Setup guide · Payments & Fintech

How to add Stripe to WordPress in four steps — and the one approach almost nobody mentions.

Four legitimate ways to put Stripe payments on a WordPress site that isn’t WooCommerce. Three of them charge you a plugin surcharge. One of them doesn’t. Most setup guides only tell you about the three. Here’s the honest comparison.

By Henrik Vance · Editor, Spent

If you’ve searched “how to add Stripe to WordPress” recently, you’ve probably ended up reading three different articles that all recommend the same plugin. That’s not a coincidence. The plugin in question pays a generous affiliate commission, and the writers of those articles are quietly earning from your installation. The plugin itself is genuinely fine. But it’s also not the only option, and for many use cases, it’s not the best one.

This guide compares four legitimate ways to add Stripe to a non-WooCommerce WordPress site. We’ll cover when each is the right choice and, importantly, what each one actually costs once you factor in the plugin surcharges that the affiliate-driven guides don’t emphasise. Spent has no affiliate relationship with any of the plugins below. Henrik Vance spent eight years inside Stripe and has watched thousands of WordPress operators choose between these options — not always for the right reasons.

If you’re running an e-commerce store with a shopping cart and inventory, you want WooCommerce + Stripe, not the setups below. Read our WooCommerce + Stripe guide instead. The rest of this piece is for everyone else: content sites selling premium access, course creators, donation collectors, consultants taking deposit payments, agencies invoicing project work, anyone selling something small enough that a full store is overkill.

§ 01 · The four options that actually exist

Four paths. Wildly different economics.

Here are the genuine options for accepting Stripe payments on a WordPress site without WooCommerce. I’ll cover the details of each below, but the headline economics matter first.

Option 1: WP Simple Pay. The plugin most articles recommend. Embed payment buttons and forms into WordPress pages via shortcodes. Free version adds 3% on top of Stripe’s standard fees. Pro version removes the surcharge for $99 to $399 per year depending on tier.

Option 2: Stripe Payment Links. The option almost no WordPress guide mentions. Create a payment link directly inside the Stripe dashboard, paste the URL into your WordPress page or button, done. No plugin needed. No plugin surcharge. Standard Stripe fees only.

Option 3: WPForms / Jotform / form-builder plugins. Use the form-builder plugin you may already have for contact forms, add a Stripe integration. WPForms requires the Pro plan (~$199/year) for Stripe; Jotform’s plan includes it but adds its own per-transaction fees on free tiers. Worth it only if you genuinely need form fields alongside the payment.

Option 4: A purpose-built standalone plugin (WP Full Pay, Charitable, others). Specific use cases — donations, multi-step forms, particular niches. Each has its own pricing and trade-offs. Worth considering only if you’ve identified a specific feature you need that the first three options don’t handle.

The honest summary: for most simple cases, Option 2 (Stripe Payment Links) is the cheapest and simplest. Option 1 (WP Simple Pay) is the right answer when you genuinely need on-site embedded forms with significant customisation. Option 3 only makes sense if you’re already paying for the form builder for other reasons. Option 4 is niche.

Figure 1 · What each option actually costs

Annual cost at three revenue levels.

§ 02 · Option 1 — WP Simple Pay (the popular choice)

When WP Simple Pay genuinely is the right answer.

WP Simple Pay is a legitimately good plugin. The setup is easy. It works reliably. The UI is clean. The reason it appears in every WordPress payment guide isn’t purely affiliate revenue — it’s also that it does its job well. It’s the right choice when you need embedded payment forms on your WordPress pages, with on-page customisation, that integrate cleanly with your WordPress theme rather than redirecting customers to Stripe’s domain.

Here’s the 4-step setup:

Step 1 · Install the plugin

From your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins → Add New, search “WP Simple Pay”, and install the one published by Sandhills Development (now owned by WPForms / Sandhills). Activate it. The plugin will show a setup wizard on first activation.

Step 2 · Connect to Stripe via OAuth

The wizard offers a “Connect with Stripe” button. Use it — don’t copy and paste API keys manually even though that option exists. The OAuth flow is more secure and handles webhook configuration automatically. You’ll be redirected to Stripe to log in (or create an account if you don’t have one), authorise the connection, and bounced back to WordPress with the connection established.

Step 3 · Create your first payment form

In WordPress, navigate to WP Simple Pay → Add New. Choose a template (the free version has a “Payment Button” template; Pro adds full forms with custom fields). Set the price, the payment description, and your confirmation page settings. Save and copy the shortcode.

Step 4 · Embed and test

Create the WordPress page where you want the payment to appear. Paste the shortcode into a Shortcode block. Switch the plugin to test mode (in Settings) and run a transaction with Stripe’s test card (4242 4242 4242 4242, any future expiry, any CVC). If the transaction appears in your Stripe dashboard under Test Mode, you’re ready to switch to live mode.

Total setup time: 15 to 25 minutes for the basic case. The plugin is fine. My only honest objection is the 3% surcharge on the free version, which becomes meaningful at any volume above a few hundred dollars a month. For a business doing $5,000 a month, that’s $150 a month going to the plugin maker on top of Stripe’s fees. At that volume, either upgrade to Pro ($99/year) or switch to Option 2.

§ 03 · Option 2 — Stripe Payment Links (the option nobody mentions)

No plugin. No surcharge. Five minutes from start to live.

Stripe Payment Links is a feature Stripe shipped in 2021 that lets you create a hosted payment page directly inside the Stripe dashboard, without any code or third-party software. You configure the product, price, and checkout settings in Stripe’s UI. Stripe generates a unique URL. You paste that URL into your WordPress page as a button link. When customers click it, they go to Stripe’s hosted checkout page, pay, and return to your site.

For simple cases — a single product or service, donations, course access, deposits, simple subscriptions — this is genuinely the easiest, cheapest, and most secure option. No plugin to maintain. No plugin updates to worry about. No surcharge. No setup wizard. The full setup looks like this:

Step 1 · Create the payment link in Stripe

Log into your Stripe dashboard. Navigate to Payment Links (in the sidebar under Products, or directly at stripe.com/payment-links). Click “New”. Choose either an existing product or create a new one with a price. Configure the checkout (one-time vs. recurring, customer fields to collect, confirmation page settings). Click “Create link”.

Step 2 · Copy the URL

Stripe generates a URL like buy.stripe.com/abc123. Copy it. You can also choose a custom domain for your payment links if you want them to live under your own brand, but that’s optional.

Step 3 · Add a button to your WordPress page

In WordPress, edit the page where you want the payment button. Add a Button block (built into the WordPress block editor — no plugin needed). Set the button text (“Buy now”, “Donate”, “Get access”). Paste the Stripe URL as the link destination. Save the page.

Step 4 · Done. Test the live link.

Stripe Payment Links don’t have a separate test mode interface in the dashboard — you switch the whole Stripe dashboard to test mode (toggle at the top), create a test version of the link, and verify it works. Once verified, create the production version and add it to your WordPress page. That’s the entire setup.

For 60 to 70 percent of WordPress sites that want to accept Stripe payments, this approach is genuinely the right answer. The hosted checkout page is well-designed, supports Apple Pay and Google Pay automatically, handles tax calculation if you’ve enabled Stripe Tax, manages PCI compliance entirely on Stripe’s side, and adds zero plugin surface area to your WordPress install. It’s strictly cheaper than every plugin-based alternative. The reason it doesn’t appear in most “how to add Stripe to WordPress” guides is that no plugin maker pays an affiliate commission for recommending it.

The surcharge math

If a plugin charges 3% on top of Stripe’s 2.9%, your effective rate is 5.9% + 30¢ — meaningfully more expensive than PayPal’s standard rate of 3.49% + 49¢. Most affiliates do not emphasise this comparison. For low-margin products, the surcharge can eliminate your margin entirely. Always calculate what the surcharge will actually cost you at expected volume before installing.

§ 04 · Option 3 — Form-builder plugins (WPForms, Jotform)

When the payment is part of a more complex form.

If you genuinely need a multi-field form with the payment embedded — collecting detailed booking information, custom pricing logic based on selections, conditional fields, signed contracts, file uploads — form-builder plugins make sense. WPForms Pro ($199/year and up) includes Stripe integration with proper form-level features. Jotform offers similar functionality and embeds via its WordPress plugin.

The honest assessment: don’t pay for a form-builder plugin specifically for Stripe. If you’re already using WPForms for contact forms and the Stripe add-on is a small incremental cost, fine. If you’d be buying WPForms Pro at $199/year purely to accept payments, you’re overpaying. WP Simple Pay Pro ($99/year) costs half as much and is built specifically for payment forms. Stripe Payment Links costs nothing and handles the basic cases. Form builders earn their cost only when you genuinely need the form features alongside the payment.

§ 05 · The bottom line

Three honest recommendations.

If you’re selling a single product or service, accepting donations, or running a course site: start with Stripe Payment Links. Free, fast, no plugin maintenance, no surcharge. You can always graduate to a plugin later if you need on-page embedded forms.

If you need embedded forms with on-page customisation: WP Simple Pay Pro at $99 to $399/year. The Pro version removes the surcharge and adds features the free version doesn’t have. Don’t use the free version above modest volume — the 3% surcharge becomes economically irrational.

If you’re running an actual e-commerce store with products, inventory, and a shopping cart: WooCommerce + Stripe is the right answer. None of the four options in this article fit that case. See our dedicated WooCommerce guide instead.

The setup is genuinely fast for all four options. Stripe Payment Links can be live in 5 minutes. WP Simple Pay’s wizard takes 15 to 25 minutes. The form-builder options take 30 minutes or more. Pick the simplest one that meets your actual requirements, not the most heavily-promoted one. The affiliate-driven WordPress payment ecosystem has a built-in bias toward recommending whatever pays the highest commission. Awareness of that bias is most of what separates the right choice from the popular choice.

Quick answers

Ten common questions.

What’s the cheapest way to add Stripe to WordPress?

Stripe Payment Links. No plugin needed, no surcharge, no annual license fee. Create the link in your Stripe dashboard, add a button to your WordPress page linking to it. Works for the majority of simple use cases.

Do I need a plugin to add Stripe to WordPress?

No. Stripe Payment Links lets you create a hosted checkout page directly in Stripe’s dashboard and link to it from any WordPress page using the built-in Button block. A plugin is only required if you want the payment form embedded directly into your WordPress page rather than redirecting to Stripe’s domain.

Why does WP Simple Pay add 3% to transactions?

The free version of WP Simple Pay adds a 3% surcharge as the plugin’s revenue model — they don’t charge an upfront license fee but take a share of each transaction. The Pro version ($99–$399/year) removes the surcharge in exchange for the annual fee. For any business above a few hundred dollars per month in revenue, Pro is the cheaper option.

Is Stripe Payment Links secure?

Yes — the checkout page is hosted on Stripe’s domain (buy.stripe.com) and uses Stripe’s full PCI-compliant infrastructure. Your WordPress site never touches card data. From a security standpoint, this is actually safer than embedded forms because there’s no plugin code to maintain or vulnerable surface area on your WordPress install.

Can I customise the checkout if I use Stripe Payment Links?

Yes, within Stripe’s settings. You can match colours, add your logo, configure the confirmation page, and choose which payment methods (cards, Apple Pay, Klarna, etc.) to display. The checkout lives on Stripe’s domain by default but supports custom domains if branding matters.

Does Stripe Payment Links support subscriptions?

Yes — you can create payment links for one-time payments, subscriptions, or pay-what-you-want. Stripe handles the recurring billing, customer notifications, and failed-payment retries entirely. You don’t need a separate subscriptions plugin for this case.

When should I use WPForms or Jotform instead?

When you need form fields alongside the payment — booking details, custom pricing logic, conditional fields, file uploads, signed agreements. If you’re just collecting payments without complex form logic, neither WPForms nor Jotform is worth the cost.

Do I need SSL/HTTPS to accept Stripe payments?

Yes — Stripe requires HTTPS on any page that handles payment forms. If you’re using Stripe Payment Links, the checkout page is on Stripe’s HTTPS domain regardless of your site’s configuration, but your linking page should still be HTTPS. Most hosts provide free SSL via Let’s Encrypt.

How long does the full setup take?

Stripe Payment Links: 5 minutes from start to live link. WP Simple Pay: 15–25 minutes for basic setup. WPForms or Jotform with Stripe: 30+ minutes. WooCommerce: 60+ minutes. The simpler the use case, the faster the setup — pick the option that matches your actual complexity.

Can I switch plugins later without losing data?

Mostly yes — your customer data and payment history live in Stripe, not in WordPress. Switching plugins changes how the payment forms render on your WordPress site but doesn’t affect anything in Stripe itself. The exception is plugins that store customer-facing logic (subscription rules, custom forms) inside WordPress — those would need to be reconfigured in the new plugin.

Based on Henrik Vance’s direct work with Stripe’s product team and observation of plugin ecosystems as of Q2 2026. Plugin pricing reflects publicly stated rates at time of writing and is subject to change. Spent has no affiliate relationship with any of the plugins mentioned in this article. Editorial coverage is independent and not sponsored. No links in this article are affiliated.