💳 Payment blocked = revenue leaking
Your WooCommerce customers
Your WooCommerce customers
can't pay anymore?
we get the gateway running again.
Diagnostic and fix of WooCommerce payment bugs
Order stuck on "Pending payment" indefinitely, Stripe webhook returning 403, PayPal looping, customer paid but no order created, HPOS breaking everything: every scenario has a precise technical cause. We find it, we plug it back in.
✓ Free 30-min pre-audit
✓ Quote within 24 business hours
✓ From €60/h excl. VAT
✓ Orphan orders recovered
💸 The real cost of a broken WooCommerce checkout
How much you lose every day
Measurements observed across 12 WooCommerce payment audits run in 2025-2026.
~12%
of WooCommerce baskets
lost to specific payment bugs
lost to specific payment bugs
~35%
of Stripe transactions
with a silently failing webhook
with a silently failing webhook
€2-4k
revenue / month recoverable
after fix on a standard WC store
after fix on a standard WC store
💡 Free pre-audit: we calculate the exact figure for your store.
🔎 Bugs by WooCommerce gateway
Every payment plugin has its typical failures
Recognising your gateway is 50% of the diagnostic.
💳 WooCommerce Payments (official)
Frequent failures:
- Webhook
/?wc-api=wc_stripereturning 403 → Cloudflare or Wordfence - Order stuck on "pending" → IPN never received
- 3DSv2 not handled on plugin versions < 7.0
- HPOS conflict on plugin versions < 7.5
- Secret key expired after Stripe rotation
🅿️ WooCommerce PayPal Payments
Frequent failures:
- "Pay with PayPal" button not displaying → JS SDK not loaded
- Sandbox active in production → test client ID never swapped
- IPN webhook not received → URL changed without updating the PayPal dashboard
- Duplicate orders if the return page is reloaded
🟣 Stripe (third-party plugins)
Frequent failures:
- Order status "Pending payment" indefinitely → webhook returns 200 but PHP hook crashes
- Multi-currency mismatch with the Stripe account default currency
- Test/live mode confused after migration
- Conflict with WP Rocket on the return page
🏦 Klarna / Worldpay / Adyen
Frequent failures:
- HMAC / signature invalid after a technical key change
- 3DS redirect bouncing back to a WooCommerce error page
- Server callback returning 500 → broken endpoint
- Currency not supported (EUR/USD) on a multi-currency store
🍎 Apple Pay / Google Pay
Frequent failures:
- Apple Pay button invisible on iOS →
apple-developer-merchantid-domain-associationmissing from/.well-known/ - HTTPS not valid across the whole site (subdomains)
- Domain not verified in the Stripe / Adyen dashboard
- JS conflict with a GDPR / cookies plugin
💼 Bank transfer / cheque (native WC)
Frequent failures:
- Instructions email not sent → SMTP broken (
wp_mail()) - Bank details misrendered → variable not set
- Method disabled by default in some shipping zones
- Conflict with a loyalty plugin that rejects manual payments
💰 Pricing
Pricing stated up-front
Pre-audit is free. For the intervention, you know exactly what it costs before we touch the code.
🔍 Pre-audit
Pre-audit
find the payment bug
0€free
30 min · no commitment
- Payment journey test on 3 cards (Visa, MC, 3DS)
- PSP + WooCommerce log review (
wc-logs/) - Firm quote + recoverable revenue estimate
- You decide whether we continue
⚡ Most requested
🔧 Intervention
Targeted intervention
get payment running again
from 60€excl. VAT
per diagnostic · price stated up-front
- Backup of files + DB before intervention
- Fix webhook / API key / HPOS / 3DS / plugin
- Tests on Visa, MC, AmEx, Apple Pay if applicable
- Recovery of orphan orders (≤ 10 included)
- 30-day warranty on the fix
🛡️ Maintenance
WooCommerce maintenance
continuous payment monitoring
from 50€/ month
24/7 monitoring · no commitment
- Monthly automated payment replay
- Daily backups externalised automatically
- Alert if PSP webhook errors more than 3 times
- Priority intervention for payment incidents
🧭 Don't mix them up
"WooCommerce payment blocked" is not...
❌ Not a WordPress critical error
If the whole WordPress site shows "There has been a critical error on this website" and not just the checkout, it's a general WP bug, not a payment bug. Dedicated page.
Critical error page → ❌ Not a store completely downIf customers can't access the site at all, it's not a payment bug but a site outage. Dedicated page.
WC down page →
❌ Not a PSP business decline
If Stripe/PayPal refuses your business (CBD, vape, gambling, certain crypto), it's a commercial decision by the PSP, not a technical bug. Solution: switch to a PSP that accepts your sector.
❓ FAQ
WooCommerce payment blocked — frequently asked questions
Seven typical causes: (1) Stripe / PayPal API key expired or wrongly set after test → live, (2) HPOS enabled without migrating non-compatible payment plugins, (3) webhook URL blocked by Cloudflare/Sucuri/Wordfence, (4) conflict between several payment plugins active simultaneously, (5) cache plugin caching dynamic checkout pages, (6) SCA / 3DSv2 not handled by an outdated plugin, (7) JS blocked by a tracking/GDPR plugin preventing the Stripe/PayPal iframe from loading.
Five classic causes: (1) webhook / IPN never arriving from the PSP to the server, (2) webhook endpoint returning 200 OK while the PHP hook silently crashes, (3) plugin depending on WP Cron that isn't running (WP Cron disabled), (4) HPOS / legacy table conflict — order updated in one table but not the other, (5) SQL lock on
wp_woocommerce_order_items. Diagnostic via PSP dashboard > Webhooks + wc-logs/.Classic webhook bug. Stripe/PayPal POST to
/?wc-api=... after payment. If the request fails (firewall, security, fatal), no order despite payment. Immediate check: PSP dashboard > Webhooks > status of recent events. 403/500/502/timeout = webhook not getting through. Causes: Cloudflare blocking PSP IPs, Wordfence in strict mode, endpoint crashing. Fix: whitelist IPs + debug the hook. Orphan orders manually recreated (≤ 10 included).HPOS (since WC 7.1) moves orders from
wp_posts to wp_wc_orders. Older plugins still reading wp_postmeta break. Symptoms: paid orders not appearing, method not found errors. Solutions: (1) check HPOS compatibility via WC > Status > Plugins, (2) update non-compatible plugins, (3) if a critical plugin has no HPOS version: synchronisation mode (both tables populated) while you wait, (4) temporarily disable HPOS. HPOS compatibility audit in 1 hour.Free pre-audit (30 min): payment journey test, PSP + WC logs, likely cause identified. Intervention on quote from €60/h excl. VAT. Most bugs (webhook, key, plugin conflict, HPOS, 3DS) resolved in 1 to 3 hours once the cause is found. Quote within 24 business hours. Larger projects (new PSP, custom checkout rebuild, full HPOS migration): scope defined more precisely after audit.
Yes, FTP/SFTP/SSH is enough for most of it: reading Apache logs,
wc-logs/, auditing wp-config.php, identifying payment plugins and versions, inspecting the child theme. For fixes requiring admin access (plugin activation, gateway config), we create an admin via wp_users in SQL if needed, use it temporarily, delete it afterwards. Free diagnostic possible with limited access.
🔗 Related topics
Other issues I handle
Your customers can't pay on WooCommerce?
Free 30-min pre-audit: journey tested, break point identified, recoverable revenue estimated. Quote within 24 business hours.