Stripe is a well-respected international payment gateway with support for a large number of countries and currencies. With Stripe Premium and Give you can accept credit card donations with no fee, as well as APple Pay, Google Pay, and iDeal donations directly on your website easily and seamlessly.
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Getting Started with Stripe
In order to accept payments with Stripe using Give you will need to have an active Stripe account, the Stripe Give Add-on, and the Give Core plugin installed and activated. If you plan on accepting Credit Cards on site we also highly recommend you have an SSL certificate.
Click here for instructions on installing and activating Give Add-ons.
Note: You can always access your add-on purchase receipts, downloads, and licenses from your Give Account dashboard.
After your Stripe Add-on is activated, go to “Donations > Settings” and click on the Payment Gateways tab. There you will see the default Payment Gateways (PayPal Standard, Test Payment, and Offline Donations). With the Stripe addon active, there’s a Stripe option/section as well. Check the checkbox to enable Stripe as your credit card Gateway for your website, and change the front-end label that donors see, if you’d like.
If you would like to accept credit cards directly on your website with Stripe you will need an SSL certificate.
Connecting to Stripe
Once you have activated the Add-on it’s time to get connected to Stripe. There are two methods for connecting to Stripe, the Stripe Connect Method and the API Key method.
Stripe Connect
Before connecting to stripe, every backend page in the WordPress Admin area displays a banner prompting your connect to Stripe:
Click the “Connect with Stripe” button. This will redirect you to Stripe and prompt you to connect. You can also find this method of connection at Donations > Settings > Payment Gateways (tab) > Stripe Settings (section).
Click the “Connect my Stripe account” button to connect with Stripe. Once clicked, you will be redirected back to your admin dashboard and you should see you now have been connected:
Give is now connected to your Stripe account and ready to accept both live and test donations.
Disconnecting Stripe Connect
If for some reason you need to disconnect Give from Stripe you can do so by clicking the “Disconnect” button found under the gateway’s settings. Disconnecting from Stripe will remove the ability to accept online donations until reconnected.
Disconnecting from Stripe will remove the connection between the website you are disconnecting as well as any other sites that you have connected Give using the same Stripe account. Proceed with caution when disconnecting if you have multiple sites connected.
Connecting Stripe and Your Webhook (required)
In order for donations to be marked as complete on your GiveWP site, you must configure the webhook at Stripe. On the settings page at “Donations > Settings > Payment Gateways > Stripe.” the webhook URL is pre-populated on the page. Copy that to your clipboard for later use.
Click the link in the paragraph just above the webhook URL or navigate to
https://dashboard.stripe.com/account/webhooks
On that page, click the “Add endpoint” button and paste in your webhook URL. In the box, select “All events.”
Note: It is recommended to send all events over the webhook so that if Give is updated in the future to use any events that it currently does not, those will send as well. Unless your site is processing thousands of donations per day or more, you should have no issue with sending all events, and you can ignore the warnings from Stripe.
In order to process test mode donations, you’ll need to repeat the same steps with Stripe’s dashboard toggled into test mode.
API-key based Stripe Integration
If you want to use your own Stripe account’s API keys to connect to Stripe you can do so. Note: you do not need to use your own API keys if you are already connected to Stripe.
To use your API keys first navigate to WP-Admin > Donations > Settings > Advanced. On that page enable the “Stripe API Keys” option:
Once enabled you can now obtain your API Keys and configure your Give Settings to integrate with Stripe.
Obtaining Your Stripe API Keys
Login to your Stripe account and you’ll be presented with the Stripe Dashboard like the image below.
Click on Developers in the left navigation, then select the API Keys link. You will be presented with a screen like the one below (you may have to re-authenticate to see this screen):
There you’ll find all the API Keys you need to integrate Give with your Stripe account.
Test Keys are great for testing your donation forms before pushing your site live. When you are ready to go live, make sure to update your Stripe Add-on settings with the Live Secret and Publishable Keys.
Important: for live keys, follow the same steps above AFTER toggling the stripe dashboard into live mode. Test keys generally start with “sk_test” for the secret key and “pk_test” for the publishable key. Enter those keys in the appropriate spot in the Stripe settings for test donation. When your site is in Give test mode (more on that below) it uses these keys.
Integrating Your API Keys in Give
Copy each key and go to your WordPress site. Go to “Donations > Settings” and click on the Payment Gateways tab. There you’ll see a section called Stripe Settings. Paste each key into its respective field, then save settings.
That’s all there is to it. Now when your donors come to your site, they’ll be able to use credit cards to donate to you directly in the currency of your country and not have to be redirected to another site.
Stripe Settings Explained
Stripe Statement Descriptor
Settings Type: Text input
Options: any 22 alphanumeric characters.
Default: Site Title
This is the text that appears on your donor’s bank statements. Statement descriptors are limited to 22 characters, cannot use the special characters <, >, ', or ", and must not consist solely of numbers. This is typically the name of your website or organization.
This allows you to customize the info that displays on bank statements.
Note: There must be a value in this field for Stripe to function properly. A default value of your site name is typically set, but in rare circumstances, this field appears blank by default. In that case, save a value here to restore functionality.
3D Secure Payments
Settings Type: checkbox
Options: checked | unchecked
Default: unchecked
This option, when checked, enables 3D secure card payments, an additional layer of authentication that protects you from liability for fraudulent card payments. If enabled, donors may be redirected to the card issuer’s site to verify their identity. For more information about 3D secure payments, See Stripe’s documentation on 3D Secure Cards
Collect Billing Details
Settings Type: checkbox
Options: checked | unchecked
Default: unchecked
This setting allows you to collect Address data along with donations, so that donation records include addresses at Give. The address is not necessary to process the donation at Stripe, but you may have a need to collect it.
Pre-approve Only
Settings Type: checkbox
Options: checked | unchecked
Default: unchecked
This allows you to pre-approve payments but not charge until up to seven days after the donation has been made. If selected, you need to manually go in and mark donations as approved before the money will come into your Stripe account. After 7 days, the money is not recoverable.
Note: Pre-approval does not work for Recurring donations or ACH (bank account) payments. If enabled, those payments will process immediately.
Enable Apple Pay and Google Pay
Settings Type: checkbox
Options: checked | unchecked
Default: unchecked
This checkbox enables Apple Pay and Google Pay.
Read more about Apple Pay and Google Pay
Enable Stripe Checkout
Settings Type: checkbox
Options: checked | unchecked
Default: unchecked
Note: Stripe has deprecated this form of checkout and may no longer support it. As well, 3D secure card payments, Google and Apple Pay, are not available when using the Stripe Modal Window. If accepting 3D secure card payments is necessary, using the standard Stripe credit card fields is required.
If you want to use the Stripe Modal Checkout, essentially a Stripe-styled modal popup that offers a different interface to pay than the default Give credit card fields, check the Enable Stripe Checkout option. Once you do that you will see the following options appear:
- Checkout Heading: This is the main heading within the modal checkout.
- Stripe Checkout Image: This image appears in when the Stripe checkout modal window.
- Processing Text: This text appears briefly after the donor has made a successful donation while Give is confirming the payment with the Stripe API
- Verify Zip Code: If enabled, Checkout should validate the billing ZIP code of the donor for added fraud protection.
- Remember Me: If enabled, Checkout would remember the card details for future donations.
Once you have configured and saved the above settings, you would now see a Stripe Modal checkout like below while donation using Stripe.
Credit Card Fields Format
Settings Type: radio buttons
Options: Single Field | Multi Field
Default: Multi Field
This setting allows you to choose how the credit card fields are displayed on the form. The default is Multi Field which displays separate inputs for Card Number, CVC, Cardholder Name, and Expiration date:
The other option is Single Field which houses all of those various pieces of data in a much smaller single input:
