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Stripe or PayPal: which should I connect first?
Stripe. It covers more currencies and connects in one authorisation, while PayPal also needs notification settings configured inside PayPal itself. Add PayPal second, as an extra button for buyers who prefer it.
Where both of them are connected
Click your profile picture, open Settings, then Payment gateways. Stripe and PayPal each have a Connect button there.
Stripe sends you to a Stripe login, asks for the country your business is registered in and the type of business, then hands you back to systeme.io. PayPal sends you to a PayPal login, asks you to allow permission, and returns you with a PayPal Merchant ID showing.
The two side by side
| Stripe | PayPal | |
|---|---|---|
| Account required | A Stripe account | A PayPal Business account |
| Currencies | 46 | 25 |
| Buyers | Worldwide | Worldwide |
| Subscriptions | Yes, in all 46 currencies | Yes |
| Extra setup after connecting | None documented | Instant Payment Notifications, configured inside PayPal |
| Fields your order form must carry | Email and first name | Email, first name and last name |
A personal PayPal account can be converted to a Business account instead of opening a new one. systeme.io's guide notes that it is free.
The step PayPal needs and Stripe does not
PayPal tells systeme.io about a payment through Instant Payment Notifications, and you switch those on yourself inside PayPal. It means signing in to PayPal, opening account settings, then Notifications, then the instant payment notification section.
Two values go in. The notification URL is https://systeme.io/payment/webhook/listening-paypal, and the IPN messages setting has to be Enabled.
Miss that and PayPal payments can fail to appear in your systeme.io transaction list. Single payments still show without the webhook. Payment plans and subscriptions are the ones that need it, because systeme.io uses the notification to process the request and generate the invoice.
What that looks like when it goes wrong
PayPal can take up to 72 hours to confirm a payment, so a transaction missing for an afternoon is normal.
PayPal also fails to send the notification occasionally, even with the settings right. The fix is to resend the notification messages by hand from inside PayPal for the payments concerned, after which the transaction and its invoice are generated.
You are not choosing one forever
Which gateways appear on a page is set per funnel, not per account. Open the funnel, click Funnel settings, and there is a tick box for Credit card or debit card and a separate tick box for PayPal.
Tick both and a buyer picks.
What rides on Stripe
Apple Pay runs through the Stripe integration rather than as a gateway of its own, and it needs a custom domain. Once Stripe is connected, the domains on your account are added to Apple Pay and validated automatically.
Stripe Radar, the fraud screening tool, is also Stripe only. Its rules live in the Stripe dashboard, and systeme.io cannot configure them for you.
The rule that catches people out in India
systeme.io supports the Indian Rupee with a limit on each side. PayPal supports it only for domestic transactions, meaning payments between two PayPal India accounts. Stripe does not support American Express cards for transactions in Indian Rupees.
The gateways that are not these two
systeme.io supports others as well: Razorpay, Flutterwave, Mercado Pago, Mollie, GoCardless, Xendit, Secure and Pay and Paystack. Cash on delivery is on the gateway list too, for physical products only.
They matter when Stripe or PayPal does not serve your country or your buyers' preferred method. For a first funnel, the two main gateways are the shorter road.
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