To accept contributions through PayPal on your campaign, your PayPal account should meet the following requirements:
1. Your PayPal account is Verified.
Unverified PayPal accounts have limits on what services they can use. Online crowdfunding may not be supported in your region through online checkouts without a Verified status. Being Verified will also increase the chances for your supporters to contribute successfully to your project.
Note: Your region may support Person-to-Person payments through PayPal, but it may still NOT support online PayPal checkouts.
Click here for information on verifying your PayPal account.
2. Your PayPal email address must be Confirmed.
If you haven’t confirmed your PayPal email, supporters can’t contribute to your campaign. PayPal’s system will show them an error message instead.
Important: “Confirming” your email address is different than “Verifying” your PayPal account.
Click here for more information on confirming your PayPal address.
3. Your PayPal account must be capable of accepting one of our Supported Currencies.
If your account is not set up with a supported currency, nobody can contribute to your campaign. PayPal’s system will show them an error message instead.
Most users will instinctively choose their local currency when they set up their campaign. (For example, US PayPal accounts automatically accept USD. So, most US users would choose USD as their accepted currency for their campaign).
But what if you need to accept another currency? For example, a British user may want to accept contributions in EUR instead of GBP. To accept contributions in a different currency, you need an open balance in that currency inside your PayPal account. Also, make sure that currency is on this list.
Click here for information on how to change your balance currency.
Important: If you enable a new currency in your PayPal account for a campaign, select the same currency in your campaign.
Why do I need to select the same currency?
Because PayPal can only process contributions through campaigns in one currency at a time. It’s not possible to let your contributors choose which currency they want to send. You decide which currency you want to receive, and PayPal will only deposit that currency into your PayPal account.
Example: Someone from Canada donates to your US campaign accepting US Dollars. PayPal takes those Canadian Dollars, converts them into US Dollars, and then deposits USD into your account. This is done in the background during the transaction, you don’t have to learn to yourself. The conversion rate PayPal uses is shown to them onscreen before they complete the transaction.
4. If you want to accept credit cards but you only have a Personal PayPal account, you must upgrade your account
Most Personal accounts can only receive PayPal-to-PayPal transactions, but most contributors prefer to use credit cards to make their contributions.
In other words, you’re losing out on contributions if you only have a Personal PayPal account. PayPal doesn’t charge you to upgrade your PayPal account, and your fees for using our system won’t change either.
How do I upgrade my PayPal account? #
Click here for information on upgrading your PayPal account.
*Important! If you’re running a Personal Campaign and aren’t a Business or Organization, but you still want to accept credit cards, list your own first and last name as the Business Name. Select “Services – Other” as the Business category. PayPal advised us to tell our customers this.
Still not working? Try Stripe! #
If you’ve gone through these steps and your campaign still isn’t able to accept contributions, we recommend using Stripe instead. IF you’re located in one of Stripe’s supported regions.
Unfortunately, your Stripe account won’t work with our system if you’re located outside these regions. We are sorry for any frustration this may cause.
We highly encourage you to add a Stripe account to your campaign if you are eligible. Stripe specializes in credit and debit card payments, so they have a much higher success rate for completed contributions! This article explains the differences further.
Note: We don’t process payments directly. PayPal and Stripe process payments through their systems and we cannot see any financial information.
Our Customer Service agents also cannot provide direct help in getting through any of the steps on this page as we don’t have access to their systems. The information on this page is for reference only and may become outdated over time.
