Enabling express checkouts

Express checkout methods allow customers to quickly pay for a product or service using pre-filled information from an existing account. The result is a completed purchase with very little “friction,” which can help lead to increased conversion rates.

With the Stripe extension, there are four express checkout methods available:

• Amazon Pay
• Apple Pay
• Google Pay
• Link by Stripe

This guide will cover the requirements for offering express payment methods and how to enable them on your site.

Site requirements

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To properly display express payment methods via the Stripe extension:

• Your domain must have a valid SSL certificate.
• Your entire site must be served over HTTPS.

Additional Apple Pay requirements

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In addition to the site requirements above, Apple Pay also requires that:

• Your server has port 443 open.
• Your server supports the TLS 1.2 protocol or later.
• Your domain is enabled on your Stripe account’s payment method domains page.

Additional Google Pay requirements

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In addition to the site requirements above, Google Pay also requires that:

• Your domain is enabled on your Stripe account’s payment method domains page.

Additional Link by Stripe requirements

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In addition to the site requirements above, Link by Stripe also requires that:

• Your Stripe account is based in one of the following countries: the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, United Arab Emirates, or any European country.

Additional Amazon Pay requirements

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In addition to the site requirements above, Amazon Pay also requires that:

• The currency your customer is paying in is one of these: USD, AUD, GBP, DKK, EUR, HKD, JPY, NZD, NOK, ZAR, SEK, or CHF.
• Your Stripe account is based in one of the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, or the U.S.

Enabling express checkouts

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To enable express payment methods in the Stripe extension:

1. Navigate to WooCommerce > Settings > Payments > Stripe > Payment Methods.
2. Scroll down to the Express checkouts section.
3. Select which of the express payment methods you’d like to enable.
4. Select the Save changes button when you are finished.

Customizing express checkouts

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After saving your payment method settings, you can customize how each set of express checkout method buttons appear on your site by selecting the Customize links.

When customizing Apple Pay and Google Pay, you can change:

• Which of the following pages these buttons will appear on:
  • The checkout page.
  • Individual product pages.
  • The cart page.
  • The change payment method page (if the Subscriptions plugin is active)
• The call to action used in the buttons.
• The size of the buttons.
• The color theme of the buttons.

Amazon Pay and Link only allow you to customize the button locations and button size. (Note that the change payment method location is not available for Amazon Pay.)

Preview and eligibility

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A preview of the buttons is shown below the customization options so that you can see how the customizations will appear before saving your changes.

Below the previews, we list the eligibility requirements for the buttons, which ones are missing (if any), and where the buttons will appear.

Compatibility

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Express checkout methods are very similar to card payments. As a result, they work well with most features, such as test mode and separate authorize/capture.

But there are some cases in which express checkout methods won’t be shown:

• Any non-default product type
• Pre-orders that charge upon release
• Composite products
• File upload fields
• Free products
• Variable subscriptions where any variation is out of stock
• Products that don’t require shipping, but only if the “Calculate tax based on” setting is set to the customer billing address.
  • Learn how to override this behavior.

Custom fields

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Some extensions add custom fields to the checkout page(s). How express checkouts handle them depends on how the extension registered the custom field.

With the woocommerce_register_additional_checkout_field function:

• These fields appear on the blocks checkout page. When a shopper pays with an express method from that page, express checkout collects the values they entered and saves them to the order.
• These fields are not shown on product or cart pages, so express checkout sends them empty from there. If one of them is required, WooCommerce refuses the payment and reports that the field is required.

With the woocommerce_checkout_fields filter:

• On the shortcode checkout page, express checkout enforces any field added this way that is marked as required. These fields are shown on that page, and the values a shopper enters are saved to the order as custom fields keyed by the field ID.
• These fields aren’t shown on product or cart pages. If one is required, the payment is blocked and the shopper is told to go to the checkout page, fill in the required fields, and complete the order from there.
• Express checkout runs this check after the shopper approves the wallet sheet, not before it opens, so shoppers get no advance warning. The payment is refused, and an error is shown that indicates the missing field.
• To turn off this handling entirely, use this code snippet:

add_filter( 'wc_stripe_express_checkout_enable_classic_checkout_custom_fields', '__return_false' );

Using that snippet, required fields added with the woocommerce_checkout_fields filter no longer block express checkouts, and values aren’t saved to express checkout orders. Fields added via woocommerce_register_additional_checkout_field are not affected because WooCommerce validates those itself.

Can I use only the express checkout methods and not take card payments?

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Generally not. The credit card/ debit card payment method must be enabled in order to use express checkout methods.

There is one exception: if you are using the Optimized Checkout Suite and have Link by Stripe enabled, Link will show on the checkout page even if you disable card payments.

Show Express Checkout Buttons for Virtual Products

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By default, Stripe for WooCommerce hides Express Checkout buttons (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Link, etc.) when:

• A product is not shippable (e.g., virtual or downloadable), and
• Taxes are configured to be calculated based on the customer’s billing address

This behavior was introduced to prevent tax mismatches, since WooCommerce doesn’t have the customer’s address until after the payment confirmation button is clicked—making it challenging to calculate tax accurately in advance.

As of Stripe for WooCommerce 9.5.0, developers can override the default behavior.

add_filter( 'wc_stripe_should_hide_express_checkout_button_based_on_tax_setup', '__return_false' );