How to Fix WooCommerce Payment Not Working

A broken checkout is the worst thing that can happen to a WooCommerce store. Customers get to the payment stage and something fails — the payment is declined, the page errors, or the transaction appears to go through but nothing arrives in your orders.

Here are the most common causes and what to check first.

1. SSL certificate issues

Payment processors require a valid SSL certificate to process transactions. If your site’s SSL has expired or is not configured correctly, payments will fail. Check that your site loads on HTTPS without a browser warning and that the padlock is showing in the address bar.

2. Stripe or PayPal API keys are wrong or expired

If you have recently migrated your site, changed hosting, or updated your payment plugin, your API keys may no longer be connected correctly. Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Payments and check that your payment gateway is enabled and that the API keys match what is in your Stripe or PayPal dashboard.

Also check whether you are accidentally in test mode — a common cause of payments appearing to fail when they are actually just running through the sandbox.

3. Plugin conflict

A recently installed or updated plugin can break your checkout without any obvious error message. To test for this, temporarily switch to a default WordPress theme and deactivate all plugins except WooCommerce and your payment gateway. If the checkout works, reactivate plugins one at a time until the problem returns.

4. Checkout page is missing the WooCommerce shortcode

Your checkout page needs the WooCommerce checkout block or the [woocommerce_checkout] shortcode to function. If the page was accidentally edited or a block was removed, the checkout form will not appear. Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Advanced and check that the checkout page is set correctly.

5. Permalink issues

Sometimes WooCommerce checkout problems are caused by permalink settings getting out of sync. Go to Settings > Permalinks and click Save Changes without changing anything. This flushes the rewrite rules and often resolves checkout redirect issues.

Still not working?

If you have worked through these steps and the checkout is still broken, the next step is checking your error logs and testing with a freshly created product. Some payment failures are caused by specific product configurations rather than the gateway itself.

If you would rather hand this over to someone who deals with WooCommerce problems regularly, I offer WooCommerce and WordPress fixes for small businesses. Get in touch and I can take a look.