# Configuring WooCommerce Checkout Settings

> **Source video:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoejwJfXops

The checkout settings tab controls things like enabling guest checkout, coupon handling, checkout pages, and the payment gateways you offer. This guide walks through each section, including how coupon discounts are calculated and how to order your payment gateways.

## Opening the Checkout Settings

Head to **WooCommerce → Settings → Checkout**. You start on the **Checkout options** submenu.

## Checkout Process — Coupon Settings

Under the **Checkout process** section you can:

- **Enable or disable coupons** on your store.
- **Enable the "Calculate coupon discounts sequentially" option.**

> With sequential calculation, WooCommerce applies coupons one at a time. For example, on a $100 order with a 10% off coupon and a 20% off coupon: 10% off $100 gives $90, then 20% off the remaining $90 gives a cart total of $72. If the option is left unchecked, WooCommerce combines the coupons into effectively one 30% discount, giving a $70 cart total. Discounts are less generous when applied sequentially, so choose what fits your store.

Coupons can be a powerful part of your sales and marketing strategy — see the WooCommerce documentation for everything about creating coupons.

## Checkout Process — Guest Checkout and Security

- **Enable guest checkout** — With this enabled, a customer can check out without being forced to create an account. If you want all customers to create an account and/or log in to check out, uncheck **Enable guest checkout**.
- **Enable "Force secure checkout"** — This is highly recommended, and required along with an SSL certificate if the payment gateways you use accept cards directly on your store.

> Even if payments are made off-site, use an SSL certificate and force secure checkout, since your store collects personal information that customers expect you to protect. Be sure an SSL certificate is installed — either by yourself or by your host or developer.

With **Force secure checkout** enabled, another checkbox appears: **Force HTTP when leaving checkout**. This forces all pages to load over HTTP other than checkout.

## Checkout Pages

If you used the quick setup wizard, the cart and checkout pages are already set. You can still change the pages WooCommerce uses for the **Cart**, **Checkout**, and **Terms and conditions** pages.

- You must have a cart and checkout page set, or customers will not be able to check out.
- The terms and conditions page is optional, but if you set one, customers must select a checkbox agreeing to your terms before they can finish checking out.

## Checkout Endpoints

The **Checkout endpoints** section contains the **Pay**, **Order received**, **Add payment method**, **Delete payment method**, and **Set default payment method** endpoints. These are appended to your checkout page URLs to handle specific actions during checkout.

> If you create your own endpoints, make sure they are unique and don't appear anywhere else on your site, or you can break the checkout process.

## Payment Gateways

WooCommerce includes several payment gateways. There are three offline methods, where payment doesn't happen online:

- **BACS** (direct bank transfer)
- **Check payments**
- **Cash on delivery**

And three online methods:

- **PayPal Standard** — included in WooCommerce
- **PayPal powered by Braintree** — a free plugin on wordpress.org
- **Stripe** — a free plugin on wordpress.org

PayPal powered by Braintree and Stripe may already be added to your store if you used the quick setup wizard; otherwise download them from wordpress.org and activate them under **Plugins → Installed plugins**.

> If you activate PayPal powered by Braintree, it adds two separate payment gateways: one for credit cards and one for PayPal accounts. This gives you control to accept cards only, PayPal only, or both.

Within the **Payment gateways** section you can:

- Reorder your gateways, see their IDs, and see which are enabled at a glance.
- Drag a gateway via its hamburger menu to set your preferred order. The first enabled gateway is the one selected by default at checkout.
- Open a gateway's settings by selecting its name in the **Gateway** column, or by selecting its respective submenu at the top of the page.

Each individual gateway has its own documentation and video for its specific settings. Once checkout settings are configured, you're ready to set up the payment gateways you want for your store.