PayPal Express Checkout Payment Gateway for WooCommerce vs Payment Plugins for PayPal WooCommerce
Compare WordPress plugins and tools side by side. Pick products with “Compare” in the software directory.
| Feature | PayPal Express Checkout Payment Gateway for WooCommerce v1.9.5 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free · ★ 4.2/5 Visit Details | Payment Plugins for PayPal WooCommerce v2.0.28 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free · ★ 4.8/5 Visit Details |
|---|---|---|
| At a glance | ||
| Active installs | 6,000+ | 80,000+ |
| Last updated | October 8, 2026 | October 16, 2026 |
| Editions | Payment Gateway of PayPal for WooCommerce (Free) · Payment Gateway of PayPal for WooCommerce (Premium) ($) | Payment Plugins for PayPal WooCommerce |
| Pros | Express and Smart buttons on cart and checkout pages; Pay Later and Venmo offered where PayPal makes them available; Sandbox and live modes | PayPal, Pay Later, card and wallet payments in one plugin; Works with WooCommerce block checkout and subscriptions; Optional Google reCAPTCHA check on checkout |
| Cons | Product-page buttons and mini-cart need the paid version; Refunds from the order screen need the paid version; Requires a PayPal developer account with API credentials | Needs a PayPal Business account and API credentials; Some payment options depend on PayPal approval; Large plugin with many bundled integration packages |
| Mentioned in our posts | 1 | — |
| More features | ||
| Other features | Smart Payment Buttons on checkout, Express Checkout button on the cart page, Pay Later and Venmo payment methods, Sandbox and live API environments | PayPal checkout buttons and payment gateway, Card payments through PayPal (advanced card processing), Google Pay, Apple Pay gateway, PayPal Fastlane guest checkout, Links from orders to the PayPal transaction, Google reCAPTCHA check on checkout, Bundled packages for subscriptions, pre-orders, Stripe, Elementor and ShipStation |
| Integrations | ||
| Payment | PayPal | PayPal, Stripe |
| E-commerce | WooCommerce | ShipStation, WooCommerce |
| Plugins | — | Elementor |
| Other | — | Google reCAPTCHA |
| Requires WordPress | 5.6 | 4.7 |
| Requires PHP | 7.0 | 7.4 |
| Tested up to | 7.1 | 7.1 |
| Phones home | No | No |
| External services | api-m.paypal.com, api-m.sandbox.paypal.com, www.paypal.com | sandbox.paypal.com, www.google.com, www.paypal.com |