FluentCart A New Era of eCommerce – Faster, Lighter, and Simpler vs Payment Button for PayPal

Meet FluentCart. It’s a performance-first, self-hosted eCommerce platform for WordPress. Build your ideal store, whether you sell physical products, subscriptions, downloads, licenses, or all of them. No third-party dependencies, no platform lock-in, and no transaction fees. Just a powerful store on your terms. 👉 Official Website Link: Official Website 👉 Join Our Community: FluentCart Community 👉 Official 5 Minutes Guide: Getting started with FluentCart 👉 Contribute: GitHub Repository Built from the ground up with flexibility, performance, and long-term scalability in mind, this isn’t a fork of existing plugins. This is a fresh take on what a WordPress store should be: lean, powerful, and completely under your control. FluentCart adapts to your model without adding bloat or cutting you into a SaaS fee structure. FluentCart is ideal for solo creators, growing businesses, and developers building client stores. If you’re tired of overcomplicated dashboards and bloated add-ons, this is your answer. Forget about transaction fees, because FluentCart charges exactly 0 transaction fees on both Free and Pro installations. FluentCart is for you if you’re looking to free yourself from rigid checkout flows, or vendor lock-ins. Run your store with clarity and confidence, whether you sell ebooks, handmade goods, software licenses, or monthly product bundles. Sales Models FluentCart supports a variety of sales models, all in the same store. Offer one-time products or digital downloads, manage subscriptions with flexible billing intervals, add setup fees or installment plans, and issue time-limited licenses. You can mix and match hybrid product types without relying on third-party add-ons. Best for Subscription goods Gated downloads Licensed software Online book stores B2B catalogs Maintenance services Tiered subscriptions Digital file hosting Software distribution Membership access Fashion stores Course Websites Grocery Shop Agro Catalogs Agency services Features List by Category Product & Catalog Management Simple Products – Create one-time purchasable items with fixed pricing Variable Products – Offer products with multiple attributes (e.g. size, license type) Subscriptions – Configure recurring products with billing intervals and durations (No Transaction Fees) Installments – Support split payments over time for high-ticket items (PRO) Setup Fees – Add one-time setup charges on top of recurring payments Subscription Bump Offers – Show discounted upgrade paths with discounts Licensing Support (Pro) – Attach license keys to products and define expiry rules (PRO) Product Categories – Organize products for easier navigation and filtering Product Labels – Tag products for promotional badges (e.g. “New”, “Popular”) Downloadable Files – Securely attach files to digital products Checkout & Payment One-Click Checkout – Optimized checkout experience for faster conversions Custom Payment Gateways – Add or extend gateways using hooks and filters Stripe Integration – Fully-featured Stripe payments with no extra plugins PayPal Integration – Built-in PayPal support with easy configuration Manual Gateway – Accept Cash on delivery Failed Renewal Handling – Automatic retry logic for subscription renewals Prorated Charges (Pro) – Calculate and bill customers proportionally for changes Coupon Support – Enable discounts, promos, and launch offers via coupons Customer & Subscription Management Customer Profiles – View and manage full purchase history and subscriptions Customer Notes – Add internal notes visible only to store admins Subscription Dashboard – Let users manage billing, pause/cancel subscriptions Support Dashboard Integration – Pull customer history into Fluent Support Automated Notifications – Send email alerts for purchase, renewal, failures with FluentCRM User Roles – Control access to FluentCart admin tools by role Analytics, Marketing & Growth Reports Overview – Track order volume, Revenue by Quarter, Revenue by Country Sales Reporting – Track order volume, most sold products and variants, Customer LTV and more Order Analytics – Average order value, order items, order heatmap, orders by country, and more Revenue Analytics – Net revenue sorted by Time, Country and Payment Gateway Refund Analytics – Total refunds, Avg. Refund value, Refund Rate, Filter by Country, Payment method and Intervals Product Data – Top performing products, Product Performance over time Subscriptions Report – Top performing products, Product Performance over time Product Data – Top performing products, Product Performance over time Customer Data – Top performing products, Product Performance over time Advanced Filtering (Pro) – Date and Other Filters for tracking beyond 30 days data Performance & Developer Experience Custom Database Schema – Built for speed, not tied to WordPress post tables Lightweight Architecture – Minimal plugin bloat and clean dependency footprint Custom Endpoints – Extend customer dashboard or checkout with new features Full REST API – Access product, customer, and order data programmatically Action & Filter Hooks – Modify behavior across store logic Block-based Components – Gutenberg-ready interface for checkout and forms Headless Ready – Serve as backend for mobile/web apps and Jamstack frontends Admin & Store Operations Order Management – View, filter, and update orders directly from dashboard Inventory Tracking – Track stock levels and automatically disable out-of-stock items Tax – Handle Global and EU Tax with custom Tax classes Shipping – Manage shipping regions and custom methods Refund Tools – Process manual or automatic refunds (gateway-dependent) User Role Management (Pro) – Assign operational access Storewide Settings – Control pricing formats, currency, etc. Custom Email Templates – Send branded emails for purchase events eCommerce for Developers FluentCart was built by developers who understand the pain of working with rigid eCommerce systems. Its architecture is entirely action and filter-driven, letting you override, extend, or customize anything without hacks or fragile workarounds. All data is stored in dedicated database tables for performance and portability. We’ve optimized the queries so Orders can be processed 3X faster compared to the market leader. On top of that we’ve built FluentCart for complete programmatic control. REST API endpoints are available for all key resources. Due to this the frontend can be completely decoupled with technology like Vue and Alpine. Whether you’re building custom apps on top of FluentCart or creating complex checkout flows, this plugin is built to stay out of your way and give you the keys. Customization and Design No more fighting layouts. Style your cart, checkout, and product pages exactly how you want using your theme, no forced stylesheets or layout overrides. Customize every part of the experience: product card components, variation pickers, quantity selectors, checkout forms, and thank-you pages. All templates are overrideable. Whether you’re designing high-converting sales funnels or frictionless repeat purchase flows, FluentCart is built for modern storefront aesthetics. You can set store branding with global customizations as soon as you setup FluentCart. The responsive blocks act as standard Gutenberg blocks so your store doesn’t break under any circumstances, even on mobile. Moreover, you get direct compatibility with popular store themes along with page builders like Elementor and Bricks Builder. If you need even more customizability, the option to use advanced CSS is also available to give you complete design control. Blocks Product Grid Search Bar Customer Dashboard Check out Product Cards Product Gallery Product Info Buy Section Buy Now Button Add To Cart Button Available Stock Business Growth FluentCart includes tools that help you operate at scale. From revenue analysis to team coordination, it comes with every operational tool pre-integrated, so you don’t need workarounds or extra plugins to manage growth. Reports You get detailed breakdowns of subscriptions, refunds, and subscriber churn rates. Filter performance by product, category, date range, to evaluate the ROI of every sale. Payments Payments are at the heart of eCommerce. FluentCart handles automatic retry logic on failed subscription renewals, supports prorated charges for mid-cycle upgrades or plan changes, and lets you offer installment payments—all without custom coding or third-party checkout tools. You can switch gateways, track payment history, and automate invoicing with ease. Access Control User Role management means you can safely scale your internal team too. Grant access to team members based on function. Everything is role-based, compartmentalized, and securely accessible from the backend. Every feature is tightly integrated, so your operational data flows through one system. No external dashboards. No syncing delays. Just live, accurate, and usable insight to help you grow smarter. Reinventing eCommerce Building stores on WordPress has been riddled with slow queries, bloated schemas, bloated add-ons, and unscalable databases that make your store feel sluggish as it grows. SaaS platforms offload those problems by locking you into hosted environments, but charge you platform fees, gateway markups, and provide exactly zero control over your backend. At its core, FluentCart runs on a custom database schema purpose-built for digital and subscription commerce. No legacy baggage. It uses fast, indexed tables that prioritize the read/write operations that matter most for modern stores such as, orders, customers, products, subscriptions, licenses, and transactions. This keeps your store snappy even under load, without relying on caching hacks or third-party optimizers. All data is structured for scalability. Whether you’re haqndling 50 or 50,000 orders, FluentCart maintains consistent performance with predictable query logic. No degrading response times as tables balloon, no complex migration paths when scaling up, and no reliance on external APIs to run day-to-day operations. And while most platforms make you pay for scale, whether through add-on upsells, platform commissions, or percentage-based transaction fees, FluentCart is truly self-hosted and pro-ownership. You pay once. You own it. There are zero transaction fees, no enforced usage tiers, and no hidden charges from payment providers. You can integrate Stripe, PayPal, local gateways, or your own custom processor using native hooks without ever sharing a cut. Data Privacy Your data stays where it belongs, on your server. FluentCart does not phone home, track your customers, share checkout data or payment details. There’s no reliance on cookies or third-party scripts for core functionality. For businesses under strict data policies or privacy regulations, like GDPR and EU DPA, FluentCart is the safest possible eCommerce option. You keep complete control of your stores data. Period. Integrations FluentCart works out of the box with major Fluent plugins including: FluentCRM: Run marketing automations triggered by store actions and segment customers with lists and tags. FluentCommunity: Managing your gated community and course sales. FluentAffiliate: Handle all your payouts and affiliate sales from a unified dashboard that syncs in real-time. More native integrations coming soon in FluentCart, Fluent Forms: Build custom forms for check out and build product surveys that engage your customers. FluentSupport: Bring your support portal right inside your store and sync purchase history across tickets and customers. Ninja Tables: Build fantastic table layouts for products and provide in-line checkout for B2B sales. FluentBooking: For managing Booking sales and Event seats. FluentBoards: Managing your stores projects and tasks. FluentSMTP: Ensure email deliverability for every email generated by your store. Payment Gateways Stripe PayPal Paddle Paystack Mollie RazorPay Authorize.Net Mercado Pago (onetime) Square (Coming Soon) AirWallex (Coming Soon) Popular page builders Gutenberg Bricks Elementor (Coming Soon) Divi (Coming Soon) Support For us, support isn’t outsourced or run by third parties. You get direct access to the same expert team that builds and maintains the plugin, engineers who understand the codebase inside and out, and who treat your issue like it’s their own store. We prioritize developer-level responsiveness and clarity in support tickets. That means no endless loops of canned replies, no asking for “more details” five times, and no dodging responsibility with vague documentation references. Whether you’re debugging a gateway integration or extending a checkout flow with hooks, our team is here to assist with clear, actionable guidance. But support doesn’t stop at tickets. You also get access to a 10,000+ member strong community of Fluent product users across our ecosystem including store owners, developers, marketers, and SaaS builders who use FluentCRM, Fluent Support, FluentBooking, and now FluentCart. It’s a collaborative environment where people share real-world workflows, custom code snippets, integration tips, and even performance benchmarks. Other Plugins By The Same Team FluentCRM – Email Newsletter, Automation, Email Marketing, Email Campaigns, and CRM Solution Contact Form Plugin by Fluent Forms for Quiz, Survey, and Drag & Drop WP Form Builder Ninja Tables – Easiest Data Table Builder Ninja Charts – WordPress Charts and Graphs Plugin Simple Payment Donations & Subscriptions Plugin by Paymattic – Best Payments Plugin for WP PDF Generator For Fluent Forms – The Contact Form Plugin FluentSMTP – WP SMTP Plugin with Amazon SES, SendGrid, MailGun, Postmark, Google and Any SMTP Provider External Services This plugin connects to several external services for payment processing functionalities depending on your payment method configuration. Payment Gateway Services Stripe This plugin connects to Stripe’s payment processing service to handle credit card transactions, subscription billing, and payment confirmations. When customers make purchases through your store, payment data including credit card information, billing addresses, and transaction details are securely transmitted to Stripe for processing. Data sent includes: payment information, billing details, customer email, transaction amounts, and subscription data when applicable. This service is provided by Stripe: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy PayPal This plugin connects to PayPal’s payment processing service to handle PayPal payments, subscription billing, and payment confirmations. When customers choose PayPal as their payment method, they are redirected to PayPal’s secure checkout where their payment information is processed. Data sent includes: transaction amounts, billing details, customer email, order information, and subscription data when applicable. This service is provided by PayPal: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy Note: Data transmission to external services only occurs when store administrators actively configure and enable these integrations. Customer data is sent only for customers who complete purchases, and no data is transmitted without explicit integration setup by the store owner.

Payment Button for PayPal plugin (also known as WP PayPal) allows you to easily create PayPal Buy Now, Add to Cart, Donation or Subscription type buttons. It generates dynamic buttons using shortcodes that enable PayPal checkout on your WordPress site. Your customers will be able to pay for your products using PayPal or Credit Card. This plugin makes it easy for you to set up your online e-commerce store. You do not need to spend days configuring products and settings. All you need to do is insert a shortcode into one of your web pages and your website will be ready to go live. Payment Button for PayPal supports PayPal Sandbox. PayPal Sandbox is a simulation environment which allows you to do test purchases between a test buyer and a seller account. This is to make sure that your store can process PayPal transactions without any issues. It also helps you get prepared before selling to real customers. Payment Button for PayPal Add-ons Buy Now Custom Amount Buy Now Discount Contact Form 7 Integration Custom Input Mailchimp Integration Product Variations Variable Price Variable Quantity Variable Subscription Custom Donations Order Export Payment Button for PayPal Features Sell products or services using PayPal Create PayPal buttons on the fly in a post/page using shortcodes Accept once off payments Accept recurring subscription payments Accept donations from users Use multiple PayPal accounts to accept payments Allow users to add multiple items to the shopping cart and checkout View or Manage orders received via PayPal buttons from your WordPress admin dashboard Quick settings configurations Enable debug to troubleshoot various issues (e.g. orders not getting updated) Open PayPal log to see how IPN (Instant Payment Notification) is being received from PayPal Accept debit or credit card payments Accept recurring subscription payments on a daily, weekly, monthly or yearly basis Switch your store to PayPal sandbox mode for testing Sell in any currency supported by PayPal Charge shipping on your products or services Charge tax on your products or services Send a purchase confirmation email to your customer after a transaction Send a sale notification email to one or more recipients (e.g. the seller) after a transaction Accept payments with PayPal smart payment buttons Accept Pay Later Pay in 4 payments Note: This is NOT an official PayPal product. How to Use Payment Button for PayPal Once you have installed this plugin you need to go to the settings menu to configure some PayPal settings (WP PayPal -> Settings). PayPal Checkout Settings These settings apply to the “[wp_paypal_checkout]” shortcode button. It uses the PayPal Checkout payment method. Client ID: The client ID for your PayPal REST API app Currency Code: The default currency code for payments Return URL: The redirect URL after a successful payment Cancel URL: The redirect URL when a payment is cancelled PayPal Payments Standard Settings These settings apply to the “[wp_paypal]” shortcode button. It uses the PayPal Payments Standard payment method. PayPal Merchant ID: Your PayPal Merchant ID PayPal Email: Your PayPal email address Currency Code: The default currency code Payment Button for PayPal Emails Payment Button for PayPal plugin comes with an “Emails” tab where you will be able to configure some email related settings. Email Sender Options In this section you can choose to customize the default From Name and From Email Address that will be used when sending an email. Purchase Receipt Email When this feature is enabled an email sent to the customer after completion of a successful purchase. Options you can customize here: The subject of the purchase receipt email The content type of the purchase receipt email. The default is “Plain Text”. But you can also set it to “HTML” The body of the purchase receipt email. Sale Notification Email When this feature is enabled an email is sent to your chosen recipient(s) after completion of a successful purchase. Options you can customize here: The subject of the sale notification email The content type of the sale notification email. The default is “Plain Text”. But you can also set it to “HTML” The body of the sale notification email. You can use various email tags in the subject/body of an email to dynamically change its content. You can find the full list of available email tags in the WordPress PayPal plugin page. Can the email messages be sent over SMTP? Absolutely. The following SMTP plugins have been tested: SMTP Mailer Gmail SMTP WP Mail SMTP Post SMTP FluentSMTP Easy WP SMTP How to Create a PayPal Checkout Button In order to create a PayPal Checkout button insert the shortcode like the following: [wp_paypal_checkout description="test checkout product" amount="3.99"] Note: The content of the button (e.g. name, price) is rendered in HTML and can be altered before checkout. PayPal Checkout Shortcode Parameters You can use additional parameters to customize your PayPal Checkout buttons. description – Description of the purchase. amount – The price of the product. For more information check the PayPal Checkout documentation page. How to Create a PayPal Payments Standard Button In order to create a PayPal Payments Standard button insert the shortcode like the following. Note: The content of the button (e.g. name, price) is rendered in HTML and can be altered before checkout. PayPal Buy Now Buy Now buttons are for single item purchases. In order to create a buy button you need to specify it in the button parameter of the shortcode. [wp_paypal button="buynow" name="My product" amount="1.00"] PayPal Add to Cart Add To Cart buttons let users add multiple items to their PayPal shopping cart and checkout. [wp_paypal button="cart" name="My product" amount="1.00"] PayPal View Cart View Cart buttons let users view items that were added to their PayPal shopping cart. [wp_paypal button="viewcart"] PayPal Donation Donation buttons let you accept donations from your users. [wp_paypal button="donate" name="My product"] PayPal Subscription [wp_paypal button="subscribe" name="My product" a3="1.00" p3="1" t3="M" src="1"] Subscribe buttons let you set up payment subscriptions. PayPal Payments Standard Shortcode Buttons Parameters You can use additional parameters to customize your PayPal buttons. type – The type of button to render (e.g. “buynow”, “cart”, “donate” or “subscribe”) name – Description of the item. button_image – Your custom button image URL (e.g. button_image=”https://example.com/images/buy.png”). button_text – Your custom button text (e.g. button_text=”Buy Now”). number – The number of the item (Also known as SKU. e.g. number=”16″). amount– The price of the item (e.g. amount=”4.95″). currency – The currency of the item (e.g. currency=”USD”). quantity – Quantity of items to purchase (e.g. quantity=”2″). shipping – The cost of shipping this item. (e.g. shipping=”0.75″). If you specify “shipping” and “shipping2” is not defined, this flat amount is charged regardless of the quantity of items purchased. shipping2 – The cost of shipping each additional unit of this item (e.g. shipping2=”1.25″) handling – The handling cost of an item (e.g. handling=”2.5″) tax – The flat tax amount for an item (e.g. tax=”2.99″). tax_rate – The rate of tax for an item (e.g. tax_rate=”2.9″). locale – The desired locale of the PayPal site (e.g. locale=”GB”). This feature is useful if you want to render the payment page in a specific language. return – The URL to which the user will be redirected after the payment (e.g. return=”https://example.com/thank-you”). cancel_return – The URL to which PayPal will redirect the buyer if they cancel checkout before completing the payment (e.g. cancel_return=”https://example.com/payment-canceled”). no_shipping – This parameter allows you to control whether or not to prompt buyers for a shipping address (e.g. no_shipping=”1″). Allowable values: 0 – Prompt for an address, but do not require one (This is set by default), 1 – Do not prompt for an address, 2 – Prompt for an address, and require one. undefined_quantity – Allow buyers to specify the quantity of the item on the payment page (e.g. undefined_quantity=”1″). This option is only used with a Buy Now button. target – This parameter allows you to open a PayPal button in a new window or tab (e.g. target=”_blank”). shopping_url – This parameter allows you to customize the Continue Shopping URL for the View Cart button (e.g. shopping_url=”https://example.com/shop”). business – This parameter allows you to override the seller account specified in the settings. You can specify either your PayPal merchant ID or email address in it (e.g. business=”HV3QO52MBTT34″ or business=”[email protected]”). form_class – Your custom CSS class to target the button form (e.g. form_class=”ppbtn”). Multiple classes are supported (e.g. form_class=”ppbtn ppbtn2 ppbtn3″). PayPal Add to Cart Button/Shopping Cart Specific Parameters handling – Handling charges. This parameter is not quantity-specific, which means the same handling cost applies, regardless of the number of items on the order. (e.g. handling=”2.00″). For detailed documentation please check out the Payment Button for PayPal plugin page. Translation If you are a non-English speaker please help translate the plugin into your language. Additional PayPal Documentation Add automatic discount to a buy button Subscriptions & Recurring Payments Setup