PayPal

[funnelish]

PayPal is the most common companion to cards at checkout. Plenty of buyers who won’t type card details into a page they’ve never seen before will happily pay with an account they already trust.

There are two ways to connect it, and the one you pick matters, so start here rather than at the steps.

Which connection should you use?

PayPal (new): authorise Funnelish from inside PayPal. No keys to copy, nothing to paste, and nothing to get wrong. Use this one.

PayPal (classic): you create an app in the PayPal developer dashboard and paste its Client ID and Secret into Funnelish. More steps, more ways to make a mistake, and it’s the route where most connection problems come from.

Classic is still there because it’s what existing gateways use, and because sandbox testing runs on developer credentials. Unless you have a specific reason, use PayPal (new).

Before you start

• A payment form element is on your checkout step, with Funnelish Pay switched on. See Add payment methods to your checkout.

• A verified PayPal business account, with a verified email address. A personal or unverified account will appear to work and then hold your customers’ money as unclaimed. See the section at the end.

Getting to the gateway screen

Both options start the same way.

You can start this from either Account → Payments → Gateways or the page builder. These steps use the builder, so you can see the result on the form as you go.

1. Open your checkout step in the page builder and select the payment form element.

2. In the props panel, click Edit payment options.

3. Click Add a new payment method, then choose PayPal.

   

4. Choose between PayPal and PayPal (new).

   

Option 1: PayPal (new)

1. Enter a gateway name. It’s internal only, so name it for the account behind it: PayPal — main business.

2. Click Connect to PayPal and complete the authorisation on PayPal’s side.

3. Create the gateway, then select it on the payment form and save your changes.

   

Don’t skip the save. The gateway exists as soon as PayPal hands you back, but it isn’t attached to this payment form until you select it and save. A connected gateway that was never saved is the most common reason PayPal doesn’t show up at checkout.

That’s it. Skip the classic instructions below and go straight to testing.

Option 2: PayPal (classic)

Classic needs two keys from PayPal: a Client ID and a Secret.

Get your credentials from PayPal

1. Enter a gateway name in Funnelish, then leave the window open.

2. In a new tab, open the PayPal developer dashboard and log in.

3. Scroll to App Name.

   

4. If you see Default Application, click it. Its credentials page is what you need.

5. If you don’t, click Create App, give it a name you’ll recognise later (Funnelish works), and click Create App.

Paste them into Funnelish

1. On PayPal’s credentials page, copy the Client ID and paste it into the Client ID field in Funnelish.

2. Back on PayPal, click Show under Secret, copy the key, and paste it into the Secret field.

3. Click Create gateway, select it on the payment form, and save your changes.

   

Copy the whole key, and don’t press Tab. Pressing Tab between fields, or picking up a leading or trailing space, is the single most common cause of a PayPal gateway that won’t connect. If the credentials are rejected, delete both fields and paste them again rather than editing what’s there.

Testing your PayPal setup

PayPal’s sandbox doesn’t work with test card numbers the way card gateways do. Instead you create a pair of fake accounts, a business one that receives and a personal one that pays, and check out as the buyer.

1. In the PayPal developer dashboard, open Testing Tools → Sandbox accounts. PayPal creates a business and a personal account for you by default.

2. Create a sandbox app and copy its Client ID and Secret. These are different from your live credentials.

3. In Funnelish, set up a classic PayPal gateway with the sandbox credentials and enable test mode.

4. Go through your own checkout and pay using the sandbox personal account’s email and password.

5. Confirm the payment landed in the sandbox business account.

Sandbox credentials and test mode go together. Sandbox keys with test mode off, or live keys with test mode on, will both fail, and the error won’t tell you which of the two mistakes you made.

Then test on your live gateway

Sandbox proves your funnel works. It doesn’t prove your live PayPal account will accept the money: account verification, business status and currency support are all live-account settings that sandbox never exercises. This is exactly where the unclaimed-payments problem below shows up for the first time.

1. Temporarily reduce your product price to $1 or the local equivalent.

2. Complete a real purchase from a different PayPal account than the one receiving.

3. Check the order landed in Funnelish and in your PayPal account.

4. Refund yourself.

5. Set the price back. Easy to forget, expensive to discover.

What to check beyond “the payment went through”

• The order appears in Funnelish with the correct product, amount and currency

• Any upsell or OTO step charges correctly, not just the first step

• Your confirmation email and any automations actually fired

• The checkout works on mobile, not only on desktop

• No unclaimed-payment notification arrives afterwards

See Test payments before launch for the full pre-launch process.

Unclaimed payments

If PayPal notifies you about unclaimed payments, your customers’ money has reached PayPal but your account can’t accept it. It isn’t lost, but it isn’t yours yet either, and the customer has an order confirmation they’ll expect you to honour.

Fix it on PayPal’s side: the receiving account must be a business account, verified, with a verified email address. Once it is, the held payments can be accepted.

Worth checking before your first campaign rather than after. This is the kind of problem that surfaces at volume, when it’s expensive.

Where your gateways live

A gateway belongs to your account, not to a funnel. You connect PayPal once and it’s available everywhere from then on: every funnel, existing or new, just selects it from the list.

You can see and manage every gateway on your account under Account → Payments → Gateways (app.funnelish.com/settings/payments/gateways). That’s also where you’d rename or remove one, which matters here, because a sandbox gateway and a live one sitting side by side are easy to mix up unless the names tell them apart.

Video walkthrough

Install PayPal with the Funnelish Pay App

If something isn’t working

PayPal doesn’t appear at checkout. Check the gateway is selected and saved on the payment form, and that Funnelish Pay is switched on in the payment options.

The credentials are rejected. Whitespace, a partial copy, or the wrong environment: sandbox keys need test mode on, live keys need it off. Re-paste both fields cleanly.

Notifications about unclaimed payments. See above; your PayPal account needs verifying.

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Payment processing is the fiddliest part of building a funnel. Gateway credentials, currencies, country rules, the form itself: a lot of moving parts, and the one area where a mistake costs you orders rather than just looking wrong.

If your PayPal connection isn’t behaving, start a topic in Ask the community. Someone will help. For anything tied to your account or a specific transaction, contact us on chat support.