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PayPal is a built-in payment provider that lets your customers pay with PayPal without leaving your app. You connect your own PayPal account, so payments go straight to it. Setting up PayPal takes 4 steps. You connect your PayPal account, check that PayPal is ready, add checkout with the AI chat, then make a test payment. You can sell one-time purchases, carts of several products, physical goods with shipping and subscriptions, and track every payment, refund and subscription from your app dashboard.
A screenshot of an app checkout page with delivery details, an order summary and a Pay with PayPal button

PayPal checkout in your app

Before you set up PayPal:
  • Plan: You need a Builder plan or higher, because PayPal checkout runs on backend functions.
  • Country: You can use PayPal wherever PayPal lets sellers receive payments. PayPal checks your business country when you sign up.
  • One provider per app: You can’t connect PayPal to an app that already takes payments through Base44 Payments, Stripe, a Wix store or a Shopify store. To switch to PayPal, disconnect your current provider first. If your business is in the United States, Base44 Payments already lets your customers pay with PayPal.

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Step 1 | Connect PayPal

Connect PayPal from the Integrations page in your app dashboard. Base44 takes you to PayPal to sign in or create an account, then brings you back to your app when you’re done. When PayPal is ready to take payments, a message in the AI chat tells you that PayPal is now connected to your app.
Before you connect PayPal:
  • PayPal account: Have your PayPal login ready, or be ready to create a PayPal account during signup.
  • Card payments: To accept card payments as well as PayPal, you need a PayPal business account.
To connect PayPal:
  1. Go to your app editor.
  2. Click Dashboard.
  3. Click Integrations.
  4. Click Add connector.
  5. Search for PayPal and click PayPal.
  6. Click Connect.
    A screenshot of the PayPal connect window showing PayPal as Not connected, with the Connect button outlined

    Connecting your PayPal account

  7. Sign in to PayPal, or create an account, and follow PayPal’s steps to finish signing up.
You can also start in the AI chat. Ask it to add PayPal payments to your app, and it builds your products and checkout page first. It then asks you to connect PayPal from the Integrations page, using the steps above. Until you do, your checkout page shows that PayPal is being set up.

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Step 2 | Check your status

To see whether your app can take PayPal payments yet, click Integrations in your app dashboard and check the message under PayPal. Once you’re live, you also see your PayPal merchant ID, so you can tell which PayPal account an app is paid into.
A screenshot of the PayPal entry on the Integrations page, with the Finish signing in to PayPal status message outlined

Checking PayPal's status on the Integrations page

The message under PayPal tells you what, if anything, to do next:
PayPal may need you to finish a step on its side first. The message under PayPal updates automatically once you do.

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Step 3 | Add checkout

Once PayPal is connected, ask the AI chat to add PayPal checkout. Your customers click the PayPal button on your checkout page and approve the payment with PayPal, without leaving your app. If your PayPal account accepts cards, your customers can also pay by card. You don’t need to paste any PayPal keys into the chat.
Your checkout uses your live PayPal account in both your preview and your published app, so every payment made there is real.
If PayPal isn’t connected yet, the AI chat asks you to connect it from the Integrations page first, then come back and tell it you’re done.
A screenshot of the AI chat reply asking you to connect PayPal from the Integrations page before it adds checkout

The AI chat asking you to connect PayPal first

To add PayPal checkout:
  1. Go to your app editor.
  2. Describe what you sell and how customers should pay in the AI chat. For example:
If your checkout collects a shipping address and PayPal can’t accept it, your checkout tells your customer which field to fix, such as a missing postal code.

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Step 4 | Make a test payment

Check that your PayPal account takes payments by paying a $1 test order on PayPal’s checkout page. You need a different PayPal account or a card, because PayPal doesn’t let you pay the account you connected. It’s a real payment, and you can refund it afterwards. If you’d rather not make a payment, the AI can check your checkout for you instead. Open the Payments page in your app dashboard, then click Review under Ask the builder to check it. The AI reviews your products, checkout and what happens after a payment, and fixes anything that would stop a customer from paying.
A screenshot of Ask the builder to check it on the Payments tab, with the Review button outlined

Asking the AI to check your checkout

To make a test payment:
  1. Go to your app editor.
  2. Click Dashboard.
  3. Click Payments.
  4. Under Make a test purchase, click Test with $1.
  5. Pay with a different PayPal account or a card.

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Tracking and refunding payments

Your PayPal payments appear on the Payments tab in your app dashboard, with your revenue, transactions and subscriptions. You handle disputes, payouts and receipts in your PayPal account, which you can open from the PayPal account link above your transactions on the Payments tab. See Tracking payments in your app. Base44 doesn’t take a fee on PayPal payments. PayPal charges its standard fees, and may keep its fee when you refund a payment.
If you’re new to selling with PayPal, PayPal may hold some of your first payments for up to 21 days before you can use them.
You can refund all or part of a payment from its details page. To refund a payment:
  1. Go to your app editor.
  2. Click Dashboard.
  3. Click Payments.
  4. Click Transactions.
  5. Click the payment you want to refund.
  6. Click Refund.
  7. Enter the amount to refund. It can be less than the full payment.
  8. Click Refund, then click Yes, refund to confirm.
A screenshot of the Refund payment window with the Refund button outlined

The Refund payment window

You can also ask the AI chat to add a refund button to an admin page in your app, so you can refund customers without opening your dashboard. The same admin page can also manage your subscriptions.

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Managing subscriptions

With PayPal subscriptions, you can cancel, pause or resume a customer’s plan from your app. Ask the AI chat to add these actions to an admin page, and it sets up your app to handle each one. For example:
Here’s what each action does to your customer’s access:
  • Cancel: PayPal stops the plan right away, so it shows as Canceled, not Canceling, on your Subscriptions tab. Your customer keeps access until the end of the period they’ve already paid for.
  • Pause: Billing stops, and your customer loses access while the plan is paused.
  • Resume: The plan becomes active again, and your customer has access while their plan is paid for.
  • Refund: A full refund of the latest subscription payment ends your customer’s access. A partial refund keeps their plan running.
A plan with a free trial keeps its trial, so your customer isn’t charged until the trial ends. If you refund or cancel a subscription in your PayPal account, or a renewal payment fails, your app removes your customer’s access automatically.
Create a workflow with the Subscription canceled trigger to act when a plan ends, for example to email your customer or update their account. It runs when a subscription is canceled, expires or is paused. Learn more about app payment workflows.

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Disconnecting PayPal

Disconnecting PayPal stops your app from taking new payments right away. Your past transactions stay in your records.
Your customers’ subscriptions keep billing in PayPal until you cancel them in your PayPal account. After you disconnect, you can’t refund payments through Base44, so issue any refunds first.
To disconnect PayPal:
  1. Go to your app editor.
  2. Click Dashboard.
  3. Click Integrations.
  4. Click the More actions icon next to PayPal.
  5. Click Disconnect.

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Troubleshooting

If PayPal isn’t working as expected, find your situation below.
PayPal may not let sellers in your business country receive payments. You can take payments with Base44 Payments or Stripe instead.
Your app already takes payments through another provider or a store, and each app can use only 1. Disconnect your current provider, then connect PayPal.
Your checkout waits until PayPal is connected and ready. Check the message under PayPal on the Integrations page, finish any step it asks for, then ask the AI chat to finish your PayPal checkout.