---
title: Getting Started with Ecommerce on Paperform | Paperform Help Center | Paperform
description: A step-by-step guide to selling products on Paperform. Set up pricing, connect Stripe, automate invoices, and manage stock.
url: "https://paperform.co/help/articles/how-to-sell-products-and-accept-payments-on-paperform"
type: static
generatedAt: "2026-08-06T13:59:55.753Z"
---

Getting Started with Products and Payments
## ## Overview

### Step 1: Listing Your Products or Services

Before you build your form, decide which type of pricing field fits what you're selling. Paperform offers three main payment field types that can be combined to fit your needs:

 - **Product field** — best for selling a number of distinct items or services. Customers pick from a list, and you can set individual prices for each option. [Learn more about products here](https://paperform.co/help/articles/add-and-configure-products/).
 - **Price field** — best for a flat, fixed amount that doesn't vary by selection, like a shipping charge or booking fee. You can also use it to collect a user-set amount, such as a donation. [Learn more about the price field here](https://paperform.co/help/articles/price-field/).
 - **Subscription field** — best for recurring or subscription-based payments, rather than a single one-off charge. [Learn more about setting up subscriptions here](https://paperform.co/help/articles/stripe-braintree-recurring-payments/).

This guide will focus primarily on Product and Price fields — we'll build a simple order form selling three products, plus a flat shipping fee. If you're setting up recurring payments instead, use the Subscription field.

To get started, create a new form and add any basic questions you'd like to know about the user (e.g. their name, email, shipping address, etc...).

You can use [Paperform's AI form creator](https://paperform.co/help/articles/how-do-i-create-a-form/#AI-form-creation:~:text=form%20from%20scratch.-,AI%20form%20creation,-The%20AI%20form) to do this by describing exactly what products or services you are selling. You might need to do some finessing of the generated form to get it exactly how you want it.

Next, we'll add product and price fields.

### Setting up the Product field

 1. [Add a question to your form](https://paperform.co/help/articles/how-do-i-add-a-question-to-my-form/) and select "Product" from the dropdown, or use the slash command by typing `/product` right into a blank line of the editor.
 2. On the configuration panel, click "Manage Products" and add your products or services, giving each a name and price. For example:

![Manage Products panel showing Hand-thrown Vase, Ceramic Mug, and Tote Bag products](https://img.paperform.co/fetch/f_auto,w_1400/https://d3gw2uv1ch7vdq.cloudfront.net/img/manage-product-configuration.png)

 - Hand-thrown Vase — $55
 - Ceramic Mug — $20
 - Tote Bag — $15

Note: You can also [import products in bulk](https://paperform.co/help/articles/how-to-import-products/).

Each product must have their own unique SKU and is given one by default. You can customize this as long as each SKU on the form is different.

> Optionally, you can set a limited number of products to sell using "Stock" and add a minimum or maximum amount of products, and also add an image. [Learn more about product configurations here](https://paperform.co/help/articles/add-and-configure-products/).

Customers will see these as selectable options with prices attached, and Paperform will calculate the order total based on their choice.

![Products field in gallery view on live form.](https://img.paperform.co/fetch/f_auto,w_1400/https://d3gw2uv1ch7vdq.cloudfront.net/img/products-published-form.png)

### Adding the flat shipping fee

A Price field, when visible, will always be added to the form total, which makes adding the shipping fee quite straightforward.

To set up the price field:

 1. Add a Price field below the Product field.
 2. Set it to a fixed amount, for example, $5 shipping.

![Adding a Price field on the form](https://img.paperform.co/fetch/f_auto,w_1400/https://d3gw2uv1ch7vdq.cloudfront.net/img/adding-a-price-field.gif)

When you hit Preview form, your form total should now reflect: *product price + flat shipping fee.* Test your form to make sure your pricing works as intended.

> **Optional: Adding tax or processing fees**
>
> If you need to charge tax, Paperform's payment configuration has a built-in tax option.
>
> ![Built-in tax settings under Configure > Payments](https://img.paperform.co/fetch/f_auto,w_1400/https://d3gw2uv1ch7vdq.cloudfront.net/img/percentage-tax.png)
>
> See the [full article on charging taxes and fees](https://paperform.co/help/articles/charge-customers-fees-taxes/). You can also add various processing fees as a fixed or total amount if you so choose, under Custom Pricing Rules.
>
>  1. Open your Price or Product field's settings.
>  2. Enable the built-in tax setting and enter your applicable tax rate.
>  3. This will calculate and display tax automatically on top of the item price, and it'll carry through correctly to your invoice later in Step 3.
>
> **Have more complex pricing?**
>
> You may need to build out your pricing logic using Custom Pricing Rules and a Calculation field. [Learn more about custom pricing rules here](https://paperform.co/help/articles/custom-pricing-rules/).

### Step 2: Link a payment method

Now that your form pricing is working as expected, we add the checkout. This is how you turn a quote form into a payment form. Paperform supports Stripe, Square, Business PayPal, and Braintree. Here is our [help article for how to add a payment gateway](https://paperform.co/help/articles/how-can-i-accept-payments-or-donations-on-my-form/), or follow along below.

You can start accepting online payments with these simple steps:

 1. First, [connect a payment source](https://paperform.co/help/articles/how-do-i-add-or-manage-my-payment-account-so-i-can-take-payments/) to your account. You can do this in your Paperform [Account Services](https://paperform.co/account/integrations/).
 2. In your form editor, navigate to Configure → Payments and connect your payment account using the dropdown menu provided.

![Payment accounts in Paperform](https://img.paperform.co/fetch/f_auto,w_1400/https://d3gw2uv1ch7vdq.cloudfront.net/img/payment-accounts.png)

Once you publish these changes, respondents will be shown the checkout page after they hit the submit button. Make sure you run through this and test the form with your specific connection to make sure it is all working as expected.

> **Applying discounts/coupons**
>
> If you'd like to offer discounts, Paperform supports coupons. This isn't covered in depth in this guide, but it's worth knowing the option exists if you want to layer in promotions later. [Read more about how to configure coupons](https://paperform.co/help/articles/how-do-i-give-discounts-or-coupons-on-my-forms/).

### Step 3: Set up an email confirmation

What happens after checkout? After payment is taken, the user will be shown a [success page](https://paperform.co/help/articles/success-pages-and-redirects/). In addition to this, you have a number of options to let your respondent know their payment has been processed. You can choose to send the client a confirmation email, include Paperform's built-in receipt article, or build a Custom PDF invoice attachment — or both! Stripe also allows you to automatically send a [Stripe-generated receipt upon payment](https://paperform.co/help/articles/stripe-receipts/).

Below is an example of Paperform's built-in receipt, which you can enable in a Custom Email or Custom PDF.

![Paperform's built-in receipt option](https://img.paperform.co/fetch/f_auto,w_1400/https://d3gw2uv1ch7vdq.cloudfront.net/img/paperform-receipt.png)

Below is an example of a Custom PDF invoice you can create and attach to your confirmation emails.

![Custom PDF invoice example](https://img.paperform.co/fetch/f_auto,w_1400/https://d3gw2uv1ch7vdq.cloudfront.net/img/custom-pdf-receipt.png)

To create a Custom PDF invoice, first draft a new PDF in your form by navigating to After Submission → Custom PDFs. In the PDF editor, select "Receipt" as the Submission Summary type. Above and/or below the receipt, enter your shop details as desired.

![How to build a custom PDF invoice](https://img.paperform.co/fetch/f_auto,w_1400/https://d3gw2uv1ch7vdq.cloudfront.net/img/how-to-build-a-custom-pdf-receipt.gif)

Make sure you hit **Publish** to see any changes.

To send the custom PDF in an email, go to After Submission → Email and create a new email draft. [Read our full article on how to draft a custom email](https://paperform.co/help/articles/send-an-email-when-the-form-is-submitted/). In the To field, pipe your form's email address question so it pulls in your respondent's emails. Then, give the email a subject and a short message. Scroll to the bottom of the draft and under "Attach PDFs", select your custom PDF from the dropdown.

![Attaching a Custom PDF to your emails](https://img.paperform.co/fetch/f_auto,w_1400/https://d3gw2uv1ch7vdq.cloudfront.net/img/attach-custom-pdfs.png)

Voilà! Now, the Custom PDF invoice you created will be automaitcally sent to your respondents after they submit and checkout.

Again, remember to publish the form.

### Step 4: Your first purchase

Now to test it all out! Open the live form and make a purchase — most payment gateways have a sandbox or test mode option that allows you to test the purchase without making a real payment. Whether you've set up the payment account in test mode or live mode, go ahead and submit the form. You should see the checkout screen appear.

![Stripe checkout - what respondents see when they hit the Submit button.](https://img.paperform.co/fetch/f_auto,w_1400/https://d3gw2uv1ch7vdq.cloudfront.net/img/checkout-getting-started.png)

Congrats! You have a form that can take payments!

While you're at it, you can test [giving out a refund from the submissions page](https://paperform.co/help/articles/how-to-refund-your-customers-from-paperform-submissions/) as well.

### Step 5: Managing product stock

Now, what happens down the line when you need to update your stock or add/remove new products?

There are two places to manage and keep track of stock.

To add or remove products, as well as set the total stock of each item, you do this from within the product field in the form editor. You can configure "Stock" from within the product field in the form editor.

![Product configuration higlighting Stock quantity](https://img.paperform.co/fetch/f_auto,w_1400/https://d3gw2uv1ch7vdq.cloudfront.net/img/configure-total-product-stock-annotated-.png)

To see how much of each item has been sold ("Allocated Stock") and how much is left ("Remaining Stock"), you can go to the Submission Dashboard → Products. Read more about [how to manage product stock.](https://paperform.co/help/articles/manage-product-stock/)

![Products Dashboard showing sold Allocated Stock and Remaining Stock.](https://img.paperform.co/fetch/f_auto,w_1400/https://d3gw2uv1ch7vdq.cloudfront.net/img/products-dashboard-allocated-stock.png)

Once the total stock has been fully allocated, it will show as "SOLD OUT" on your form. You can [change the exact messaging by following the instructions in our help guide](https://paperform.co/help/articles/can-i-change-the-message-for-sold-out-products/).

![Form showing a product marked as SOLD OUT](https://img.paperform.co/fetch/f_auto,w_1400/https://d3gw2uv1ch7vdq.cloudfront.net/img/sold-out-products.png)

You can reset allocated stock or update quantities to match your records. Read more about [managing available stock quantities in our help article](https://paperform.co/help/articles/manage-product-stock/).

### You're all set!

You now have a working order form — complete with products, checkout, automated invoicing, and stock tracking. From here, you might want to explore:

 - [Offering discounts or coupons](https://paperform.co/help/articles/how-do-i-give-discounts-or-coupons-on-my-forms/)
 - [Setting up recurring payments or subscriptions](https://paperform.co/help/articles/stripe-braintree-recurring-payments/)
 - [Building out more complex pricing logic](https://paperform.co/help/articles/custom-pricing-rules/)

If you run into any issues along the way, reach out to our team via live chat, or email us at support@paperform.co.

### Related Articles
  [How do I add or manage payment accounts so I can take payments?  You can add and manage connected payment accounts via Account Services in your Paperform Account Settings.](/help/articles/how-do-i-add-or-manage-my-payment-account-so-i-can-take-payments/)
[How can I accept payments or donations on my form?  You can start accepting payments or donations on your form by connecting a payment source in your account settings and configuring this as a payment account in the form editor.](/help/articles/how-can-i-accept-payments-or-donations-on-my-form/)
[How do I set up recurring payments or subscriptions?  You can set up subscriptions or recurring payments on your Paperform forms by creating subscription plans with Stripe and Braintree and connecting a Stripe or Braintree account to your form.](/help/articles/stripe-braintree-recurring-payments/)
[How do I choose what currency my form payment is in?  You can choose the currency that form payments are in, under Payments in the form editor or by setting a default currency in your Account Settings.](/help/articles/change-form-currency/)
[How do I add and configure products on my form?  Our Product Field is used to capture the purchase of items and can be configured so that different products can be purchased, and in different quantities.](/help/articles/add-and-configure-products/)
[How do I set up Custom Pricing Rules?  Need to create pricing dependant upon your customers needs? Offering services that need to have fees built in? We’ve got you covered with Custom Pricing Rules.](/help/articles/custom-pricing-rules/)