✨ Please note: Online payments are available on the Lite plan or above.
To take online payments for your events, integrate your Bookwhen account with one of the two current available payments: Stripe or PayPal. This enables secure credit or debit card transactions before your event.
This article explains how to set up online payments and connect your account to a payment provider.
Choosing a payment provider
⚠️ Please note: Worldpay is no longer available for new sign-ups.
There are a couple of things to consider before selecting a payment provider:
Fees
Before choosing a payment provider, check their processing fees to find the best option for your business.
A processing fee is charged by the payment provider when a customer makes an online payment. It's usually a percentage of the payment, sometimes with an additional fixed fee.
💡 Which Stripe processing fees apply to your online payments
Depending on when your account first started using Stripe, you may have one of two payment setups:
Stripe Legacy: Accounts using Stripe before 26th August 2026 continue to pay their existing Stripe processing fees for now. These accounts will move to the new fee structure in the future.
Bookwhen x Stripe: Accounts using Stripe for the first time from 26th August 2026 use the new Stripe integration and pay the processing fees listed on the Bookwhen Payments fees page.
Your processing fees depend on which payment setup your account uses.
Payment process
It's a good idea to consider the payment process your customers will experience. For example:
Stripe only requires card details, while PayPal asks for address information for card payments.
Customers can only pay directly with a card on PayPal if they have a Business PayPal account.
Setting up online payments
To set up your online payment option:
Select Settings from the left-hand menu, then Payments.
The payments page allows you to:
Set the conditions for your customers' payments
Choose an online payment provider (Stripe or PayPal)
Define offline payment conditions
Establish your refund policy
🔗 Useful links:
Learn how to edit your currency and tax percentage settings.
Learn how to add a booking fee to your customers' payments.
Payment for bookings screen
How customers make payments will depend on the payment provider you choose.
Stripe's payment form
A simple Pay by card instruction will appear, with a field for customers to add their card number, expiry date and CVC number. To complete the booking, customers can review the cost of the booking in the Pay button:
PayPal's payment form for card payments:
When using PayPal to checkout, customers must add all payment information, including their country, card type and number, expiry date, full name and address:
Setting up your entry to take online payments for bookings
To set up your entry to take online payments:
Open your Scheduling page.
Select the entry from your scheduling list, then Edit entry:
Select the Tickets & Costs tab and scroll down to the Payment options section:
You can choose between:
Enforce online payment: Customers must make an online payment to complete their booking.
Online/offline choice: Customers can choose between either paying online or offline (but not both).
Offline only: Customers can only complete an offline payment.
Once set, remember to save your changes by selecting Save or Save & Exit.
💡 Please note: If a booking includes tickets from both Enforce online payment and Offline only entries, customers can choose to pay online or offline. The same applies to checkouts that include No cost, Free ticket, or pass/membership tickets.
Troubleshooting: Bookings completing without payment
If customers can complete bookings without paying, there may be an unnamed or free ticket available on the entry. Customers can book these tickets without being charged. To check:
Open the entry.
Go to the Tickets & Costs tab.
Check for any unnamed or free tickets.
Unpublish the ticket by clearing the Show this ticket option.
Save your changes.
Check existing bookings
After updating the ticket, review any recent bookings made for the entry to identify bookings created using the free ticket.
Depending on the situation, you can:
Cancel the booking and ask the customer to book again using the paid ticket.
Create a new booking on the customer's behalf and record payment if it was taken outside Bookwhen.
Multiple payment options
✅ What you can do:
You can set up multiple payment options and switch between providers as needed.
You can connect two Bookwhen accounts to the same Stripe account.
❌ What you can't do:
You cannot have more than one active payment provider at a time. You must choose to use either Stripe or Paypal.
PayPal doesn't allow multiple Bookwhen accounts to be connected to the same account.
Failed payments and booking records
When a payment fails or remains incomplete, the booking is not finalised and won’t appear in your booking records. This ensures your records only reflect successful transactions, keeping your bookings and payments accurate.
if you want to add a booking fee on top of your tickets follow this guide: https://support.bookwhen.com/en/articles/13916841-booking-fees