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How to Activate PayPal Commerce

PayPal Commerce is Charitable’s modern PayPal integration – a single connection that lets your donors pay with PayPal, Venmo, Pay Later, credit and debit cards, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. This page walks you through activating it on your site and what to do if it isn’t showing up in your gateway list.

PayPal Commerce replaces the older PayPal Standard, Express Checkout, and Card Processing setups with one integration that also unlocks Venmo, Pay Later, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. Donors see modern wallet buttons and a faster checkout, and you handle refunds and recurring donations directly inside WordPress without juggling multiple PayPal products or accounts. For the full background, see Introducing PayPal Commerce.

Available in Charitable Pro 1.8.15+.

Activate PayPal Commerce

  1. In your WordPress admin, go to Charitable → Settings → Payment Gateways.
  2. Find PayPal Commerce in the gateway list and click Enable.
  3. Click Settings next to PayPal Commerce, then click Connect with PayPal.
  4. PayPal opens in a new window. Sign in to your PayPal business account (or create one) and approve the connection.
  5. PayPal redirects you back to WordPress. The connection panel will show your merchant ID and the capabilities granted to your account.

That’s it – your donation forms will immediately offer PayPal Commerce as a payment option.

Test Mode – PayPal Commerce respects Charitable’s standard Test Mode toggle. Leave Test Mode on while validating the donor flow, then turn it off when you’re ready to accept live donations.

Don’t see PayPal Commerce in your gateway list?

To keep things predictable, only one PayPal integration is shown per site at a time. If your site is already set up with the existing PayPal gateway (PayPal Standard / IPN), PayPal Commerce stays hidden by default and the gateway list shows your existing PayPal configuration instead.

Charitable decides which one to show during the 1.8.15 upgrade by checking two signals:

  • Is the existing PayPal gateway currently enabled in your settings?
  • Are there any prior donations on your site that were processed through the existing PayPal gateway?

If either of those is true, your site keeps its existing PayPal configuration and PayPal Commerce is hidden.

This is the right behavior for the vast majority of sites – running both integrations side-by-side complicates donor experience and accounting. But if you’d like to switch to PayPal Commerce anyway, you can.

Switching to PayPal Commerce

Before you switch – read this

If you have active recurring donations running through the existing PayPal gateway, please read this carefully:

  • PayPal will continue billing your donors on the schedule you set up. None of your donors will be cancelled.
  • However, after switching, Charitable will no longer record those renewals in your dashboard, because the IPN handler for the existing PayPal gateway is disabled when you switch.

If reporting on those renewals matters to you, cancel the recurring donations in your PayPal dashboard before switching. Or contact our support team – we can help you migrate active donors when our migration tool ships in a future release.

If you only have one-time historical donations and no live recurring, switching has no donor-facing impact.

Three ways to switch

Pick the path that matches your access level. All three accomplish the same thing.

Path 1 – WP-CLI (recommended for developers and agencies)

If you have shell access to your server (SSH, hosting CLI, etc.), this is the cleanest path:

wp charitable paypal force-commerce-tier --confirm-recurring-impact

The --confirm-recurring-impact flag is required when you have active recurring donations on the existing PayPal gateway. The command will refuse to run otherwise, with a count of how many donations would be affected.

Preview what would happen with the --dry-run flag before committing:

wp charitable paypal force-commerce-tier --dry-run

After the switch, go to Charitable → Settings → Payment Gateways and complete the Connect with PayPal flow on the PayPal Commerce card to start accepting donations.

Path 2 – functions.php filter (for developers without shell access)

Add this snippet to your theme’s functions.php or a small custom plugin:

add_filter( 'pre_option_charitable_paypal_user_tier', function () {
    return 'commerce';
} );

The filter runs at every get_option() call, so PayPal Commerce becomes visible immediately on the next admin page load.

This is a runtime override – it doesn’t change the stored value in your database. The override stays in effect as long as the filter is in your code; remove the filter and the original visibility is restored. If you want to make the change permanent without keeping the filter, leave it in place to verify everything works, then run the WP-CLI command from Path 1.

Path 3 – SQL update (for hosting-panel / phpMyAdmin users)

If you’re comfortable with phpMyAdmin, Adminer, or your hosting panel’s database tool, run this query against your WordPress database:

UPDATE wp_options
SET option_value = 'commerce'
WHERE option_name = 'charitable_paypal_user_tier';

Replace wp_options with your actual table prefix if it isn’t the default. The change is immediate – refresh the gateway settings page and PayPal Commerce will appear.

⚠️ Reminder: if you have active recurring donations on the existing PayPal gateway, PayPal will continue billing donors but Charitable will not record those renewals. Cancel them in PayPal first, or proceed knowing the trade-off.

What happens after switching

  • The existing PayPal gateway disappears from your gateway settings list. Its saved API credentials remain in the database in case a future reverse path is added.
  • PayPal Commerce appears in the gateway list. Its Connect with PayPal button is enabled. Click it to begin onboarding with PayPal.
  • Until you complete onboarding, PayPal Commerce shows a “not connected” status and donors will not see PayPal as a payment option on the donation form.
  • Donations recorded before the switch are not affected – they keep their original gateway tag and stay visible in your reports.

How to undo a switch

There is no in-UI undo button. The switch is one-way under the current model.

If you switched by mistake or hit an unexpected issue, please contact our support team. We can help restore your previous configuration directly, and we’re tracking these requests to inform whether we should build a proper reverse path in a future release.

Need help?

If any of this is unclear, or you’d like a hand running the switch, our support team is happy to walk you through it. Open a ticket from your Charitable account and mention “PayPal Commerce activation” – we’ll handle the rest.

Still have questions? We’re here to help!

Submit a Support Ticket
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Feature New

🎟️ Introducing Charitable Events: Sell Tickets Inside Your Campaigns!

Most nonprofits sell event tickets in one tool and collect donations in another, which leaves two sets of reports and a manual match at the end of the year. Charitable Events brings both together, selling tickets through the same donation forms and payment gateways you already run in Charitable. Why this is important:

  • 🎟️ Every ticket is a donation: Ticket sales run through the gateway you already use and count toward the campaign goal, with everything managed under Charitable » Events.
  • 📱 QR check-in from any phone: Each attendee gets their own QR code on the receipt, and volunteers scan at the door through a check-in link that needs no WordPress account.
  • 🧾 Receipts ready for tax time: Give each ticket type a fair market value, and Charitable puts the correct tax-deductible amount on every donor receipt.
  • 📋 Attendee details at checkout: Ask every guest for a meal choice, shirt size, or access needs, with a separate attendee record created for each ticket.
  • 🗓️ Blocks and calendars included: Three editor blocks plus Sugar Calendar and The Events Calendar support put your events where supporters already look.

Check out our announcement here.

ai New

🚀 Unleash AI Power in Charitable!

Your AI assistant can now build, edit, and manage your Charitable fundraising campaigns directly — just by asking. With Charitable Pro adding write support for the WordPress Abilities API, tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Cursor can handle full administrative actions safely through MCP. Why this is important:

  • 🤖 Campaign creation in plain language: Prompt your assistant with a goal like “Set up a fundraiser for the shelter with a $5,000 goal”, and it builds a real draft campaign complete with suggested donation tiers.
  • 🎨 Instant donation form tweaks: Add custom fields, change button colors, or reorder elements without diving into form settings.
  • 📝 Offline gift logging: Tell your assistant about cash or check gifts, and it will match donor emails and record transactions into your history.
  • 🛡️ Safety and control by default: Write access stays strictly off until turned on in Charitable » Tools » AI MCP, keeping read-only reporting safe by default.
  • 📜 Full audit logging: Every change made by an AI assistant is tracked under Charitable » Tools » Logs, so you always know who (or what) updated your site.

Check out our announcement here.

Improvement Payments

💰 Accept Recurring Donations with Windcave and Charitable

A donor sets their gift up once on Windcave’s secure payment page, and Charitable bills every renewal after that on schedule. Why this is important:

🏦 Organizations banked in New Zealand or Australia: monthly giving on the gateway your bank already set you up with, with no second processor to onboard.
⛪ Churches taking regular tithes and offerings: congregants set their own schedule once, which is the simplest way to launch recurring church giving without a separate platform.
🌏 Groups with donors in several currencies: Windcave handles more than 20, so a supporter can give in the currency they actually hold.
📅 Operating funds rather than one-time campaigns: switch on Recurring Only mode and the one-off option disappears, so every gift to that campaign is a subscription.
🧾 Teams with no developer on staff: 3 sets of credentials pasted into a settings page, and no code anywhere.

Check out our announcement here.

automation update

⚡ Visual Automation Builder: Drag and Drop With No Code!

Charitable Automation Connect 2.3.0 introduces the Visual Automation Builder, a full-screen canvas that lays each automation out as a flow of connected cards: a trigger, optional conditions, and a list of actions that run in order.

🧩 Many actions, one trigger: Tag a donor, send an email, add a note, and fire a webhook from a single event, dragged into any order.

✉️ Act inside Charitable: New Send Email, Tag Donor, and Add Donor Note actions run with no external service required.

🔤 Merge tags: Personalize emails and notes with live fields like {first_name}, {total}, and {campaign_name}.

🔁 Apply to existing donors: Run Tag Donor and Add Donor Note against the donors you already have.

🖥️ Canvas or Simple: Switch views anytime, and automations built before 2.3.0 keep working unchanged.

Read more here.

Integration updated

📬 Introducing Brevo for Charitable: Turn Donors into Subscribers Automatically

The moment a supporter makes a gift is when they are most engaged. With the new Brevo integration for Charitable, you can automatically turn those one-time donors into long-term subscribers without touching a single spreadsheet.

Simply collect donor consent right on your donation form and start your welcome series immediately.

What’s New:

🔄 Automated Subscriber Sync: New donors who opt in are added straight to your Brevo contact list as soon as their payment clears—no manual exports or CSV imports required.

🎯 Granular Consent & Opt-In Control: Customize your checkbox label, choose whether it defaults to checked or unchecked, or turn on Brevo double opt-in to keep your list clean and compliant.

📋 Per-Campaign List Mapping: Route supporters to your global email list or map specific campaigns to targeted Brevo lists to tailor your follow-up messaging.

⚡ 5-Minute Setup: Connect instantly by pasting your Brevo API key into the Newsletter settings, map your contact fields, and start building your email list on autopilot.

Ready to grow your mailing list? Brevo is available now starting on the Charitable Plus plan—connect your account today!

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