How to Test WooCommerce Orders: 3 Methods

Do you want to learn how to place a test order in WordPress? In this guide, we’ll show you different methods to test WooCommerce orders in your store. 

If you have an eCommerce store where you sell products and services, testing orders is crucial to ensure that transactions and payments work as expected. The issue is that your site needs to be live before you can properly test orders.

In this guide, we’ll show you various methods for testing orders in WooCommerce. But before we learn how to do that, let’s better understand why you should test your orders and transactions.

Why Should You Test Orders in Your Store?

When you create an online store or a website to sell products, one of the most significant advantages is the ease of payment through online transactions. These transactions are secure and convenient for both the seller and the buyer. 

However, to ensure the process runs smoothly, shoppers must first place an order to purchase a product. That’s why you also need to ensure that all the orders placed on your WooCommerce store are completed without issues.

If that fails, not only do you risk losing your customers’ trust, but you may also face legal action. 

The good news is that you can prevent all that by testing your WooCommerce orders using various methods and payment gateways. This way, you will find bugs and errors related to placing orders before your website goes live.

You will be able to fix any issues, won’t have to worry about losing your customers’ trust, and avoid a lot of headaches in the future.

Now that we have a better understanding of the importance of testing WooCommerce orders, let’s see how to do it.

How to Test WooCommerce Orders

There are three main ways to test WooCommerce orders in WordPress:

1. Using Plugins
2. From the WooCommerce Dashboard (enabling cheques)
3. Real Transactions + Refund

Let’s have a look at each method.

NOTE: Before you begin, ensure that WooCommerce is correctly set up.

1. Test WooCommerce Orders Using a Plugin

One of the easiest ways to test WooCommerce orders is by using a plugin. All you need to do is install one of the following tools, depending on the payment gateways you use. In this section, we will show you how to do so using each of these plugins.

To use the plugin, install and activate it by downloading it or through the WordPress dashboard. For more information, you can refer to our guide on manually installing a WordPress plugin.

1.1. WooCommerce Stripe Payment Gateway

WooCommerce Stripe Payment Gateway is a WordPress plugin that allows you to integrate Stripe with WooCommerce. Since Stripe is one of the most popular payment gateways, this tool can be invaluable for online stores that cater to customers worldwide. Additionally, it comes with features that allow you to test WooCommerce orders in your online store. 

Since this is a WordPress plugin, you must first install and activate it. Go to Plugins > Add New and search for “WooCommerce Stripe Payment Gateway”. Then, click Install Now and activate the plugin.

1.1.1. Integrate WooCommerce with Stripe for Test Mode

After you have successfully installed and activated the plugin, you need to set it up for test mode and get your API keys. For that, you need to go to your Stripe account and open the “Developers” section> “API keys”. 

You will see the Publishable and Secret keys of your Stripe account here. Copy both keys.

After that, go to WooCommerce > Settings and open the Payments tab from your WordPress dashboard. You will see all the payment methods available for your website. Enable the toggle for the Stripe – Credit Card payment method and click Set up.

If you have already set up Stripe, press the Manage button.

You will be redirected to the Stripe options for WooCommerce. Here, check the Enable Test Mode option and paste the publishable and secret keys that you’ve just copied from the Stripe dashboard to the Test Publishable Key and Test Secret Key, respectively.

After that, click Save Changes. 

1.1.2. Test the WooCommerce Orders with Stripe

After setting up Stripe for test mode, it’s time to test your WooCommerce orders. To do that, go to your website’s front end and purchase any product. Add any product to the cart and proceed to the checkout page. Add all the necessary billing details, and then include the credit card details for Stripe as well.

Since this is just a test, you can enter any valid information for it. For example, for the credit card, you can enter “4242424242424242”. Similarly, you can enter any valid date and CVC code as well. 

After you have filled in all the information, press Place Order to continue.

Now go to your Stripe dashboard and open the Payments tab. You should see the order you’ve just placed. If that’s the case, it means that the orders paid through Stripe work perfectly, so you can start selling your products with Stripe as your payment gateway.

To make your website live, go to WooCommerce > Settings and open the Payments tab from your WordPress dashboard. Then, manage the Stripe – Credit Card gateway, uncheck the “Enable Test Mode” option, and fill in the necessary details. Once you finish, remember to save the changes.

For more information, you can refer to our detailed guide on integrating WooCommerce with Stripe.

1.2. WC Order Test

If you want a plugin to test the checkout process on your WooCommerce store, the WC Order Test is an excellent choice. It’s a simple and easy-to-use tool that doesn’t require any API keys or setup of a payment gateway. To test WooCommerce orders, install and activate the plugin, then enable the test option.

After that, go to WooCommerce > Settings and open the Payments tab. Here, you will see a new payment gateway option called Order Test – Order Test Gateway. Enable it and click Set up. 

There is only one option available with this test gateway: enabling the order test gateway. Tick the box for this option and press Save changes. 

Now you’re ready to test the orders for your products. Go to your store’s front end, add any one of your products to the cart, and proceed to checkout. Fill in all the required billing information, and at the bottom of the page, you will be able to see the option for Order Test Gateway.

Note that this option will only be available if you are logged in as an admin. Select it and click Place order to continue. 

After that, it will show that your order has been received, along with all the necessary order details. Verify the information to ensure it is correct. If it is, it means your WooCommerce orders are functioning correctly.

Additionally, you can verify this by navigating to WooCommerce > Orders. Just make sure to write down the order number correctly so it’s easier to locate.

1.3. PayPal (PayPal Sandbox)

PayPal is one of the most popular payment gateways that you can easily integrate with a WordPress website and use to test WooCommerce orders. 

PayPal is included in WooCommerce by default with PayPal Standard, but to place test orders, you’ll need a PayPal Sandbox account from the PayPal Developer website.

1.3.1. What is a PayPal Sandbox Account?

A sandbox is a testing environment provided by a system (preferably software) at no cost. It allows you to build or test various system functionalities before deploying them live on your website. This helps you identify and resolve issues to ensure everything works properly. 

PayPal also provides a sandbox for testing on your website, but to use it, you need to create a sandbox account on their developer website. So, before you can test WooCommerce orders on your store, let’s see how to create the PayPal Sandbox account. 

1.3.2. Create a PayPal Sandbox Account

Go to the official PayPal developer website and sign in using your PayPal account. After that, you will be redirected to the PayPal Developer dashboard. 

Here, go to Sandbox > Accounts and press Create account. 

A pop-up will appear asking you whether you want a business (merchant) or a personal (buyer) account, along with the country/region.

For testing purposes, we will need both the merchant’s and the buyer’s email addresses. If you select the business account first, please select your country/region and press Create. Then, repeat the process and create a personal sandbox account.

NOTE: Ensure that the country/region matches the default currency of your store to prevent orders from being set to pending payments.

After that, click the Options button on the Manage Accounts section for the newly created sandbox account and select View/edit account.

It will show you all the account details of the sandbox account. Under the Profile tab, you will see the email address and password of both the Buyer and Merchant accounts. Copy both email IDs and passwords and store them in a convenient location, as you will need them to test the WooCommerce orders in the upcoming steps. 

1.3.3. Enable PayPal Sandbox

Now, go to WooCommerce > Settings and open the Payments section. Then, enable the PayPal Standard gateway and click ‘Set up’ if you haven’t already set up PayPal for your website. If you have already set up PayPal, press Manage.

First, you need to enable PayPal Standard, so check the Enable PayPal Standard option and add the PayPal business (merchant) email to the PayPal email and the Receiver email. Finally, check the Enable PayPal sandbox option and save the changes.   

1.3.4. Test the WooCommerce Orders with PayPal

Now you can proceed to test the order with PayPal Sandbox from your website. You need to either continue by opening your public online store on another web browser or on an incognito tab.

Then add any product to the cart and proceed to checkout. After entering all the necessary billing details, select PayPal as the payment method and click ‘Proceed to PayPal’ to continue with the payment. 

Since you are running sandbox mode, you will be redirected to the PayPal sandbox website to confirm the order. Enter the email address of the personal (buyer) sandbox account and log in to PayPal. 

Then, select ‘Pay with a PayPal balance’ and press ‘Pay Now’ to pay with the sandbox buyer account.  

You will see a screen that confirms your payment and that your order has been placed.

To make sure that everything works correctly, you can log into the PayPal sandbox with the sandbox merchant account and check the Recent Activity section on your dashboard.

If you see the new transaction there, it means that everything is working correctly, and you can start using live transactions for your website through PayPal.

To do that, in your WordPress dashboard, go to WooCommerce > Settings > Payments and click Manage for PayPal Standard. Then, uncheck the ‘Enable PayPal Sandbox’ option, enter the necessary details for your own PayPal account, and save the changes.

That’s how you can test your WooCommerce orders with PayPal!

For more information, check out our step-by-step guide on how to integrate WooCommerce with PayPal.

2. Test WooCommerce Orders from WooCommerce Dashboard

If you don’t want to install any plugins or enable testing modes, the easiest method to create test orders is by enabling cheques from the WooCommerce dashboard.

Cheques are usually used for physical transactions as an easy alternative to cash, so there won’t be any online transactions in this process.

To enable cheques, navigate to WooCommerce > Settings in your WordPress dashboard and open the Payments tab. There, enable the toggle for ‘Check payments’ and press ‘Set up’ or ‘Manage’ if you have used cheques before on your store. 

Tick the box to enable the check payments and enter the necessary details for title, description, and instructions if required. Then, press Save changes. 

Now go to your store’s front end, add a product to the cart, and proceed to the checkout page. Enter the necessary billing details, select ‘Check payment’ as the payment method, and click ‘Place order’ to confirm your purchase. 

You will be redirected to your placed order. As mentioned earlier, this process doesn’t include any online transactions, so if you can see that your order is successfully received with the correct details, your orders and transactions will work without issues on your website. 

3. Test WooCommerce Orders with Real Transactions and Refunds

If you don’t want to spend your time with any testing modes, plugins, or additional payment methods, you can use real transactions to test WooCommerce orders as well. This means that you will make a real transaction from your own account and then give a refund as soon as the order is confirmed. 

However, it’s worth noting that we don’t recommend this approach because it involves more risk. Even if you want to go ahead with this method, we recommend you only do it if you are the website owner and want your online store to go live immediately.

Please note that if there are any issues or problems with your website orders, you may not receive a refund for your payment until the issue is resolved. Therefore, it’s better to add a product with a very low price or offer it for free for testing purposes.

By default, you can either use a direct bank transfer or PayPal if you have a PayPal account. If you have already set up Stripe, you can use it as well.

Now, without any further ado, let’s see how to test orders in WooCommerce with real transactions.

3.1. Make a Real Transaction

To make a real transaction, go to the WooCommerce > Settings and open the Payments tab. Select the payment gateway you want to use, enable it, and press the Set up or Manage button for the selected payment method. 

For this tutorial, we will use Stripe, as it is one of the easiest payment gateways to test orders. However, the process is similar regardless of the payment gateway you choose. 

As we chose Stripe, we ticked the Enable Stripe option to enable it as our payment gateway.

Then, add the API keys from your Stripe account, as shown in the Stripe gateway plugin method, along with any other necessary details for your account. As we will be testing live transactions, please ensure that you uncheck the Enable Test Mode option.

Now go to your store’s front end and add a product to the cart. Once again, we recommend adding a very inexpensive or free product. Then, proceed to the checkout page and add your billing details. 

Finally, select the payment gateway you want to use. In this case, we’ll use Stripe. Add all the required information and place the order.

If you are redirected to the order page with all the correct information, it means that your orders and transactions work perfectly on your website, and you can start selling products on your store.

3.2. Test Refunds for the Real Transaction

The real transaction that you just made was to test the WooCommerce orders. To get your payment back, you will need to give yourself a refund. If you need to make the process easier, please write down your Order ID/number.

To receive your refund, navigate to WooCommerce > Orders and select the order you’ve just made, ensuring the Order ID matches the one you’ve just placed.

In the Item section, click on the Refund button.

After that, enter the total refund amount and select Refund via Stripe to complete the refund. 

The final refund button will depend on the payment gateway that you have used. For example, if you have used PayPal, the option will be Refund via PayPal.

If the payment is refunded into your account, you can be assured that both live transactions and refunds work flawlessly on your WooCommerce store.

Keep in mind that some payment gateways may take some hours or days to process the refund so you may need to wait to get your money back.

Bonus Tip: Disable Checkout Fields to Test WooCommerce Orders Quickly

When testing the WooCommerce order, you may need to add the billing or shipping details during checkout. If you conduct multiple tests, this can be pretty unpleasant and waste valuable time, as you’ll need to re-enter the details each time.

In this section, we will show you how to disable unnecessary fields during checkout when testing orders, helping you save time.

The best way to remove checkout fields is to install the WooCommerce Direct Checkout plugin. It’s a freemium plugin that offers numerous features to manage the checkout and boost conversion rates. To disable checkout fields, you can use the free version.

In your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins > Add New and search for WooCommerce Direct Checkout. Then, install and activate it.

Next, navigate to WooCommerce > Settings and, under Direct Checkout, open the Checkout tab. Here, you can select the fields you want to remove from the checkout page. Select the fields you want to remove in the Remove checkout fields box to speed up the test process and save the changes.

Now check your store from the front end, and you will see that the checkout fields aren’t displayed on the checkout page. This way, you can fill in a few fields on the checkout page and save a lot of time when testing WooCommerce orders.

Once you have finished testing, remember to add the fields you want to include on the checkout page before setting your store to live.

Most users abandon their carts during checkout because the process is too lengthy and complicated. Therefore, we recommend keeping your checkout as simple as possible to increase conversion rates. For more information, refer to our guide on removing checkout fields.

Best Practices to Follow While Testing Orders

• Use a staging environment: Always test orders on a staging or clone site to avoid interfering with live customer transactions.
• Enable sandbox modes: Activate sandbox or test modes for gateways like PayPal, Stripe, or Razorpay to safely simulate real payments.
• Check email workflows: Confirm that all order-related emails — order confirmation, processing, and completed emails — are being sent and formatted correctly.
• Test refunds and cancellations: Run a few refund and cancellation tests to ensure both the admin and customer sides behave as expected.
• Verify stock adjustments: Ensure that stock levels increase or decrease properly after test orders, particularly for variable and limited-stock products.
• Test multiple payment methods: Try different payment options to ensure each gateway responds correctly and accurately records orders.
• Clear caches between tests: Cached pages or checkout data can cause issues during repeated tests — clear cache after each round.
• Inspect order status flow: Verify that orders move smoothly through stages like “Pending,” “Processing,” and “Completed.”
• Log results for future reference: Keep a record of what worked, what didn’t, and any error messages for future troubleshooting.
• Switch back to live mode carefully: Double-check that sandbox credentials are replaced with live keys before reopening your store for real sales.

Troubleshooting Tips to Follow

• Test orders not showing up: Ensure the payment gateway is set to sandbox mode and that test payments are processed successfully. Clear any cache or plugin conflict that may block order creation.
• Payment gateway errors: Double-check your API keys or sandbox credentials — incorrect entries often cause gateway failures during test mode.
• Emails not being received: Check the WooCommerce email settings, spam folder, or use an email logging plugin like WP Mail Logging to verify if the messages are sent.
• Stock not updating after test order: Review your product inventory settings and ensure stock management is enabled for those items.
• Orders stuck in “Pending payment”: This usually means the payment gateway was unable to complete the transaction. Review logs or gateway response details to identify the issue.
• Checkout page not loading: Temporarily disable caching, CDN, or optimization plugins to check if they are interfering with WooCommerce scripts.
• Cannot switch back to live mode: After testing, replace sandbox keys with live credentials and clear any saved test data or cookies from your site and browser.

Frequently Asked Questions

Now, let’s examine some frequently asked questions and their answers regarding this topic.

Conclusion

All in all, placing test orders before your store goes live is a good idea to ensure that the checkout process runs smoothly and there are no issues. Testing orders ensures that every transaction is registered correctly, and as a result, your customers will trust your service, and you will avoid complaints and refunds.

In this guide, we’ve shown you various methods for testing WooCommerce orders. They are all effective and get the job done, so choose the one that best suits your requirements and the payment gateway you use. 

The easiest way to test orders is to enable cheques on the WooCommerce dashboard. Alternatively, you can use dedicated plugins and allow test modes according to the payment gateway you are using. Finally, you can use real transactions and then refund the payment immediately. This is the riskiest method, so we don’t recommend it.

We hope that you found this helpful guide and can test WooCommerce orders without any issues.

For more guides to improve your store, have a look at these posts:

• WooCommerce Add to Cart Button Not Working? How to fix it!
• Add conditional fields to the WooCommerce Checkout
• How to Export Orders in WooCommerce