WooCommerce checkout not working? Check the payment methods first

A buyer fills in every field, scrolls to Payment options and finds a red box where the card form should be. The order never happens. Of all the ways a WooCommerce checkout stops working, this one is the plainest: the store has no payment method it is willing to offer for that cart.

Why is my WooCommerce checkout not working?

Start with the message on the page. “There are no payment methods available” on the Checkout block, or “Sorry, it seems that there are no available payment methods” on the classic checkout, means WooCommerce found no method it could offer for this cart. Either every method is off, or the ones that are on have each ruled the cart out.

The second case is the one that fools store owners. The settings screen shows a method as enabled, so the checkout looks broken for no reason.

Other faults stop a checkout too. A missing shipping rate blocks it with a different message, which we tested in WooCommerce “No shipping options were found”. A page reading “There has been a critical error on this website” is a PHP crash, covered in what the critical error message means. A checkout that loads blank is the same crash with the message hidden, as in the WordPress white screen of death.

Payment and checkout faults like these are part of our WooCommerce store fixes.

How did we test it?

On 17 Oct 2026, from 12:28 to 12:35 PM ET, we ran a test store on WordPress Playground with WordPress 7.1.3, WooCommerce 11.2.1 and PHP 8.3.33. It sold one virtual product, a “Lab Guide (PDF)” at $24.00, with no tax and no shipping.

The store had two checkouts: its Checkout page, which used the Checkout block, and a second page with the classic [woocommerce_checkout] shortcode. A script drove headless Chromium as a guest buyer in Detroit, MI 48226, added the guide to the cart, filled in the form and clicked Place Order.

We switched the three methods that ship with WooCommerce (Check payments, Cash on delivery and Direct bank transfer) on and off between runs by writing their settings straight to the database.

What does the buyer see with every payment method off?

Under Payment options the Checkout block showed: “There are no payment methods available. Please contact us for help placing your order.”

The Place Order button stayed dark and clickable. Clicking it brought up a banner, “Please fix the following error before continuing”, over the line “No payment method provided.” The checkout request behind the button came back with a 400 and no order was placed.

The classic checkout used other words, shown in the table. Its Place order button worked too, and clicking it added “Invalid payment method.”

If a buyer reports either line, do not look for their order. The classic checkout created none, and the Checkout block left only a draft, which we come to below.

Why does it say no payment methods when one is turned on?

Because a method can be on and still refuse the cart. We switched Cash on delivery on and unticked its “Accept for virtual orders” box, with only the PDF guide in the cart.

Both checkouts showed the same messages as with everything off, word for word, on the page and after Place Order.

The reason is one line in WooCommerce 11.2.1, class-wc-gateway-cod.php line 174: when “Accept for virtual orders” is off and the cart is virtual, the gateway reports itself as unavailable. The box is ticked by default (line 72), so on a store showing this message someone unticked it, most likely back when the store sold only physical goods.

Cash on delivery is the only method we tested this way. Other methods, card gateways included, can carry their own limits, so open each one that is on and read what it excludes.

What fixed it in our lab?

Switching “Accept for virtual orders” on. We wrote it straight to the database like the other settings; on a real store the box sits under WooCommerce, Settings, Payments, Cash on delivery, per the WooCommerce docs. The same guest, the same cart and the same Checkout block then showed the method, and Place Order went through. WooCommerce opened the Order received page for order #18: $24.00, status processing, payment Cash on delivery.

On a real store the fix is to offer at least one method that accepts every kind of cart you sell. If you sell downloads, place one test order with only a download in the cart, and another with only a physical product.

When we take on a checkout like this, we place a test order with each payment method, read which one drops out and why, and fix the setting on a copy of the store before the live one.

What does a failed Checkout block attempt leave behind?

A draft order. This surprised us. Each time Place Order failed on the Checkout block, WooCommerce kept an order with the status “checkout-draft”. Across our runs that came to four: orders #13, #14, #16 and #17, each for $24.00. The classic checkout left none.

The Checkout block keeps a draft while the buyer is on the page. WooCommerce’s own code schedules a daily clean up that deletes drafts last changed more than a day ago.

So two things follow. A gap in your order numbers after a bad day at checkout may be these drafts, not lost data. And a draft is not a sale, so do not read a pile of them as orders that went through. We did not check whether the admin Orders list shows them.

What did this lab leave out?

• Card gateways. We did not test PayPal or other card gateways here. Stripe has its own lab, with its key, webhook and currency failures, in WooCommerce Stripe payment not working.
• Caching. Our lab had no caching plugin or host cache, so we did not see what a cached checkout page does to the form.
• JavaScript conflicts from a theme or another plugin.
• The “Enable for shipping methods” setting on Cash on delivery, which can also hide it.
• A real host. Everything ran on a local test store.

What should you check first?

Open the checkout in a private window, logged out, with one product of each kind you sell. Read the line under Payment options. If it says there are no payment methods, go to WooCommerce, Settings, Payments, open each method that is on, and read every box that limits which carts it takes.

If the order goes through but the buyer never gets a receipt, that is a different fault, traced in WooCommerce not sending order emails.

Buyers getting stuck at your checkout? Our free WordPress site check takes your site address and a line on what you see. Within 2 business days you get a written report naming the cause and what fixing it involves. Or send us the message your checkout shows, and we will tell you which payment method is dropping out.