooks for you avoids this entirely.
Which should you pick?
If you’ll only ever use one provider in one currency, a single-provider plugin is the simplest thing that works. If you expect a second provider, a fallback, or multiple markets, one plugin that connects them all saves you from re-integrating every time your needs change.
Where PaymentHood fits
PaymentHood connects WooCommerce to 36+ payment providers through one free, open-source plugin — with routing, automatic failover, webhook verification and server-side confirmation handled for you. You install it once, then add or switch providers from a dashboard instead of in your code.
See the WooCommerce integration, or browse the full provider directory.