In the guide it says “To use WooCommerce PayPal Payments, you’ll need: * a PayPal business or personal account”. But after I logged in to Paypal to connect my personal account to the plugin, it told me I needed a Paypal Business account to continue!
I do not want a Paypal Business account. This will require me to pay them each time I receive or send a transfer. I do not sell a lot of items through my website, only incidentally.
It is very much not okay that Woocommerce forces me to switch to Paypal Business and also the upgrade documentation is misleading!
The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]
Thanks for sharing your feedback, and I understand your concerns.
While the plugin supports both PayPal Personal and Business accounts are supported but certain features do require a Business account. This includes things like accepting debit/credit card payments, using Pay Later options, or Advanced Card Processing. That may be why the system redirected you to upgrade.
One common cause of this situation is choosing the Advanced Payment method during the onboarding steps before logging in. If you selected that option, PayPal will require a Business account by default. To avoid this, restart the onboarding and do not select any advanced processing options. When asked, choose the Personal account path explicitly.
If the automatic connection still forces a Business upgrade, you can bypass the entire flow by using manual onboarding instead. Here’s how:
Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Payments → PayPal
Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click “Manually Connect”
Let me tell you the only truth which I hope won’t be deleted:
There is nothing wrong with expressing your feedback, but please keep in mind that if you post this in another user’s support thread on WordPress.org, mods may remove it not because of what you said, but because it goes against forum rules to post unrelated comments or discussions in someone else’s topic.
Also, keep in mind that its not related stricte to the plugin, as we don’t have any impact on this part as plugin developer.
Thank you for your help. Unfortunately, it is not working.
I don’t know what you mean with “choosing the Advanced Payment method”. When I restart the Paypal Payments activation process, it first asks me my account type. I selected Personal Account instead of Business. Then it asks me the type of products I sell. I select virtual and physical, not subscriptions. Then is asks me to connect to my Paypal account. After I log in, it tells me I need a Business account.
When I log into Paypal to get my credentials, in order to add them manually, it tells me: “Viewing sandbox API credentials. Upgrade your account to PayPal for Business to view live credentials.”
In the first step (account type), I select ‘Personal account’ (not ‘Business’) In the second step (the products I sell), I select ‘virtual’ and ‘physical goods’ (not ‘subscriptions’, which says this requires a Business account) In the third step, it asks me to log in into my Paypal account. After I have logged in, it tells me I need a Business account to accept PayPal on WooCommerce.
In case this approach fails please open a ticket with our service desk. Here’s how you can request support: Request Support. Please make sure to include the URL of this thread in your ticket for reference.
I have tried that as well, but when I go to my PayPal Developer Dashboard it only shows sandbox credentials and tells me: “Upgrade your account to PayPal for Business to view live credentials.”
