Updated: 3 November 2026 · Applies to: WHMCS, the PayPal Payments gateway module
To accept PayPal in WHMCS, activate the PayPal Payments gateway module and link it to your PayPal account. This is the module WHMCS itself currently recommends for every new PayPal setup; the older PayPal Basic module, which used a manually entered email address and a separate IPN configuration step in your PayPal account, is deprecated.
Before you start
PayPal Payments will not activate while OPcache is enabled on the server. If OPcache is on, turn it off first; this also matches general advice for a WHMCS server, since WHMCS itself discourages running OPcache at all.
Activate and link the module
- In WHMCS admin, go to Configuration, then System Settings, then Payment Gateways.
- Find PayPal Payments in the list of available gateways and activate it.
- Use the account linking option the module provides to connect it to your real PayPal business account (or a PayPal sandbox account first, if you want to test with fake payments before going live).
- Log in to that PayPal account when prompted, and confirm that WHMCS may access it.
- Save the gateway configuration.
Activating PayPal Payments also activates PayPal Card Payments alongside it, which lets customers pay by card directly without needing their own PayPal account. The two are linked: you cannot deactivate PayPal Payments without first deactivating PayPal Card Payments.
Enable it for your products
A gateway being active does not automatically make it available on every product; turn it on per product group:
- Go to Setup, then Products/Services.
- Edit a product group.
- Check the PayPal Payments (and PayPal Card Payments, if you want it offered separately) checkbox.
- Save changes.
- Repeat for every product group that should accept PayPal.
Test it before relying on it
Place a real test order against a sandbox-linked setup, or a small real payment against a live-linked one, and confirm the invoice is actually marked paid in WHMCS afterward, not just that PayPal itself reports success. A payment that succeeds on PayPal's side but never reaches WHMCS (for example because of a webhook or IPN delivery problem) is the kind of issue that only shows up when you check both sides.
